Putting People First: Redefining DEI In A Shifting Corporate Landscape
Putting People First: Redefining DEI In A Shifting Corporate Landscape
Written by: Paula Antalffy 4-5 minute read.
Introduction
With Trump’s return to office in January of 2025, many in the workforce are grappling with uncertainty about what this means for inclusivity in corporate America. Over the past few years, companies have made significant strides toward diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), with major investments aimed at fostering workplace equity. Yet, even before Trump officially begins his new term, several large corporations, including McDonald’s and Meta, have announced plans to scale back their DEI initiatives.
Adding to these concerns, Meta recently revealed it would transition from manual content moderation to a community-based approach - a strategy reminiscent of Elon Musk’s controversial changes at X (formerly Twitter).
This apparent retreat from prioritising diversity and regulation raises important questions:
Is this a strategic pivot to align with Trump’s America - a nation where deregulation, hyper-individualism, and minimal social safety nets dominate the agenda?
These rollbacks in DEI efforts signal a troubling potential future, one where the leadership and priorities of corporate America remain largely unchanged: white, male, and resistant to progress.
Understanding the Nuance of DEI Rollbacks
Announcements about reducing DEI spending naturally set off alarm bells, especially for marginalized groups. A future with less equality is a concerning prospect. However, it’s important to recognise that these rollbacks are not solely about conservative-leaning leaders abandoning diverse hiring strategies. The issue is far more complex.
According to the white paper Rescuing Diversity from the DEI Backlash by Moral Money and the Financial Times, the division over diversity in the workplace is not strictly political. In fact, there is only a small percentage difference - less than 10% - between leaders across political lines who rate diversity as "very important." This highlights that a significant majority of leadership, regardless of ideology, still values diversity in the workplace.
It’s no surprise that diversity remains a priority for management. According to Emerson, 60% of the workforce now consists of millennial workers or younger - generations for whom diversity is a core value. What’s more, these employees are noticing and appreciating their workplaces’ efforts to create inclusive environments.
Looking More Deeply at the DEI Pushback
While some corporations rolling back their DEI initiatives may be attempting to align with Trump’s administration, this issue is far more nuanced. Resistance to traditional DEI efforts has been brewing for years, as management increasingly recognises that true inclusion requires more than just checking diversity KPIs.
A recent report from MindGym, highlights the “false promises” of traditional DEI initiatives. Programs like unconscious bias training (UBT), employee resource groups (ERGs), hiring quotas, and whistleblower hotlines often have unintended negative consequences.
Here is a quick rundown of what this means:
Unconscious Bias Training (UBT)
UBT aims to help individuals recognise and reduce inherent biases. However, studies, including one from Wharton, show it often fails to create lasting behavioral change. Worse, it can backfire, with some participants becoming more biased after training.
Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)
ERGs are designed to foster community among employees with shared experiences. While valuable, they can unintentionally create exclusion by overlooking intersectionality, and focusing narrowly on single aspects of diversity, e.g.: Women in Tech groups.
Quotas
Quotas aim to increase representation by setting diversity targets. While effective in the short term, they can lead to skepticism about beneficiaries’ abilities and disengagement among non-minority employees.
Whistleblower Hotlines
Intended to promote accountability, whistleblower hotlines can create a culture of fear and stress for reporters. They are also susceptible to misuse, undermining their effectiveness in fostering a positive environment.
Rethinking Diversity, Outside of DEI
While it’s important to recognise the shortcomings of traditional DEI initiatives, we must avoid “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”
Diversity remains a cornerstone of workplace success and talent acquisition. Studies show that organizations with active DEI programs experience a 22% lower turnover rate and are 1.8x more likely to adapt to change, an increasingly critical factor for long-term business resilience.
So, what does the future of a truly diverse workplace look like?
Moving Beyond KPIs
The future of workplace diversity requires a shift away from rigid, one-size-fits-all approaches. Wider strategies which embrace inclusion as a dynamic and ongoing process.
Embedding Inclusion in Organisational Culture
True diversity starts with fostering a workplace culture where inclusion is embraced by everyone, from leadership to frontline employees. Research shows that managers view diversity efforts as being more successful than their teams. Ensuring all employees believe in and support these initiatives is crucial for embedding inclusion into day-to-day operations, leadership behaviors, and team collaboration.
Engaging employees in defining what a truly diverse and accepting workplace looks like is a critical first step. Inclusive policies are more effective when shaped by the voices of those they’re designed to support.
Promoting Intersectionality
Diversity strategies must acknowledge the complexity of human experiences. People often navigate overlapping identities, such as race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic status, that shape their workplace experiences. Recognising and addressing these intersections is key to creating initiatives that genuinely empower everyone.
Intersectionality also demands diverse leadership. Homogeneous management teams lack the lived experiences necessary to understand challenges faced by certain groups, such as a working mother needing flexible hours or a caregiver balancing professional and personal responsibilities.
Building empathetic, diverse leadership ensures policies better reflect the needs of all employees - what's more management's attitude towards diversity policies is very closely linked in overall employee morale around these topics.
Tracking Engagement Over Quotas
Rather than focusing solely on representation targets, businesses should prioritise metrics that capture the quality of inclusion, such as employee engagement, satisfaction, and belonging. These indicators offer a more accurate picture of how inclusivity is impacting the workplace and help guide meaningful change.
Creating avenues for honest feedback and fostering a culture where suggestions for improvement are welcomed will further ensure diversity efforts are effective and sustainable. Employees who feel heard are more likely to support and champion inclusivity initiatives.
