Black and White

Low Black numbers make diversifying workforce challenging, but also reflect systemic problems. Latinos, meanwhile, have the numbers but lack connections. Both groups say a welcoming environment is critical.

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On the surface, companies seeking to diversify their workforce in the Boulder Valley or Northern Colorado face a difficult challenge when it comes to African-Americans: demographics.

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The region’s African-American population ranges from a mere 1.2% in Boulder and Larimer counties to just 1.5% in Broomfield and 1.6% in Weld County, according to July 1, 2019, estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

That’s a far cry from the U.S. African-American population of 13.4%, the Denver rate of 9.8% or even the Colorado rate of 4.6%.

Latinos are better represented: 14% in Boulder County, 12.7% in Broomfield, 11.9% in Larimer, 30% in Weld, 21.8% in Colorado and 18.5% nationwide, but Latinos are not always aware of the job opportunities that are out there, and many Latino business owners miss out on contract opportunities with other firms, said Peter Salas, chairman of The Latino Chamber of Boulder County.

Census counts raise several critical questions:

Why is the African-American population so low north of Denver?

What can companies do to attract African-Americans and Latinos who already live here, or to recruit from outside the region?

“It’s not by coincidence, I think,” said Annett James, president of the NAACP of Boulder County. “It is because Boulder County has not been seen as a welcoming community for Black people.

“It’s always been this kind of place where Black people are tolerated,” she added. “There’s this kind of unique nature of a Black person, but not fully integrating Black people as citizens.”

James said the African-American numbers in Boulder County have “always been low, but they’re lower than they were.”

She said large companies such as IBM Corp. had once brought in “a large number of African-American people,” but with downsizing at that company over the years, such opportunities have diminished. The same holds true for Storage Technology Corp., which was subsequently purchased by Sun Microsystems, then by Oracle Corp.

“Those people [from IBM} saw the writing on the wall, and they didn’t see another opportunity for that same caliber of employment in this area, so they all left and went back to the Southeast,” she said.

“As those companies changed, dissolved, whatever, there was no reason to be here. There was no set community. There was no set opportunity where people could have a livelihood.

“Boulder, truthfully … aside from who we think we are, has not necessarily lived up to being a welcoming community for Blacks.

“You can find more diversity in acupuncture treatment than you can find in people,” she said.

James said, at one time, Blacks couldn’t even purchase certain products that they needed but would have to go to Denver.

James said the lack of diversity is a result of many factors, including the high cost of housing.

“It is totally not by accident. If you make housing extremely expensive,” she said, adding that Blacks often feel uncomfortable in daily life, at the grocery store, pharmacy or on the street.

“You don’t feel welcome,” she said. “You don’t feel safe. So we talk about these things, but there are reasons that are very systemic. And we think that they happen only because of interpersonal relationships. But it’s interpersonal relationships being acted out from a structure. And the word gets out: Why would any Black person live in Boulder? Why would I deal with that cursed “othering” of being in this community? And there’s no reason to stay. So people leave. And it’s understandable.”

James said that she is encouraged by businesses that are working to increase their diversity. The NAACP of Boulder County has implemented a corporate membership and will work with businesses to improve their diversity, even helping to recruit Black employees to the area.

“We [the NAACP of Boulder County] have started a concerted effort to reach out to corporations,” James said, helping companies and potential employees work through many variables, such as why they would want to come to Boulder County.

“We’re trying to assist them with that, saying, ‘Not only can we help you recruit, we can help you retain, and we can help you have that employee retain a sense of community.”

She said that businesses are beginning to understand that “they have more of an obligation to a community than just looking at their P&L statements. We have to start holding businesses more accountable, too. I think that businesses are more important, maybe, to making this better than the public sector.”

James said that rather than focusing on the low population numbers as a hindrance to diversification, businesses should focus on diversifying, which will in turn increase the population of Blacks as opportunities are created and they feel more welcome.

“When people think there’s an opportunity, people relocate all the time,” she said.

