Related Posts
Community Builder
Pro
Additional Posts in Diversity & Inclusion
Bowl Leader
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
That was just a preview…
Sign Up to see all discussions
Sign Up to see all discussions
- Discover what it’s like to work at companies from real professionals
- Get candid advice from people in your field in a safe space
- Chat and network with other professionals in your field
Sign up in seconds to unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
"" is an unusual email domain. If correct, please proceed to the next step
Messaging rates may apply
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
Share
Embed this post
Copy and paste embed code on your site
Preview
Download the
Fishbowl app
Scan your QR code to download
Fishbowl app on your mobile
Sign up for free to view this conversation on Fishbowl
Sign up for free to continue using Fishbowl
Messaging rates may apply
DEI was an experiment that ended badly. In a lot of cases, it did more harm than good and there is no measurable benefit.
As always. It’s not within your bias so you simply refuse.
DEI failed because it was a PR campaign by corporate America white people in power to make themselves look good. I think most of us POCs were pretty skeptical of it anyways.
The DEI programs were never setup to succeed bc they weren’t coming from a genuine place - it was mostly forced. This is a cultural battle that won’t be solved by one exec at a company - a company’s workforce has to be open to it and most importantly the CEO. There are small and medium sized companies that do well on DEI. You should look at what they are doing and see whether you can incorporate those approaches.
This is like putting a female in charge of an organization and expecting a toxic/sexist culture to disappear immediately.
In business, every role has to demonstrate some value to the bottom line. If your DEI program was just smoke and mirrors, then it might as well go away.
However, if it helped you attract and retain better talent and you can prove it, then fight for it.
Agree
Not enough details to give useful advice. But, keep in mind that dei capabilities can exist and be leveraged across the enterprise as long as at least 1 executive is championing and driving impact, uniting these widespread capabilities toward an enterprise goal, even if there is not a dedicated DEI practioner. I'd also HR D1 that oftentimes, a DEI practioner is placed in a seat where they are either insufficiently supported or integrated into the company or they are not ready for growing new enterprise capabilities or a new dept, in which case your company's org design, implementation, or staffing capability failed.
Happy to chat in more detail if you DM me. I don't want to bother with the trolls in the bowl today.
I am someone who values DEI, but I also can see that a lot of DEI initiatives were glossy PR stunts that were thrown together hastily and were not equipped to effect real change. Some of the DEI “experts” turned out to be outright grifters (don’t even get me started on some of the worst offenders in advertising). Many DEI programs had very obvious omissions — not doing anything to combat ageism, ableism, antisemitism, or anti-Asian bias, for example.
The companies I know that are making the most progress have DEI ingrained throughout their whole business and do not need to have a high-profile “head of DEI” as an image rehab move.
I think what happened is they had an unfortunate appointment with someone who was indeed fairly ineffective. So I think you should gently suggest this, privately and not in writing, that you feel there are other initiatives that would have worked well and we weren't able to get there with the "team" we had. You'd like to approach this as a personal project, with the help of HR and put xyz into motion. Now, how dedicated are you to that really, I don't know. Not sure if you're related to HR or operations or just an upright citizen in the company.
We don't know that the person in question was ineffective any more than we know if the business hamstrung itself and purposefully or otherwise made it very difficult (if not impossible) for the program to be effective.
Rising Star
I'm making a few assumptions in here, so forgive me if I get this wrong. It seems that this is a relatively small company (we have an HR exec, as opposed to an HR team) and maybe DEI, while important, is not enough to fill the person's full time role? Can you just get the DEI content and mission folded into HR, along with the DEI resource? No one is going to argue the importance of DEI (at least I hope not) and the associated mission, but maybe the cost of a full time position is just not justified? What other things is your current DEI executive trained for? I'm assuming an HR background is part of this person's history? There's clearly a value in DEI, even if there is not an easy monetary way of measuring it. That is how I would represent this to leadership, and I'd try to bring the DEI executive into HR as appropriate.