What is your take on DEI initiative at your place of work. Do you feel included say Yes or No and justify why you feel so. As for me the answer would be a No as I feel some inclusion but that is based on my skills and experience and not necessarily because anyone actively played a role to include me. I am definitely included in everyday job related activities but not feel included in the inner circle. For example if our MD is traveling or planning for a party, my analyst knows before me!

I’d say no as well. Like I think the DEI initiatives that are done seem really amazing in concept however in application not so much. Like you said the job related activities you’re included; feel like you pretty much have to be. But the things that additionally aide with promo are the out of project activities that I’m never included in- even if I try to be.

So many comments from presumably white people saying DEI initiatives are bullshit. But imo it’s about the long game not the short term impact.

Take the deloitte partner who went off on a sexier and racist tirade a few weeks ago and was forced to retire. While I would have preferred something a little worse than a golden parachute and early retirement for him, I think the company is a better place without him. 20 years ago that shit would absolutely fly.

When I was a SC a few years back I had a manager make a comment about how i took his place at a an M7 school bdvause if the color of my skin, and didn’t get staffed on the project. He made several other comments at local office events that were small micro aggressions like that, and I noticed those under him behaved the same way.

If it weren’t for the dei initiatives I would not have felt like the firm would have my back when I got frustrated enough to report him. He is no longer at the firm, and again, I fell I am now at a more comfortable place with him not there.

I think the whole concept of DEI is made up crap to make people feel better about themselves. It’s all smoke and mirrors

I also have zero interest in making friends at work so I would hope nobody’s inviting me to anything

I think most poeple including OP has misunderstood the DEI. It is not about forcing you to include or make friends at work, it is about how people with same or even better skills are not treated unfairly because they don’t look like a presidential candidate (blue eyed white gentleman). For example a woman is not penalized for having a baby, an equally skilled person with accent is not ignored for promotion because he/she doesn’t sound “normal” that we created. We do know that if a French or German person has an accent, everyone is ok with it but a person of color has accent, we suddenly have an issue with it.

Its about normalization of the diversity that exists in society.

Nobody wants a promotion without skills.

It’s a paycheck who fucking cares about feeling included. Work enables life not the other way around.

Seems to me that your comment belies your belief. “I feel some inclusion but that is based on my skills and experience”. That’s exactly how it should be. Your skills and experience impact your work, not arbitrary check boxes.

In the summer of 2020, my French-based company made a concerted effort to take a clear stand on social issues of racism from the top down, and mandatory programming trickled down through the Publicis agencies. Our business is advertising and marketing, and it was important to signal to our clients and the industry that we are not averse to taking a firm position on issues of racism when other companies would rather avoid acknowledging a thorny subject. It also signaled that we understood how to process complex and sometimes polarizing issues and communicate our position tactfully.

Unfortunately, this initiative really feels like it's fizzled out. In my experience, new employees are largely unaware of these programs, apathetic about DEI initiatives, or even see them as a nuisance.

Dei is a joke

Entire HR departments are staffed at 95% levels of women, yet complain about gender imbalance. Wut? Wtf are you doing then?

Certain functions are majority staffed by women and no one says anything, why?

My teams on projects are usually 90% women.
I'm not talking about the quality of work, gender has zero relation to that but enough with the shoving down our throats initiatives that focus in one gender And exclude one race and then call for equality.

That's all one thing in addition to the moronic initiatives that add so much emphasis in lbtq2s++$729";; even though they make up less than 3% of the population as per the Canadian census and trans make up less than 0.3%

Every other day feels like a seminar to force 100 people to note the speciality of.. 3 people or less.

Protect them as you would protect any minority through the civil and criminal law, that's all.

We do better than most firms and it’s still a joke. It’s only focused on skin and sex. We ignore anyone who doesn’t fit that from a socio economic or other diverse backgrounds. Even with that it’s superficial at best.
To those who argue it’s only white people making comments that’s about as dumb as the other side. I’m a white male and I’ve been the minority in every project here except for 1. We are doing fine as a firm. Do we make mistakes, sure. Could we do better, sure. Could we do worse, sure. I think our goals are in the right direction and we are doing the best we can and being intentional about it.
However, we are secluding a segment of our population knowingly. I’ve been on DEI calls and been spoken to about white colonialism and how the speaker is tired and the shire people here need to step up. Reverse this scenario and I would be out of a job most likely. Leadership look the other way when these conversations go unprofessional which is my only issue. It has happened on many calls I’ve been present on and the MDs do nothing which tells me it’s an acceptable behavior here. Is it the same at other firms? Could be I don’t know but I can tell you there is a segment here who are getting tired of it.

I have to disagree, as part of a bunch of ergs I feel accenture overall does a pretty good job.

In terms of your MD that is a personal preference, is not Accenture’s responsibility to make sure your MD is “buddy-buddy”‘with you. Seems you are jealous of the relationship your analyst and MD have.

I’m all about D&I initiatives that focus on ensuring equal opportunity for underrepresented classes. The operative word is opportunity, not outcomes.

I’m no fan of equity as it runs counter to everything I think we should be about, and certainly not a fan of equity as CRT describes it.

Ensuring equal opportunity should be the goal, regardless of race, religion, gender, etc.

I’m involved in a lot of DEI work, and I feel like people are genuinely trying, which is nice to see, but there’s also a lot of back-patting and honestly fairly useless conversation that happens in the name of DEI. It’s no wonder people chafe at the idea of it
To answer the question, I feel included in some spaces at work because of my “diverse” qualities, included in others despite them, excluded from some because of them and excluded from others regardless.

And also to use this to execute in the way that benefits these people. Not truly uplifting anyone!

Depends upon the quality of training and if the company actually does anything with it over the long term rather than checking some boxes.

Jfc the people in this thread have nothing better to do than complain. Look, nothing is being taken away from you, just invite the females to your stupid golf tournament and stop acting like children

Non-white male here, I've been involved in various levels of several DEI initiatives over the past decade.

DEI as practices by many of our firms and industry firms is superficial at best. True DEI looks at more than skin color and sexuality. There are myriad means of diversity that DEI initiatives typically don't consider at all--diversity of thought, socioeconomic diversity, employment background diversity, and so on.

Many DEI leaders look at the most superficial forms of diversity (e.g. "let's increase our black employee hiring percentage") and settle for that, then pat themselves on the back for being beacons of DEI.

To answer your question, overall I think DEI initiatives fall way short of issuing in true DEI in our firms.

Yes MD1 thank you for acknowledging this!