Many Of The Companies Ditching DEI Weren’t Doing Much In The First Place, Analysis Finds

DEI is the buzzword in America as more companies continue to scale back on their DEI policies. Big retailers and companies started announcing their removal of DEI last year. However, Trump’s revoking a six-decade-old executive order that prohibited workplace discrimination by federal contractors has further impacted companies’ stances on DEI.

But how much impact have these initiatives had on diversity in the workplace? According to a Wall Street Journal analysis, not that much.

The Wall Street Journal examined 13 million workers at S&P 500 companies and found that DEI efforts haven’t significantly impacted those who climb the corporate ladder.

What did the Wall Street Journal analysis find?

The death of George Floyd in 2020 prompted companies to pledge to increase the diversity in their labor force and senior teams. Subsequently, companies started rolling in different DEI practices, such as ensuring potential job candidates come from various backgrounds and using executive pay incentives to expand the diversity of specific groups in particular roles.

Since then, the employees of the largest US companies have become somewhat less white, with Asian and Hispanic employees making small gains in representation, as stated by 2023 data provided by research firm DiversIQ. However, the overall picture hasn’t changed that much.

The number of senior managers who aren’t white rose from 22% to 26%, and white men still manage to take up half of all senior manager roles. White women (who were the biggest beneficiaries of corporate diversity efforts before 2020) experienced the least change.

How have DEI initiatives affected Black and brown staff workers?

A more detailed look at job categories highlights that Black and Hispanic staff workers continue to make up a limited number of executive and other higher-paid professional jobs. In 2023, one in 20 senior managers were Black, less than half the number of Black workers in the broader US labor force. Hispanic managers faced a similar reality: their numbers were well below the total labor force.

Most executives who aren’t white are of Asian descent; they are also more likely to be lower-level managers and professionals in industries such as computer programmers and financial analysts. But, Black and Hispanic workers continue to fill the bulk of hourly service and manual labor jobs. 

What does this say about DEI efforts?

Though some changes have been made since 2020, there hasn’t been much overall transformation in increasing diversity in the workforce. When companies started ushering in DEI efforts after George Floyd’s death, many people of color were skeptical that these changes were performative.

In 2022, a Forbes article noted, “There is evidence that the wave of activity seen in 2020 has been largely performative in nature and that little actual progress has been made.” Over the years, this sentiment still stands. These companies that have scaled back on DEI efforts weren’t doing much in the first place.

Should that mean that companies should continue to roll back on their DEI efforts? No, this means that companies maintaining their commitments to DEI still have much more to do if they want diversity, equity, and inclusion at every level of their company.

Image: Antoni Shkraba/ Pexels