Employee Survival Guide® - Employers Don't Want DEI to Succeed!

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

In this episode of the Employee Survival Guide, Mark attacks the DEI initiative and argues that employers just do not want any DEI initiatives to succeed because it is bad for business.  Mark wastes no time blaming employers for the DEI fiasco now experienced by employees nationwide. Links to sources in the podcast episode:https://www.patreon.com/profvrandall?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_fan&utm_content=join_linkhttps://hbr.org/2022/01/the-angry-black-woman-stereotype-at-workhttps://www.healthline.com/health/depression/situational-depressionhttps://hbr.org/2022/12/the-failure-of-the-dei-industrial-complexLink to blog article on the same subject: https://capclaw.com/employers-dont-want-dei-to-succeed/The content of this website is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice nor create an attorney-client relationship.  Carey & Associates, P.C. makes no warranty, express or implied, regarding the accuracy of the information contained on this website or to any website to which it is linked to. If you enjoyed this episode of the Employee Survival Guide please like us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We would really appreciate if you could leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player such as Apple Podcasts. Leaving a review will inform other listeners you found the content on this podcast is important in the area of employment law in the United States. For more information, please contact our employment attorneys at Carey & Associates, P.C. at 203-255-4150, www.capclaw.com.

Hey, it's Mark here and welcome to the next edition of the Employee Survival Guide where I tell you, as always, what your employer does definitely not want you to know about and a lot more. Hey, it's Mark and welcome back. Today's episode is titled as Employers Don't Want DEI to Succeed. DEI is everywhere now, in colleges and universities, corporations, at Glassdoor, at the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is a new multi-billion dollar business industry catered to the new elite to solve an old problem, bias. From my vantage point as an employment attorney representing

employees, DEI is a joke with no punchline. If DEI was impactful and effective, then I'm not seeing it. We are just seeing more and even more rampant discrimination in the workplace. It is as if the opposite effect of DEI is occurring, more discrimination. The bottom line is DEI is a marketing and propaganda instrument used by corporations and nothing more. Corporations are themselves to blame for the decades-long history of employment discrimination in the American workplace. These private government entities rule with an iron fist, paternalistically beating down employees into submission and coercion. I say coercion because many managers from every race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. do the bidding of their masters and the shareholders on Wall Street. These servant managers are too fearful to rock the C-suite, lest they jeopardize their careers within the organization.

are too fearful to rock the C-suite, lest they jeopardize their careers within the organization. The executive masters dance the same tune year after year, but nothing changes. Let's be clear, unless employers become more transparent and more humane to employees, DEI initiatives will die and discrimination bias will persist. Because discrimination pays. My transparency. I must be fully transparent. Of course I have to. During law school, I read the DEI and critical race theory Bible authored by Derek Bell, although it wasn't called that. It was called Race, Racism, and American Law. Honestly, as a political science undergraduate and a fan of American history,

the law course based on Professor Bell's book was a profound experience for me, overshadowing all other courses I was quote-unquote prescribed in my law education. This is my homage to a very thoughtful former law professor of mine. Discrimination in the face of DEI. In my professional life, I encountered stories of discrimination and failed DEI initiatives daily. For example, I recently took a call from a DEI-titled employee at a well-known company that makes money relaying the transparencies via employee reviews of other companies on their website. The employee was among the BIPOC population. It's called Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. The BIPOC population, it's called Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, he, she was experiencing illegal bias from the DEI executive that the company's DEI initiative was meant to protect, among other employees.

The company stated publicly, quote, in the workplace, diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI is a holistic approach to hiring, empowering, and retaining a diverse workplace. The goal of DEI is to create an environment that encourages representation and participation of diverse groups of people, including people of different genders, races, ethnicities, abilities, disabilities, religions, cultures, ages, and sexual orientations, and people with diverse background experiences and skills and expertise. For a DEI policy to be successful, it can't be just a hiring strategy or an occasional workshop. It has to flow through the entire organization. Creating an environment where employees understand what it means to be inclusive can help give your team members a sense of belonging.

to be inclusive can help give your team members a sense of belonging. End quote. I had to read it all because that's the stuff that I'm seeing out there, the propaganda. The statement was written by the DEI lead in the organization who discriminated against the above employee. It was maddening to listen to the employee's recounting of the events she experienced or he experienced, and I felt sorry to hear her go through the tale. She was not alone.

This was not the first time I had had discussions with DEI personnel experiencing combative internal relationships with their DEI peers. When I say combative, I mean outright discrimination. In another recent example, an African-American employee was screamed at by her white supervisor and told she has an attitude, which is code for racism at work, if you didn't know. The source I'm going to quote from is in the show notes, but it reads, quote, The angry black woman stereotype has penetrated many parts of American culture, including the workplace. This pervasive stereotype not only characterizes black women as more hostile, aggressive, overbearing, illogical, ill-tempered, and bitter, but it may also be holding them back from realizing their full potential in the workplace and shaping their work experiences overall.

