The hidden cost of being the one person who proves your organisation is inclusive

In PR and communications, we talk constantly about the power of representation. We build campaigns around it. We win pitches because of it. We enter awards with it. More often than not, ‘it’ is a person, or a small number of people, from a marginalised group, whose visible presence signals to clients and audiences alike that this agency, this in-house team, this brand, is credible on inclusion.

What we do not talk about is the weight those people individually carry so that the organisation does not have to.

That weight has a name. Dr Amado Padilla coined the term “cultural taxation” in 1994, and PR has been practising it industriously ever since. 

Research from Queen’s University defines it as the invisible, uncompensated labour demanded of underrepresented employees: reviewing briefs for cultural landmines, sitting on panels, being the reassuring face in a case study, explaining patiently, and repeatedly, why a piece of copy might land badly.

Over 51 per cent of people from marginalised groups report experiencing this taxation and the exhaustion that comes with it.

The trouble is that this labour does not land on a generic category of person. It lands on people already running on almost no spare bandwidth:

• It lands on someone in perimenopause, navigating brain fog and mood swings that are mocked rather than accommodated.
   
• It lands on someone neurodivergent, burning through their nervous system on masking and over-preparing just to be read as ‘professional’ before the additional emotional load even starts.
   
• It lands on people with chronic illness or disability, for whom a ‘normal’ day already costs more than most colleagues will ever see.
   
• It lands on people managing long-term anxiety, depression or C-PTSD inside conflict-avoidant cultures that appear calm on the surface while leaning on them to do the hard work.
   
• It lands on people who are racialised, LGBTQ+ or otherwise marginalised, fielding microaggressions from the same colleagues they are expected to educate.
   
• And it lands on those carrying grief, of childlessness, of loss, of lives that don’t map onto the rituals of office culture, who are nonetheless expected to hold the inclusion line while client socials and baby announcements play out around them.

This is not a minor inconvenience. It is unpaid, high-risk labour, extracted from the people with the least energy, least power and least protection to spare. 

McKinsey and LeanIn found Black women, LGBTQ+ women and women with disabilities twice as likely to carry substantial DEI work outside their formal roles. The PRCA Census 2024 puts the sector’s ethnicity pay gap at £14,638, with just nine to eleven per cent of practitioners ethnically diverse. This is the industry that then deploys these same individuals as proof of its inclusion.

At the organisational level, this is diversity washing, and it is commercially rational, which is precisely what makes it so corrosive. 

Research from Stanford and the University of Chicago found that firms discussing DEI excessively relative to their actual representation attract higher ESG scores even while incurring more discrimination violations. 

The performance of inclusion is more commercially rewarding than the practice of it. An analysis of over 80 tokenism studies found that solo minorities face heightened scrutiny and burnout. An LSU doctoral study names the outcome plainly: Successful but Exhausted. The people held up as proof of inclusion are often the most exposed and the least supported in the room.

And still, only 25 per cent of companies formally reward DEI labour in performance reviews, yet those that do are disproportionately the organisations outperforming their peers on inclusion overall. 

Awareness campaigns and allyship training help, but they are not structural. What is needed is structural redesign - deliberate, documented and owned at the top.

There are five places we can start:

1. Scope and compensate DEI labour explicitly. If it is expected, it belongs in the job description and the pay. Work that is unrecognised at appraisal is, functionally, unpaid work.
    
2. Separate the showcase from the risk. A named welfare owner, not the person being showcased, tracks sentiment and manages escalation. These cannot be the same individual.
    
3. Build the backlash protocol before the launch. Every DEI campaign needs a documented response plan of clear ownership, an escalation path, and senior leaders who are named and available for the difficult moments, not only the glorified announcements.
    
4. Make internal education the organisation’s responsibility. Asking a marginalised employee to explain their community to colleagues for the fifteenth time is not a conversation. It is a vulnerable, costly and often a re-traumatising space to ask someone to occupy.
    
5. Leaders must be present during backlash, not just at launches and celebrations. A CEO who shows up for the glittering reveal and goes quiet when the comments turn hostile has communicated, precisely and publicly, what the organisation’s values are actually worth.

The PR and communications industry has spent a decade arguing, rightly so, that diversity makes the work better. But there is no version of better work built on the structural exploitation of the people whose knowledge and identity make it possible. It is not inclusive storytelling if it also treats a human being as a risk-management resource. No industry earns credibility on inclusion while leaving its most marginalised practitioners to quietly absorb the cost of that claim.

The real question is likely the one you've been avoiding: what are you willing to call out, dismantle and rebuild? And when do you start?

Dannie-Lu Carr is an ILM Level 7 executive coach, senior training consultant and executive speaker coach specialising in personal impact, high-stakes communication and creativity under pressure. With 18+ years in leadership development and behavioural change, she helps senior and board-level leaders sharpen their presence, influence and message when it matters most.