6mo ago

Americans are fine with corporate DEI

www.axios.com

Just a moment...

A majority of Americans across nearly all demographic groups said DEI initiatives have made no impact on their personal careers, according to a newly released Harris Poll/Axios Vibes survey.

Why it matters: Republican lawmakers and activists have vilified DEI, a term for diversity, equity and inclusion policies used by employers. Companies have responded by rolling back programs.

Yet Americans — and businesses — have a generally positive to at least indifferent view on the subject.
On balance, most demographic groups were more likely to say DEI benefited their career than hindered it.

73 comments

I am actually surprised there has been so little corporate pushback on DEI because it is good for business.
Having a diverse workforce means you can better address the needs and desires of a diversity of customers. You're a lot likelier to get Latino customers if you have people of Latino heritage around to let them know what might work and what will almost certainly not.
- Never underestimate the degree to which corporate management believes that they already do everything they need to and have no blind spots, or how much they resent any cost which is not directly revenue-generating.
  
  Being in enterprise IT I'm intimately familiar with this mindset.
  
  But that's my point. DEI generates more revenue because it broadens customer bases.
- Being on the good side of government is also good for business. Especially if there are incoming tariffs. I bet many are hoping for exceptions.
- I think the places that believe in it are telling that to their employees on the regular, just not boasting about it more broadly so they don't become a lightning rod.
  A lot of folks firmly believe fostering a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture is ultimately good for your business. Aside from the points you and others have made about being able to attract more diverse customers, it also fosters an environment where people from different backgrounds can freely present their thoughts and opinions ultimately resulting in your company running better.
  Compared to say Twitter where the opinion of only one white racist male matters, and I'm sure folks who used to feel inspired at work now feel trapped, unappreciated, and unable to truly innovate.
  
  This is true at my work (big tech). We have a DEI executive that’s high enough up the ladder that her picture is on the website with the rest of the execs. On the other hand, the founder/owner no doubt donates to the GOP.
- Even just the presence of a diverse workforce tells customers of all kinds that everyone is welcome there.
- i hated DEI at my old company because i was forced to berate someone in class while standing in front of the class. i would have gotten reprimanded/fired if i did not complete the course, and this was required for the course.
  at my current conpany, i understand why DEI is important. fuck my old company. it was the worst.
Business should be looking for the best candidates wherever they can find them. Well structured DEI policies do not contradict that. In fact, they lead to better candidates all around, because they encourage hiring managers to look at the entire diverse pool of candidates.
I feel the anti-diversity crusaders have a zero-sum view of the world, where there is only one best candidate (who coincidentally looks like they do) and if someone else gets a job over them it must mean that the scales were tipped somehow. In reality, though, there can be multiple best candidates, and where there are, it's entirely appropriate to bring in someone who can provide a different point of view.
I mean, this is basically Clarence Thomas' entire character arc. He fought through a lot of adversity as a child (both due to his poor upbringing and outright racism) and was actually quite active in the civil rights movement. He got his law degree at Yale, only to find the racist people running the law firms at the time didn't believe he was that smart, and only got his degree because of affirmative action. Yet somehow, instead of blaming the racist fucks for being so racist, he blamed Yale for admitting him in the first place. Somehow getting reverse brainwashed into promoting the agendas of people he hated.
Under today's DEI policies, law firms would be actively looking for the next Clarence Thomas, not because they need to fill a quota with a Black man, but because they know the next star legal minds could come from anywhere, so they need to make sure they don't accidentally exclude anyone.
- there could be multiple best candidates
  This may seem uninvuitive to some people, but it makes sense when you consider that two candidates might be not directly comparable. Eg. one is better at task X and worse at task Y, and the other is the opposite. DEI encourages weighting different strengths in a particular way, so accounting for it may cause you to choose a different "best" candidate than if you had weighted their strengths differently.
Now only pole the loudest Americans.
DEI is a conservative concept: have your corporate masters both decide how anti-racism can justify it's existence (good for business) and how it should be implemented (top down corpo scolding).
It's not a social issue, it's a marketing campaign. And we shouldn't feel obligated to defend something so hideous and trivial just because it aggravates the reactionary.
- In an ideal world, you would be right. Unfortunately, corporations HAVE TO advertise the benefits of DEI and HAVE TO do top down scolding, because if they don't then many people would either ignore their biases or outright follow their biases. When I moved into management in a large corporation that works hard to have a diverse and inclusive environment, I was shocked at the vile things some hiring managers were saying when they didn't think the "wrong" people were listening. That subset of people need to either be forced or given justification to implement diversity into their orgs.
Polling is essentially irrelevant to determine the actual effects of DEI initiatives

73 comments