Leadership Accountability
Diversity should never be treated as just an HR initiative or a temporary focus for one quarter. It must be an ongoing priority for leadership. Research shows that first-line management plays a pivotal role in shaping how inclusive a workplace feels. No matter how strong a company’s diversity policies are, a manager who resists efforts to increase diversity within their team can undermine the entire organisation’s progress.
Leaders need to take accountability for actively championing more inclusive practices, and be held accountable for frosting environments where all employees feel valued and empowered.
Leveraging Technology for Inclusion
Companies can use technology to take a more holistic approach to workplace wellbeing, ensuring that inclusion, company culture, and employee wellbeing remain at the forefront of daily operations. Tools like myday can help businesses support their teams efficiently and effectively.
By using technology to foster a workplace culture where diversity is celebrated and employees' needs are met, businesses can ensure that team members feel supported, no matter their location, background or life circumstances. This approach makes it easier than ever to build and maintain a truly diverse and inclusive workplace.
Why Diversity Still Matters
The benefits of diversity extend far beyond the optics. Businesses who strive for and achieve diversity, are shown to be more productive, innovative and profitable
What's more, as a younger generation of workers joins the workforce, having clear guidelines and practices around diverse hiring can help attract top talent,as well as ensure that companies are able to achieve long term and ongoing success. While the political zeitgeist of 2025, is seen to be shifting more towards a right-wing, individualist and conservative view of the world, the evidence remains clear: inclusive teams are happier, more productive, and deliver stronger financial results. (As consistently found by McKinsey’s ongoing research into diversity.) https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-matters-even-more-the-case-for-holistic-impact)
We believe that the future of DEI is about understanding that diversity is a bigger issue than plugging outdated frameworks and practices into a workplace. This needs to be a fundamental shift in culture, which allows for the flexibility and human-to-human understanding needed for catering to the truly diverse workforce. Without this DEI will continue to be a box ticking exercise. Instead a more holistic approach is needed, where workplaces don’t just strive to look diverse but aim to feel inclusive!
3 Reasons Why the Shift Away from DEI Initiatives Isn’t Purely Political
As companies like Meta and McDonald’s roll back their DEI initiatives, it’s tempting to view these decisions solely as political moves, especially in the context of a changing U.S. administration. However, I believe that the reality behind these decisions is far more complex than politics alone.
While researching this topic, I came across a white paper: Rescuing Diversity from the DEI Backlash by Moral Money and the Financial Times. The statistics shared within that paper highlighted the interesting reality that the division over workplace diversity isn’t strictly partisan.
Data shows that there is less than a 10% difference between leaders who rate diversity as “very important”. This underscores that diversity remains a priority for the vast majority of leadership, regardless of ideology.
So, if not purely political, why are DEI efforts being scaled back?
Here are my thoughts:
1. DEI Has Been Challenging for Years
Resistance to traditional DEI efforts has been brewing long before recent political shifts. Over the last few years leaders have felt increasing amounts of frustration around traditional DEI initiatives which are shown sometimes hinder more than they help.
A report from MindGym highlights the "false promises" of traditional DEI programs:
Unconscious Bias Training (UBT): Often fails to create lasting change and can even backfire, creating more biases among people.
Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): While fostering community, they sometimes overlook intersectionality.
Quotas: Effective in the short term but can lead to skepticism about abilities and disengagement.
Whistleblower Hotlines: Intended to foster accountability but can inadvertently create a culture of fear.
While traditional DEI approaches are a step in the right direction, their limited impact highlights the need to rethink and redesign how diversity is truly fostered in the workplace.
2. The Workforce Demands True Inclusion
Today’s workforce is younger and more values-driven than ever. Millennials and Gen Z now make up 60% of the global workforce, and for these generations, diversity isn’t just a nice-to-have, it's a core value.
According to Deloitte’s 2024 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, these workers are increasingly willing to walk away from opportunities that conflict with their personal ethics and beliefs. In 2024, the percentage of Gen Z workers refusing work assignments for ethical reasons rose from 44% to 50%. For Millennials, it grew from 37% to 43%.
Similar trends apply to potential employers, with 44% of Gen Z and 40% of Millennials willing to turn-down job offers which don’t align with their values - a 5-6% increase from previous years.
Business leaders are taking note, with 45% citing talent acquisition as the primary driver for their DEI initiatives. What's more, a further 20% acknowledge its direct correlation to business performance.
As younger, more ethically aware generations increasingly dominate the workforce, the pressure on businesses to prioritise diversity and social impact will only continue growing - regardless of the wider political landscape.
Companies that fail to embrace authentic inclusion risk losing top talent to competitors. This makes the future of inclusivity not just a moral imperative but a strategic advantage.
3. Leaders Are Seeking Impact, Not Optics
Shallow DEI efforts no longer cut it and leaders are increasingly understanding this.
Today, management is faced with a bigger challenge: how to embed inclusion deeply into the workplace culture in order to drive real change?
The first step to this is moving beyond quotes and traditional metrics - something which comes with the roll back of the DEI we have seen over the past half a decade. Instead leaders need to focus on engagement, belonging, and satisfaction.
These are the indicators of true inclusivity, and they’re also what drive innovation and performance.
The Path Forward
The rollback of DEI initiatives might appear to be politically motivated, but I truly hope that the real story is one of evolution. Businesses must adapt their approaches to inclusion, moving away from outdated frameworks and embracing strategies that reflect the complexity of human experiences.
Diversity isn’t just a political or moral imperative; it’s a business strategy that will reap measurable results. The companies that get this right will not only attract top talent but also outperform their peers in an increasingly competitive market.
Want to learn more about myday and how we can help elevate your wellness strategy to the next level? Book a call with our team today!
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