DEIB In the Crosshairs - Chronic Cutbacks or Continued Commitment Done Differently?

DEIB is bruised. It’s far from down and out, but compared to its 2020/21 corporate prioritisation, its fights on multiple political, economic, sociological and technological fronts appear to have it bobbing and weaving on the ropes.

What are the cutback signals?

A current macro trend sees many companies re-evaluating the effectiveness of their current initiatives. Programs of the last few years are being scrutinised as news of cutbacks are published with increasing regularity.

These aren’t isolated incidents. In 2021, 500 of every million jobs posted on Indeed were DEI-related. By 2023, this had reduced to 323, and as of January 2024, it had dropped further to a mere 272.

The US is currently a hotbed of DEIB battles, and things only look to intensify as their November elections draw closer. Whether or not the DEIB waters become less choppy afterwards will depend heavily on whether Republicans or Democrats are in power come December. Current signs aren’t great. DEI ‘wokeism’ narratives amongst some of those sat on the right of the political spectrum are already having detrimental effects. Increasingly, programs that focus on ethnic minorities are seeing their ground become shakier. Following recent law changes, Grasshopper, the largest women’s tech conference, has changed its location to Philadelphia following Floridian legislation downplaying Black History and introducing laws that impact the LGBTQIA+ community.

Cutbacks or corporate recalibration?

Despite the clickbait headlines of some mainstream media outlets, many companies claim they’re still prioritising DEIB initiatives – just in more strategic ways. Is this true, or the sidestepping of potential PR backlashes?

On the face of it, economic and environmental challenges are tightening their grip on profit margins. With rising interest rates, inflation, energy prices, and wages, something’s got to give, and in most publicly listed companies – where vision tends to be more short-sighted than privately owned ones - this means the recent trend of headcount reductions. Not of sales and customer service. They’re often at the coalface of the P&L’s top line. However, HR, Marketing, DEIB...???

With an average shelf-life of 3-5 years, Plc CEOs are often highly transient. As short-sighted as it might be to shrink these teams - often due to profitability pressures imposed by shareholders - there could be a couple of things at play:

1. A case of “kicking the can down the road” for C-suite and investor successors.
2. DEIB is still a priority, but companies need to balance effectiveness with greater efficiency due to profit warnings.

In the latter’s case, we’re seeing a reorganisation of naming conventions and structures rather than a move away from doing the work.

Positions once held by DEI leaders in focused teams are now being split across multiple departments. Over the next few years, it’s likely we’ll start seeing more roles titled ‘Chief HR & Inclusion Officer’ or ‘Chief Communication & Equity Officer.’ Additionally, activities are changing from ones once deemed tokenistic to more sophisticated and sustainable approaches. For example, the trend for investing in things such as one-off unconscious bias training is shifting towards more robust policy changes that will bring longer-term impact to DEIB efforts.?

From Siloed to Intersected. From Mono-Cultures to Fragmented

Whoever leads it, wherever it sits, and whatever guise it’s presented in, the future of DEIB is growing increasingly complex.

Historically, the mainstream’s DEIB’s light beam has tended to shine on ‘flavours of the month’ – sweeping back and forth between subcategories it deems as ‘in vogue’ – usually following societal triggers. In the late 90s / noughties in the UK, “Positive About Disabled People” was centre-stage. In 2020, the world turned its attention to Black Lives Matter following the tragic events of George Floyd. Recently, ever-present gender diversity has returned to the spotlight, with ‘Women in Leadership’ and providing menopausal support high on agendas.

For DEIB to work, there needs to be a shift from looking at each category in silos. Increasingly, it needs to be viewed through the lens of intersectionality. Systems for discrimination happen across overlapping categories, so understanding how various forms of inequality work together is important. This is easier said than done and a huge challenge for organisations to wrestle with.

To help bring this to life, imagine a “posh” architectural firm that wants to improve gender diversity. It can quite easily (relatively speaking) hire a ‘posh woman’ - Gender Diversity 1 – 0 Social Mobility. However, suppose they wanted to increase their ethnic diversity. In this case, there might be more challenging, interconnected issues to overcome, as some ethnic groups are increasingly held back by social classes that don’t have as much access to a degree education. Saying, ‘We want to hire more black women,’ may also mean needing to change hiring practices to consider people from other educational backgrounds vs. university. And then it’s not just a case of the firm considering people from non-degree backgrounds. Then, there might be the additional complexity of cultural change to ensure hiring managers’ attitudes and behaviours shift to align with the company’s new stance on backgrounds to consider in future applicants.

From a global perspective, an intersectional approach is important as different regions have unique social and cultural dynamics. Understanding these differences and their connection will be important to safeguarding the long-term successful application of DEIB in an expanding globalised economy. Mono-company cultures must consider becoming fragmented to cater for differing DEIB needs in regions where head offices are increasingly being based. You may have a global attitude towards DEIB – a global culture towards it even – but attempting a consistent global delivery…???

Do you have a parent company head office in France? Then the government do not allow the collection of ethnicity data. Are you based out of Saudi? Then homosexuality is illegal. Brazil or Croatia? Then you’re legally obligated to hire a % of people with disabilities (PWD).? By 2030, 47% of the UK workforce will be over 50. Many parts of the world will soon have five generations in the workplace – from Alphas to Boomers. A global company with a DEIB-themed employee value proposition pillar needs to think carefully about how it’s articulated – ensuring flexibility vs. a fixed approach to localised articulation and application.

How do we tame the tainted technology?

Technological evolution poses more challenges for DEIB consideration.

Gen AI and the large language models (LLMs) they’re built on are only as good as the data that feeds them, and experts know this historical data is already missing and / or misrepresenting segments of the world’s population. With continued reports of AI image outputs compounding harmful stereotypes around gender, race, and ethnicity, there’s evidently a lot more work to be done here. ?

Not only does the data need richer, more diverse pools of data to learn from, but it also needs diverse people in the teams building the models to ensure minority and marginalised backgrounds are appropriately represented.

If AI models aren’t created with diverse thinking and voices, the resulting products will be less accurate and potentially more harmful to users and society at large.

What do we see in the future of DEIB?

As much as signs indicate that DEIB’s future is bumpy, there are signs of hope that stretch beyond mere glimmers.

The data is becoming increasingly undeniable - a diverse, inclusive, and equitable culture, where people from all walks of life feel they belong, can positively impact the economy, society and, importantly for senior business leaders with hands on the tiller – the P&L.

Even if simply from a basic supply-and-demand basis, businesses will always need people, and they need those people to have skills - skills that are increasingly in short supply as politics, economies, societies, and technologies change at intensifying speeds.

Historically, the pendulum of employment power has swung between employer- to employee-led and back again. Recent recessions placed us in the former market, but organisations who continue pursuing a more embedded, intersectional, efficient and effective focus on DEIB - albeit with different nomenclature and structures - will find they have bigger pools of varied talent for their longer-term success. Success that’s fuelled by fresh ideas and innovation, which comes from having a rich range of experiences and thinking in the workforce.

However, their DEIB naysaying counterparts of today may find themselves struggling to survive with even shallower pools of talent to fish from tomorrow.