The backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion has made new waves this week, as Walmart has announced major rollbacks of its U.S. efforts. Despite emphasising its ongoing commitment to diversity, the retail giant has also made clear it will no longer be prioritising suppliers based on gender or ethnicity. The major American employer has also pulled funding for a racial equity centre established in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
Structural Signals
The question is, how are you meeting the news? Is it panic stations, at the significant cultural shift it suggests in the wake of Donald Trump’s second presidential nomination? Perhaps its relief, at the pushback against wokeism gone wild? Yet, what if we viewed it as an opportunity to assess the progress so far, and explore what’s working, what’s not working, and where we might go from here in realising a world that works for everyone?
In practical terms, we have little choice. Across the United States and the U.K., the energy and investment in DEI initiatives has waned in recent years. Similarly, online retailers like ASOS have started rolling back commitments to focused diversity targets and mandatory programs in 2022. Joined by financial institutions JP Morgan, big tech in the shape of Meta plus media heavyweights Disney, the tide against workplace equality started long before Trump returned to power.
Why is relatively easy to answer. Amidst political shifts towards the right across the western world, perceptions of radical policies and divisive programmes have resulted in pressure to scale back, rolling back investment in specific groups towards support for general inclusion. Complicated by economic pressures – from rising interest rates and inflation to the cost of living crises in the U.K. and the threat of recession in the U.S. – tactical budgets for standalone initiatives have shifted towards investment in broader skills and talent.
Diversity Culture
Compounded by widespread cultural frustration at the policing of language, plus fear of being perceived racist, sexist or homophobic for social missteps has contributed to avoidance of conversations, both at home and in the workplace. Cancel-culture induced shame around conforming to identity-centred beliefs has exacerbated the issue, making the generational shift in values hard to navigate, both personally and professionally. As a result, consensus and clarity around what good likes has been hard to find.
Unsurprisingly, the initial splash of DEI initiatives has been limited in both progress and sustainability. Often motivated by fear of media scrutiny and consumer call outs, the focus has been on structural endeavours. Affirmative action and diversity quotas, or programmes focused on individual identities and siloed diversity forums. In mirroring the meritocratic principles previously afforded to more privileged groups, for a short while, identity has seemed to replace higher education and networked employment as key levers in which to get ahead.
Replacing the structural inequities faced by marginalised and disadvantaged groups, albeit with a divide and conquer approach to prioritising new groups of people, effectively highlighted the unfairness of such subjective markers of success. Yet, with workplace accomplishments shaped by a predominantly white, male and heterosexual leadership class, no one programme or policy was going to undo centuries of systemic sexism, racism or homophobia in the workplace.
Personal Requirements of DEI
The unrealistic levels of expectation in the pace of change, alongside weaponising the same divisive tools and narratives that created our current inequalities, have equally contributed to the stall in progress. So, if a culture of shame and structurally enforced priorities are part of the problem, what’s the next step? While the shift towards general inclusion might seem like diversity washing, the next stage of inclusion efforts needs to prevent active resentment from majority and minority employees alike.
Moving beyond the them and us mentality upheld by the first wave of the DEI movement, the next iteration requires us to embrace difference in all its forms. Alternative experiences in education as opposed to tickbox indicators of intellect. Embracing both lived and learned experience, over well played careers and immaculately typed CVs. Recognising that in the intersectional identities we all experience, promoting any form of homogeneity only gets us more of the same.
That’s because, the root cause of the lack of DEI in the workplace is a culture of conformity and compliance. Prescribed processes and predetermined outcomes, rinsed and repeated, with no space for anyone to think, feel or behave differently. When we create space for new understanding and alternative approaches, unique solutions solutions appear too.
For organisations to succeed in achieving equity, diversity and inclusion, it takes letting go of knowing best and being in control to open up a new understanding of what good looks like for everyone. Based in a culture of collective possibility and open space for creativity, it’s when people embrace individual evolution towards shared success that we’ll move forward.
The question is, how willing and able are you to revise your ways of working?