She said communities such as Boulder and Fort Collins could begin by creating a more welcoming environment for Blacks attending the University of Colorado Boulder and Colorado State University. Both universities have significant Black populations, but most of those students wind up moving away after graduation. Finding reasons for them to stay would in itself create a pool of new potential employees and residents, she said.

Latino population is larger, but problems remain

Despite their higher numbers, Latinos sometimes struggle to get noticed in many of the industries that are dominant in the Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado.

The Latino Chamber’s Salas said Latinos tend to be concentrated in the service and construction sectors, with Latino professionals in other industries able to secure good jobs.

But he said he’s seen little evidence that area companies overall are working to diversify their workforce.

“I’m not aware of, and I haven’t seen much, at least publicly, what’s been happening with businesses in terms of their outreach for diversity or inclusion,” Salas said. “From a public perspective, that information doesn’t appear to be out there.”

Salas said that some larger companies, such as Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., or public entities such as universities and municipalities, have resources to focus on diversity.

But he said there’s a big difference between recruiting for a job such as an aerospace engineer versus the majority of Latinos in the area.

Whereas large companies might look to recruiters and job sites such as Indeed or LinkedIn — and professional Latinos can readily find such employment — the majority of the Latino population in Boulder County probably never sees those job postings.

Smaller and medium-sized companies might do better advertising on social media such as Facebook, where many Latinos engage, adding that large companies “don’t really recruit on the street.”

He noted that studies have shown a disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the Latino population.

“Latinos are most impacted, and probably the reason is that a lot of Latinos are employed in service industries, and in those areas where they are most in contact with the public, and they don’t have the option of working from home,” Salas said.

That demonstrates that, although large companies likely have resources to focus on diversity, and a commitment to do so, that doesn’t reach the vast majority of Latinos in the population. He noted that large companies might have a Latino affinity group, or have diversity and inclusion as part of their strategic plan.

“One would hope that Latino talent is being embraced and outreach is happening to our community, but you wouldn’t know it by reading the business news that’s out there,” he said. “I think that in order to quantify it to any degree, you have to go look at those industries that are working in our community, that have critical mass and make a determination based on their data.”

Salas said that small and medium-sized businesses have a more-difficult task in increasing diversity.

“As you begin to come down in terms of the size of these companies, then it becomes increasingly more difficult to resource,” Salas said. “It’s a commitment that a lot of them can’t make,” with many owners of smaller businesses unaware of the impact that a diverse workforce can have.

Still, increasing diversity does not just mean in terms of hiring, he said.

“Does their commitment to diversity and inclusion include not just who they hire, but how they do their contracting?” he asked, noting that companies should explore with whom they’re contracting for catering, landscaping, janitorial and other tasks.

Two sectors in which Latinos could actively engage aren’t targeting Latinos to any significant degree, Salas said, referencing the financial and real estate sectors.

Regarding real estate, “they’re not large companies like Ball, but they’re large and they have a great deal of assets, and I don’t see any movement from some of those types of companies to engage in all-out diversity and inclusion efforts, cultural and sensitivity, cultural awareness,” he said. “There’s a total educational effort that’s required, and so far, I’m not seeing it.”

He said he peruses newspaper ads featuring pictures of agents and might spot four with Latino surnames out of a hundred.

“I wonder what’s happening there,” he said. “I don’t think that those industries actively recruit. I don’t think they see the need.”

Ray Caraway, outgoing CEO of the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado, told BizWest during a recent podcast interview that the region must work hard to create greater diversity.

“I think for all organizations, reflecting your community is fundamental,” Caraway said. “It’s something that you have to be particularly intentional about in Northern Colorado because, in other parts of the country, there’s a much greater degree of diversity that in many ways makes it easier to reach out to your community and to find the kind of diversity that you need to fully reflect your community.”

Northern Colorado remains a fairly homogeneous community, making it more important “to be intentional about that,” Caraway said.