LinkedIn And Dove Are In It Together To Help End Hair Discrimination

LinkedIn is partnering with Dove to create more inclusive and equitable spaces for Black hair in the workplace. While there’s progress, race-based hair discrimination remains a systemic problem in the workplace – from hiring practices to daily workplace interactions – impacting Black women’s employment opportunities and professional advancement. Together, Dove and LinkedIn are reinforcing and celebrating that Black hair IS professional.

According to the 2023 CROWN Research Study, co-commissioned with Dove, Black women’s hair is 2.5x more likely to be perceived as unprofessional, and bias against natural hair and protective styles can impact how Black women navigate the hiring process. Approximately 66% of Black women change their hair for a job interview, and 41% usually straighten their hair from its natural state. Due to toxic workplace culture, 54% of Black women feel they have to wear their hair differently during a job interview to succeed.

These feelings don’t stop at the interview. 

As Black women continue their professional journeys, hair discrimination can, unfortunately, follow them in their workplaces. Black women with curly, coily, or textured hair are more likely to experience microaggressions in the workplace compared to Black women with straighter hair. It’s reported that 20% of Black women aged 25-34 have been sent home from work because of their hair. 

These insights make the push to help end race-based hair discrimination in the workplace nationwide imperative.  Together, Dove and LinkedIn will:

1. Provide all LinkedIn users free access to a suite of 10 LinkedIn Learning Courses that support a more equitable work environment, with a goal to educate 1 million hiring managers and workplace professionals by the end of 2023.  

These free courses include: 

1. Diversity Recruiting 
2. Confronting Bias: Thriving Across Our Differences 
3. Getting Off the Fence: Inclusive Leadership in Action
4. Be an Inclusive Organization People Won't Leave
5. Uncovering Unconscious Bias in Recruiting and Interviewing 
6. Equity First: The Path to Inclusion and Belonging
7. Inclusive Leadership
8. Recruiting Diverse Talent as a Hiring Manager
9. Leading Inclusive Teams 
10. Advancing a DIBs Strategy in Your Organization

2. Share the findings from the 2023 CROWN Research Study co-commissioned by Dove and LinkedIn to drive urgency around the fact that hair discrimination continues to have a real and measurable adverse impact on Black women in the workplace. 

Key findings include: 

• Black women’s hair is 2.5x more likely to be perceived as unprofessional.
• Bias against natural hair and protective styles can impact how Black women navigate the hiring process. 
• Approximately 2/3 of Black women (66%) change their hair for a job interview. Among them, 41% changed their hair from curly to straight. 
• Black women are 54% more likely (or over 1.5x more likely) to feel like they have to wear their hair straight to a job interview to be successful.  
• Hair discrimination has led Black women to have a negative experience or outcomes within the workplace.
• Black women with coily/textured hair are 2x as likely to experience microaggressions in the workplace than Black women with straighter hair.
• Over 20% of Black women 25-34 have been sent home from work because of their hair.
• Young Black professionals are feeling the pressure from hair discrimination the most.
• Nearly half (44%) of Black women under age 34 feel pressured to have a headshot with straight hair. 
• 25% of Black women believe they have been denied a job interview because of their hair, which is even higher for women under 34 (1/3).

See the full research findings at Dove.com/LinkedIn.

3. Elevate and celebrate the real stories and voices of Black women professionals across the LinkedIn platform to help redefine what society declares “professional” for the workplace, because #BlackHairIsProfessional.  

We want to spark conversations that can help create the necessary changes for building an inclusive workplace.  

Join the conversation on LinkedIn with the hashtag #BlackHairIsProfessional and share with your network how Dove and LinkedIn are partnering to end hair discrimination in the workplace.