End quote. Ironically, the employee above that I mentioned was the leading salesperson within the organization and highly paid. I checked out our company's website, the DEI initiatives on the website. This is a public company, by the way, and found that the following window dressing I see repeatedly used, quote, we are an exciting journey to build a culture that celebrates diversity and allows everyone to bring their true self to our blank community.

End quote. In the case of the employee above, her supervisor sure brought her, quote unquote, true self to work to manage this employee. The supervisor not only labels black women as having, quote, attitude problems, but also promotes other white employees. problems, but also promotes other white employees. She intentionally leaves behind one highly educated Ivy League black employee in the dust and gaslights her with defamatory statements about her performance to further suppress her career within the company. Not an uncommon incident that I experience with many people. The company's DEI marketing piece further states, quote, our success depends on the diversity of perspective, thought, experience, and background within our workforce. We recognize that a diverse and inclusive workplace leads to more innovative ideas, more fruitful collaboration, and a more vibrant culture, end quote.

But the above employee currently is so stressed out that she's undergoing treatment for, quote, situational depression and has been prescribed medication to cope with the workplace hostility and fear of working she now possesses. Adding insult to injury, the employee has already complained to the human resource department not once, twice, but three times without resolution. As you know, company investigations are worthless and do nothing to remedy the DEI fiasco we see far too often. The employer I mentioned above further stated they wanted to, quote, empower our employees by, quote, creating a more inclusive work environment while promoting a welcoming and respectful work environment. Our ERGs, Employee Resource Groups, empower and connect employees across seven categories. African descent, LGBTQ+, sustainability, veterans and first responders, women, Hispanic, Latin, and young professionals. Give me a break.

This sounds more like search engine optimization to attract visitors, potential employees, and customers to the website I just collected the information from. The level of discrimination experienced by the employee in my example above did not feel welcomed, did not feel respected, and did not feel empowered, and finally was not remotely connected to her white supervisor and co-workers who were all promoted. But if you like this marketing message, they left

a link on the bottom of the webpage that says, quote, join our team. Go, team, go. The failure of the DEI industrial complex. I found the following conclusions from an article in the Harvard Business Review, quite illuminating, and about how ineffective DEI is within the corporate environment. Quote, inclusion, DEI industry. The actual efficacy of the uncomfortably large proportion of our flagship services, talking points, and interventions, unconscious bias training, racial sensitivity workshops, the business case for diversity, resume anonymization, and the like is lower than many practitioners make it out to be. Unconscious bias training rarely changes the actual behaviors and has little impact on

explicit biases. and has little impact on explicit biases. A meta-analysis of hundreds of prejudice reduction interventions found that unambiguously achieved their goals, many popular interventions run the risk of backlash, strong adverse reactions that sustain or even worsen the inequality that practitioners attempt to eliminate. Even the business case for diversity, a decades-old rhetorical framing and justification for DEI work, has been found to backfire on the marginalized group's feelings of belonging and weakening support for diversity programs when organizational performance drops, end quote. So, what are we to make of the failure of the industrial complex? I propose a solution for the DEI fiasco.

The Harvard Business Review article proposed the following solutions to solving the DEI fiasco and perfecting it. However, the author just cannot overcome the power of the employer and its insatiable desire to protect itself from the employee liability. DEI is not in the best interest of the employer because a truly effective DEI would divulge way too much internal corporate bad-actor activity. DEI is merely a cover for protecting the employer against employees who challenge their illegal employment activities. Notwithstanding this reality check, the author proposes the following solutions, and I'll try, folks, to give you both sides of the coin here. Number one, identify the DEI challenges before prescribing DEI solutions. Quote, too many organizations start their DEI journeys with arbitrary DEI interventions that have no clear objective. End quote. The author suggests, quote, your organization should start by listening and learning through DEI audits, employee surveys, focus groups, and other interventions that collect

valuable data required to take effective action, including disaggregated demographic data. End quote. I got to take a breath. This is so-called EEO-1 data. You can go to the show notes and find the link. An EEO-1 component is a report that is a mandatory annual data collection that requires all private sector employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors with 50 or more employees meeting certain criteria to submit demographic workforce data, including the data by race, ethnicity, sex, and job categories. As an employment attorney, having access to the treasure trove of DEI audits, employee surveys, and focus groups would yield a damaging blow to employers. This author of the Harvard Business Review article suggests the transparency,

but no employer will permit this disclosure for fear of an endless stream of employment discrimination cases. DEI initiatives will fail for the above reasoning. The disclosure equates with liability. Number two, the author says, quote, finding the right specialists. Number two, the author says, quote, finding the right specialists. Quote, while there has recently been pushback in the industry against the one-size-fits-all solutions, the continuing demand for organizations for DEI generalists incentivizes practitioners to continue offering these exact things and has no doubt contributed to the rapid proliferation of cookie-cutter DEI firms, consultancies, offering virtually the same services. End quote.

The author proposes more substantial research and vetting of DEI specialists to go beyond the visible list of DEI influencers. I didn't know there were DEI influencers. Did you? I've got to check my Instagram. Hey, maybe I can have a second career as a DEI specialist. What are the qualifications anyway? Hey, maybe I can have a second career as a DEI specialist. What are the qualifications anyway? The author suggests speaking with the consultants and preferences.

