DEI This And DEI That

DEI mayor. DEI Secret Service. DEI president.

We all know what’s going on here.

The acronym DEI has been weaponized. Shorthand for saying someone is incompetent or undeserving because of their race, gender, or other identity. 

Used the way “affirmative action” was sometimes used: as a euphemism for, basically, the “N-word.” 

The people weaponizing the acronym are doing it intentionally. They are showing their conscious biases against people of color and women. 

And they are catering to, and counting on, tapping into the implicit biases of the broader population. 

It’s how our brains work, given the messages we’ve received all our lives. 

This makes it easier for some people to readily accept that Kamala Harris—an accomplished attorney general, senator, and Vice President—is less qualified to be president than, say, a white male writer of a memoir or a reality TV host.

Or to blame the Black mayor of Baltimore for the collapse of the bridge that was hit by a tanker.

Or to immediately assume that the secret service failed to adequately protect candidate Trump because it is now being run by a woman.

DEI has become a handy slur. Maybe you've heard it used in your organization—"a DEI hire"—or even been described that way yourself.

Using new code words doesn’t make the ideas any less offensive—or inaccurate.

How To Convince Leaders To Support DEI

DEI isn’t going anywhere. Organizations continue investing in the transformative power of diversity and inclusive culture. One leader in this work is HR rockstar Emily Friedman. We’ve worked with her in several organizations, and we asked her how she has been such a consistent catalyst for transformative equity work. Her answers were illuminating. 

From the moment I entered the workplace, DEI was at the forefront. I think it started from my own identities and experiences.

I never really fit in. I grew up in relatively affluent towns but my parents were school teachers. We didn’t have a lot of money. My family was one of fewer than ten Jewish families in our towns.

And I was a tomboy. If kids made fun of my Star of David necklace, I would punch them! It didn’t surprise anyone that I became a lawyer. 

When I entered the legal workforce, I felt a little alone because there were so few female partners. If I wanted to belong, I would need allies and mentors. And they were going to have to be men. 

So I learned how to build relationships with people who didn’t see the world from the same perspective I did. And I learned how laws, policies, and programs supported those efforts. 

I didn’t last long in law firms. I wanted to be in-house, ensuring organizations were doing right by their people.

I have always approached DEI work from the perspective of engagement and fairness. If people don't feel a sense of belonging in an organization, no bonus or benefits program is going to get them to stay.

Over the course of my career, I’ve seen some leaders who believe in the “D” of DEI, but their mental model takes inclusion for granted. They found belonging on their own (they think); why should the business spend money on workshops, heritage months, ERGs? 

When I've encountered pushback, I focus on building a relationship with the leader. Along the way to the top, someone took an interest in them. Once we connect over those experiences, we focus on making sure every employee can find the support that the leader had themselves. 

Organizations are becoming more diverse. Employees are coming from wider ranges of backgrounds and lived experiences into organizations where they may not feel they fit in. Without intentional inclusion efforts, they're likely to leave the organization in search of another where they feel a sense of belonging. This is a loss, and a cost, for the organization.

For me, the work of DEI is very personal. The key to securing leaders’ support is to make it personal for them too. 

Once they have that connection, whatever they’re hearing or reading about DEI starts to sound like background noise.

SHRM Turns Back The Clock

The backlash has scored a victory.

Earlier this week, the President & CEO of SHRM (the Society for Human Resource Management), announced that it was dropping the word “equity” from the work it had been calling “Inclusion, Equity & Diversity” or “IE&D.” 

His brief explanation conceded that “societal backlash” motivated the change. But it went further: it claims, bizarrely, that “DE&I programs, in their current form, simply aren’t working.” (Decades of research show otherwise.)

Then, in a third head-scratcher, it argues that “rather than ignore the problem, we want to confront it head-on”...by taking the word “equity” out of the name. (Not saying something is also called…ignoring it.)

This surrender by an organization with outsized influence in the professional world has caused alarm in the field. I heard about it through a text that said, “This statement has the HR/People Ops industry shaking.”

When I started doing this work almost 20 years ago, it was called “D&I”. SHRM is literally going backward. 

It seems like the “E” for equity was widely adopted only in the last decade. The reasoning has been clear. Most organizations began by pursuing diversity on its own, getting people in and increasing representation of various identities. But the change was shallow. People of color and other marginalized groups weren’t accessing the same opportunities, and they didn’t stay long.

Recognizing that shortcoming, the work was broadened to add “Inclusion”—the thought being that if employees are engaged, feel valued, and have equal access to opportunities, they will be more likely to stay at an organization and contribute their best work.

But that wasn’t enough to effect real change. Not when the structures that cause disparities have existed in society for centuries. We are shaped by the resources we can access throughout our lives. People whose families have been deprived of health care, education, housing, and wealth show up differently than those who have benefited more fairly.

The playing field isn’t level. Inclusion alone doesn’t address this reality. Equity does.

I like the way Dr. Robert Livingston sums it up: “Equity is about treating people differently in ways that make sense.” Accounting for the unique needs of individuals and groups isn’t doing someone a favor. It is a benefit to the organization.

Treating employees equitably provides everyone with the support they need to contribute their skills and perspectives, and removes barriers they face that others don’t. 

The “societal backlash” we’re experiencing now is, in reality, driven by a sustained misinformation campaign to build power for one political movement. All human resources professionals should respond to this critique “head-on,” with evidence, logic, and stories that show how much better off we all are when we center equity.

Not by crossing out the word and turning back the clock.