Don’t Let D&I Die
Morag Hutchison, Shepherd and Wedderburn
Here we go. This is a picture of me and my boys. So this is us sitting on a bench in St. Andrews. I love this picture. It makes me really happy. Two reasons for that. One, I just had a wonderful day with my boys that day. We had a really good experience. But the second is it was taken wee while ago. I was younger and I was thinner. That’s why I love this picture.
Another picture of boy on a bench. I think this is brilliant. It’s an illustration by a lady called Lily O’ Farrell, and she talks about, it’s really designed to show how young men are feeling in the workplace increasingly. This idea of there been no room on the bench for them. What’s driving that? Where’s this message coming from? Politics, politics, politics. You’ve all heard the rhetoric from the likes of Kemi Badenoch, Nigel Farage, Donald Trump. He’s following through on his promises about reducing DE&I after his appointment as president.
We’ve got these big influencers, big strong voices, multi-millions behind them, big social media platforms. Elon Musk has said, “DE&I must die.” He says, “It’s a form of racism against white people.” So these are the kind of messages that are coming through. Newspapers, there’s sectors of the media who really want to prompt and push this anti-woke message. It causes conflict, it causes polarization of views. That creates clickbait, that makes money for newspapers. So we’ve got all these messages.
What’s behind this push against DE&I? Well, various things. What are the reasons? Merit, if I think DE&I initiatives are important in the workplace, does that recognize that perhaps I’ve got this rule for factors other than just merit? You’ve also got the moral case for it as well, and the status quo. That’s the biggest push behind it. If I start embracing DE&I, does that impact my status? Am I threatened? And so I’d much rather keep things as they are and keep the status quo as it is.
What impact does this pushback having? Well, in society, we’re seeing articles like this, Andrew Tate, “Gen Z boys and men more likely to believe feminism is harmful than baby boomers.” And big voices, these guys, these broadcasters. “You’ve got to stay strong, boys. You’ve got to push back against feminism.” Robby Starbuck, he campaigns in the US, he picks companies who have DE&I initiatives and he encourages consumers not to buy from them. Big, big campaign that he runs. And it’s resulted in companies like Jack Daniels who have pulled back completely from their DE&I programs because they were targeted by Robby Starbuck. And what they said is, “Well, the reason we’ve done it is the cultural and political landscape in the US has changed so much that we can no longer carry on with our DE&I.” That is frightening to me.
In employment, what’s the effect there? One in three DE&I roles has disappeared on LinkedIn over the last year. I suspect that number will be even higher than. 42% of employees said that they think DE&I is destructive in the workplace. So what do I want you to do? I want you to be brave. I want you to push back against the pushback on DE&I. I think it’s more important now than it perhaps ever has been.
What is DE&I? DE&I is lovely. This is a definition, a set of principles designed to make people of various backgrounds feel supported, welcome, and safe. Is that novel we should all be working towards in our workplaces, but in society more widely as well?
So what do DE&I push back behaviors look like? Denial. “There’s no DE&I issue in our workplace. What are you bothered about?” People that don’t realize the impact of discrimination on minority groups. Disengagement. “I’m not coming along to that event. No way.” DE&I monster. This derailment, this idea that DE&I has taken all the jobs from the white men is derailing the conversation away from the minority groups onto the majority groups.
So how do you deal with DE&I if you’re in HR? The stick doesn’t work. That process doesn’t work. It just makes people more entrenched in their opinions. It makes them more disengaged. So you really need to start looking at a carrot approach rather than a stick approach. Looking at trying to persuade and influence in a positive way. So where you’ve got denial, explain, listen to people, understand why they’ve got an issue with DE&I and try and explain and influence positively. Where you’ve got disengagement, you need to look at engagement. You need to look at trying to get people in the workplace back engaged in the process of DE&I.
Why it’s important. Using factual information rather than emotional information. Excuse me. And finally, derailment there where you are getting this kind of DE&I monster. “Well, it’s taking all the white men’s jobs.” Start using statistics to demonstrate that that’s not the case. There was an American author who said, “Male authors in America couldn’t be published anymore.” 89% of books published in America last year were by white male authors. It’s just not true.
So what am I asking you to do? I’m saying to you, please, please push back on the pushback on DE&I. I want my boys to grow up in a world where they understand the importance of DE&I, they value it, they respect it, but they also know that there’s room on the bench for everyone, including them. So please don’t let DE&I die.
Watch Morag delivering her session over on Vimeo >>>>> DisruptHR Glasgow 6.0 – June 19 2025 on Vimeo