Seriously. All the consultants are in it for is the hourly fee to charge employers to tell employers what they employers already know. This is circular logic if you accept the notion that employers never want a DEI in the first instance. It's bad for business. The author goes on, number three, quote, measure not only inputs but outcomes. I call this the proverbial black box analysis. The author states, quote, organizations rarely connect their DEI initiatives to the outcomes they aim to achieve. And if they do, it's often in an aspirational rather than a tangible sense, end quote. The author proposes, quote, instead, your organization should create tangible outcomes it aims to change tied to its DEI data

and develop clear indicators and metrics to know when these outcomes have been achieved. and develop clear indicators and metrics to know when these outcomes have been achieved. These indicators and metrics allow an organization to hold stakeholders accountable, identify and celebrate an initiative's successes or failures, measure return on investment, and make important decisions to tweak or change initiatives that are not working. End quote. I'm still exhausted reading this stuff. I cannot stand corporate speak, is what I just read.

This is utterly devoid of any reality. Nowhere does this author address the actual discrimination cases that are filed annually against the company, both internally and externally. Company investigations are not transparent, even if you work at Bridgewater Associates. Sorry, had to dig there. More profoundly, employers don't take accountability for their actions. They cover them up and usurp a denial mentality. It is not in the employer's best interest to accept accountability. Produce data and metrics unless they are faced with an investigation by the federal government.

Yet the federal government itself is financially ill-equipped. And I'm referring to the EOC here, folks, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. That's your taxpayer dollars at work. Equipped to fight employers and the federal courts themselves never want to step in front of the business judgment rule. And I'll tell you what that means. It means that they don't want to become the superhuman resource departments to manage companies. It's a system, folks. You need to understand. You work in a system. If you don't believe this reality, you are not paying attention. Employers have been successful

in their manipulation management by their fixtures on K Street in Washington, D.C. Number four, the author goes into her fourth issue in Explanation and Proposed Solution. Quote, having those do the work informed the budget for it. The author states, quote, well, what's the average salary for a director of diversity? These naive decisions from leaders with no experience or knowledge about DEI as a practice result in the perpetual under-resourcing of DEI work and force practitioners to do too much with too little and to take the blame for failure when they inevitably burn out. Greater resources for practitioners commenced with a greater degree of specificity and accountability tracked to the budgets we request, end quote.

and accountability tracked to the budgets we request, end quote. This one is easy and like the others above. One way to kill an internal employer program is to provide limited funding and control. Again, it is not in the company's financial interest to dump tons of resources to reveal the lurid underbelly of the organization. It's a joke, don't you see? The author of the Harvard Business Review article closes with these parting yet insightful words. Quote, the DEI industrial complex will persist

so long as there are corporations that care more about going through the motions than eliminating inequality and affecting actual change, as well as practitioners that find this acceptable. End quote. I cannot say it any better. There you have it. Even the author of the article realizes the power of the employer

as private government entity dictatorship sovereign, and DEI has literally no chance of survival. Employers merely window dress DEI, but nothing more. The mighty corporate industrial complex and the bias it peddles cannot be remedied with DEI. The private government employer is powerful. DEI will fail. I am apologetic to provide this dismal outlook about DEI. But we all need to confront the elephant in the room.

Employers do not want DEI. But we all need to confront the elephant in the room. Employers do not want DEI. They and their handlers just want you to think they do. It's capitalism at any cost, and DEI is just a hindrance. Until DEI makes a corporation money, it's merely a marketing piece troped out to soothe the American workforce and many social, political-minded people. This is the deep, dark secret that no one wants to address. Of course I do it. Conclusions on the real DEI. Wow, one actually does exist. Who would know? If you want an effective and DEI program, here it is. We are all Americans, regardless of the race, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, age, etc. We are told we are all equal under the law. To be an informed

American today, one has to listen to the debate on both sides, without judgment, and most importantly, with respect. Only then are you enlightened. Follow the golden rule. Treat others as you would want them to treat you, which is probably the best anti-bias rule one can learn from. Listen more, judge less, and your life will be more enjoyable and less stressful. And stop dehumanizing one another. This is DEI and not the crap bantered about to corporations large and small for an hourly fee. My information is free.

Use it wisely. That was my idea for the week. I just can't stand DEI. I hear it, see it, feel it, see the impacts of it. It won't work. It won't work not because of the people who promote it, meaning the folks who are in the front lines of it. It's the corporations because what it does, it promotes the transparency which companies don't want to show you. Now do you get it? The truth is hurtful to the company. They can't control their own

internal people and their own internal biases no matter how hard they try. I know this is sad. I usually don't try to end on a sorrowful note, but maybe my conclusion that a golden rule approach to life might solve the bias in your own workplace because that's all you can do is you can control your own person in your own workplace. So give it a shot. Sorry, the reality is truthful here. Here it is. But until next time, take care.

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