The murder of George Floyd was horrific. The entire world saw a man murdered on camera. Our country finally started to understand the gross inequities of being a minority in America. Corporate America started to take huge steps to reverse hundreds of years of oppression and turmoil by introducing corporate departments to police fairness in corporate policy.
Diversity and inclusion were always one of the boxes corporate America tried to teach its employees. But after the Floyd death, that wasn’t enough. Companies added equity. That created the position of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (D.E.I.) executive/director.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a term used to describe policies and programs that promote the representation and participation of different groups of individuals, including people of different ages, races and ethnicities, abilities and disabilities, genders, religions, cultures, and sexual orientations.
Companies all over the country began to seek and hire people to fill these roles. If they were smart, they hired minorities. If they are smart, they hired female minorities to administrate their companies’ policies. This addition of the position has, so far, been a welcomed and needed change for minorities all over.
The election of Donald Trump was seen as a setback in civil rights for Blacks in America, and the addition of D.E.I. executives felt like a pullback in the right direction. But after two years of policy change, after two years of these companies adding the position, it is sometimes hard to feel the effect of this new direction.
Quite often, the results of having a D.E.I. executive is a direct correlation to who they report to. If they report to the CEO or owner, then they have the power to effect change. If they report to anyone else, they seem to be hobbled and powerless to bring about any real change.
“A lot of companies talk about doing the right thing, but then hire DEI executives and have them report to a department or someone who handcuffs their power,” one executive said. “I have seen, firsthand, literally nothing happen even though the company has a DEI person in place.”
Understanding that time is needed to see the full effect of adding DEI executives to corporate teams, the results seem to be impacted by their ability to make decisions. And the problem is not just with personnel.
Over $30 billion were earmarked for minority grants, businesses, and outreach in 2020. Only $3 billion has been given or used for advancing Black causes. Most of those dollars were given as loans, so the financial impact is still revenue-driven for those who gave out funding.
“What we are starting to see is either the money was never actually allocated or given to minority business opportunities, or the pledged funding was pulled back due to a lack of commitment from the company that originally offered help in the first place,” an executive explained.
So, what is happening to stop or reduce any real change for some of the companies that have hired DEI executives?
For some, admitting there is a problem in the first place is very hard to do. Companies that seriously tackle the problem of a lack of diversity and inclusion in their workforce must go through the process of destroying the rituals that got them there. If racism or racist activities are baked into the fabric of a corporate environment, there are probably still some employees who share in those beliefs.
Ridding the company of years and years of anti-equity decisions can take a long time to rectify. “If a company had infrastructural problems with racism, it’s going to take a sea change to happen before any real results are seen,” said one executive.
There is also a cost to creating change. It isn’t cheap to eliminate racist behavior, policies, and systems from long-standing traditions of excluding a group or people. The expense to seek, find and destroy any of those takes a huge financial commitment for that to occur.
From the plant floor to the boardroom, there is a need for clarity around the terms and implications for each area of emphasis. As with many previous efforts to address these underlying issues, many organizations have been unable to establish and communicate the business reason for spending the requisite time, energy, and funding.
“I interviewed for a position with a college in Wisconsin. They wanted me to come in and change the culture on campus because they wanted to increase Black enrollment by 25 percent, said an executive. “But when I asked about my ability to hire Black officers, add Black professors, and increase the options for classes that Black students could take, they wouldn’t commit to those changes. So, I had to decline the position.”
The current opportunity to move the needle on DEI must be based on establishing clear definitions in a real-world context for the terms that are used when defining what DEI does and implementing policies. It’s true that more and more companies are working to hire and promote minorities in their labor force, but internal issues hamper those efforts.
The commitment from corporate America to enact any real change is going to take time, money, and real dialogue about the problem. The Black community understands the opportunity it’s being presented by having the door open for Black and other minorities. The goal is to hold corporate entities accountable to the changes they promised, help in driving the conversation to form ideas and discussions toward actionable events that are meaningful, and finally produce a talented workforce that can take advantage of these opportunities once they present themselves.
Time typically answers all questions, and hopefully, DEI and sustainable funding will increase and continue to drive change in corporate America. ●
