Employers aren’t abandoning their diversity, equity and inclusion practices — rather, DEI itself is merely diverging, said Ammara Naeem, client experience director at Top Employers Institute, during a recent webinar by the organization.
“There might be some shift in the external public sentiment, but when we looked at [human resources] professionals themselves, they seemed to be optimistic about the whole thing. [Our survey] found 83 per cent are actually saying their organizations are still highly committed to DEI and 84 per cent indicated they were really optimistic about the future of DEI.”
A recent survey by the Institute for Corporate Productivity found 48 per cent of HR professionals said their organizations are currently rethinking their DEI strategy. Also, 71 per cent of employees said they haven’t witnessed any preferential treatment in their organizations based on identity, so everything happening in their organization regarding promotion and developmental opportunities is about merit, not identity, noted Lorrie Lykins, vice president of research and managing editor, during the webinar.
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“[This survey] was driven by a request from our membership. They really wanted to know what everybody else was doing, because if you just go by the news and social media . . . it seems everyone has moved away from this work. And we really wanted to prove or disprove if that was the case. We were gratified to see the majority of organizations are making decisions based on data, not emotions or headlines.”
Naeem agreed, noting with recent changes, the decision-making process has become more measured, more data-driven and more risk-aware. One of the common themes in the survey results was around perception gaps.
“If you look at the different groups — employees, HR professionals, leaders and the public — they seem to be looking at DEI through different lenses. Ninety-one per cent of HR professionals believe employees support DEI endeavours, but when you compare that to public polling, there’s this widening skepticism in several markets.”
Top Employers Institute also noticed some geographical differences in their results. In Europe, there appeared to be more momentum for DEI because some countries have mandatory reporting on DEI metrics. Among African employers, roughly 87 per cent said they’re focusing in on social mobility. In the Middle East, employers had a 95-per-cent adoption rate when it came to initiatives to empower women, while in Latin America, employers have started to focus on neurodiversity.
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In terms of communication, Lykins noted the study found not many organizations are communicating purposefully and clearly about what their DEI strategy is, and this communication void is leading to decreased trust in senior leadership. “Whatever your DEI strategy is, whatever your organization’s point of view is, you need to be very clear about it because if you don’t communicate properly, [misinformation may] fill that gap.”
The recent attitude shift is providing employers with the opportunity to step back and assess how they could approach things differently, and where they should adjust going forward, she added, noting it’s forced a lot of people to be more strategic in the way they’re thinking and talking about DEI.
Notably, 77 per cent of global employers said they’re not going to be externally advertising DEI, according to Top Employers Institute’s survey. At the same time, 89 per cent reported inclusion is more embedded in their organization than it was a year ago. “So I guess we can say that change is here, and more is coming, but it [can] ultimately be healthy for the field itself because we’re seeing organizations refocusing on values,” said Naeem. “They’re not abandoning what they were working on, it’s more about embedding inclusion into their everyday talent processes.”