Let’s talk about the elephant in the room

The world of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is rapidly changing. From language and terminology to legislation and stakeholders and investors placing more expectations on businesses to not only have diverse representation but to demonstrate what they are doing to build an inclusive culture.

Having worked as an in house DE&I practitioner for over a decade to then moving into self employment and running my own DE&I consultancy and collaborating with others, I have seen huge seismic shifts in the conversation.

During this time we’ve moved from talking about Equality and Diversity to talking about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging. Legislative duties have developed further and placed more responsibilities on employers. When I worked as a DE&I practitioner in the public sector there were specific legal duties to advance equality, eliminate discrimination and foster good relations. Legislation evolved from what was then the first public sector equality duty under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act to what is known now as the public sector equality duty under the Equality Act 2010 covering 9 protected characteristics. A lot of good practice was developed in the public sector from having evidence based DE&I strategies or schemes as these were known to workforce diversity and service user monitoring to assessing the potential and actual impact a decision, policy or function has on different protected groups.

During the past ten years or so we’ve seen some of this good practice reflected in the private sector and beyond. However, when the pandemic arrived, things changed: from the way we work to how we communicate and it also shone a light on long standing and existing inequalities.

In 2020, the tragic murder of George Floyd shone a light on systemic racism inherent in society and prompted protests around the world through Black Lives Matters movement. We saw employers post black squares, conversations on anti racism and employers speaking out.

In the past 3 years we have also seen more conversations on menopause in the workplace, neurodiversity and individuals speaking out about sexual harassment in the workplace and society. So what’s changed?

Since these events we have seen more and more start ups and individuals working in this space. Yet we see also some with little or no prior experience of driving an employer’s DE&I agenda. There are people who have entered the consultancy world with experience and then we’ve seen some who have had no experience but used their sales, tech, coaching or other sector experience to create quick done and dusted solutions, offer surface level conversations that employees can engage in few clicks of the keyboard to running workshops on what I call “on trend” topics. Whilst the latter are pressing issues, it feels like we’re just talking about things like this because everyone is talking about it and for some they see this as a big income stream. Yet where do we go from having surface level conversations to taking real action?

Surface level conversations, dashboards and plug and play learning is not getting to the root of organisations problems. It is just sticking a plaster over them. Conversations do matter so long as they lead to action and are rooted in the challenges organisation face as well as supporting the solutions they are trying to implement. It has to be led by what the data is telling us.

Yes you might feel good because you’ve ran an event, conference or initiative but what long lasting impact does this have? How does it level the playing field? They don’t. Simply put they make people feel good but once the event closes, training ends or conversation stops, silence.

With so many independent consultants and coaches claiming to be DEI experts and newbie consultancies, how as an industry do we regulate those who enter and what standards do we assess each against?

Without regulation or accreditation it leaves the door wide open to quick fix solutions that have no credibility or advice given that lacks gravitas.