Here Are The Best Companies for Career Advancement For Black Workers

The employer review site Glassdoor has highlighted the 10 companies making the most effort toward improving the work experience of Black workers.

For the list, Glassdoor examined data from self-identifying Black, full-time, and part-time employees from Jan. 1, 2021, to Dec. 31, 2021.

According to the study, the most important workplace factors for Black workers are diversity and inclusion followed by culture and values. The least important workplace values are work-life balance and senior leadership.

Holding the top spot for career opportunities for Black workers is Delta Air Lines. Reviews of Delta’s diversity and inclusion are overwhelmingly positive, with a diversity rating of 4.4. Reviews of Delta on Glassdoor ‘s site cited the company’s “good people, great culture with diversity and inclusion.”

However, like many other companies, there are complaints of a lack of diversity when it comes to senior leadership positions.

Coming in second is tech giant Microsoft which received a diversity rating higher than Delta at 4.5. Diversity reviews for Microsoft filed before the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement describe the company as having “great perks, challenging work, flexibility, great culture, teamwork, diversity, and inclusion, competitive salary career opportunities.”

According to its 2021 DEI report, 45 percent of Microsoft employees are women, 29.4 percent of U.S. employees are Latino, and 47.2 percent are Black. Microsoft has also pushed for increasing Black and minority corporate diversity in the boardroom.

In third is aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman, which earned a 4.1 diversity score. Reviews on Glassdoor describe Northrop Grumman as a company with “great diversity and a lot of women in leadership positions.”

In its DEI report, 25 percent of Grumman’s employees are women, 36 percent are people of color, and 27 percent of its management population are women and people of color. Sandra Evers–Manly, Grumman’s vice president of global corporate responsibility and a Black woman, said in a statement she is proud of the company’s record on diversity.

“We are committed to building, sustaining and leveraging the diversity each of us brings to Northrop Grumman,” Evers-Manly said. “We are also committed to ensuring we have an inclusive workplace where everyone is valued for his or her ideas, experiences, and contributions. Our efforts have been recognized both at the local and national levels. I am very proud of that.”

Rounding out the top five are Deloitte and FedEx, which scored a 4.1 and 4.0, respectively, when it comes to diversity. Earlier this month, FedEx launched a HBCU student ambassador program to provide career readiness skills and expand the diversity pipeline.

Bank of America, Capital One, Enterprise rental car service, Ernst & Young, and Chick-fil-A make up the rest of the top 10.

Despite the focus on Black workers and DEI efforts in the aftermath of the BLM movement, Black workers— specifically Black women—were among the first laid-off when the pandemic started and the last hired when the recovery began.