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Modern politics tells us to forget diversity and focus exclusively on inclusion, but fixating on inclusion without first addressing underrepresentation actually leads to less inclusive workplaces.
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From 9 Trends That Will Shape Work in 2025 and Beyond by Emily Rose McRae, Peter Aykens, Kaelyn Lowmaster and Jonah Shepp on Harvard Business Review (HBR):
In 2025, most organizations will shift their investments toward fostering greater inclusion and belonging for all employees, as opposed to focusing primarily on representation and underrepresented talent. Leveraging inclusion and belonging will be seen as offering a competitive edge.
This is only one example of a growing movement responding to the current political backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) by suggesting that it’s unethical to focus on diversity as a goal.
Will you permit me a moment upon my tallest soapbox?
I have been a hiring manager for over 15 years, and I have had to fight tooth and nail to be presented diverse candidates. My policy now is that I ask to see every applicant, as I’ve seen too many well-intentioned recruiters “help” by filtering the pool to the “most qualified” candidates who strangely seemed to look, most of the time, a lot like me.
I’ve had recruiters who have whined that it’s just too hard to find diverse candidates backpedal at light speed when I passively sourced dozens of diverse candidates in a single afternoon (even without their fancy recruiter license for LinkedIn).
Focusing on inclusion is great. It’s necessary. But to say that underrepresentation is evidence of the need for stronger inclusion efforts, as the article goes on to say, is laughably wrong.
If the candidates who make it to hiring managers’ desks are homogenous, no amount of inclusion will solve representation problems.
I know the politicized argument will be that DEI programs unfairly privileged some candidates over others. I have not once been presented credible evidence to support that assertion—only variants of “my uncle should have gotten a job that a black person got instead” anecdotes—but I will concede that maybe that did happen somewhere. Even so, dismissing all DEI because in some cases it was done poorly is a textbook hasty generalization fallacy.
I’m not going to argue whether DEI programs have merit. There’s no need given the plethora of research demonstrating that diverse teams yield better business results than homogenous teams. If you want that advantage in your own company, you have to focus on more than inclusion. You must first build programs that ensure you always consider a diverse slate of qualified candidates. Otherwise, inclusion efforts will only serve to build a comfortable but closed culture where your dominant demographic, and only your dominant demographic, feels at home.
