Does your business suffer from ‘diversity fatigue’? Do your D&I initiatives stop at an idea, rather than progressing to an active step that is implemented and that makes a difference? We’ll ask a D&I specialist how to spot if there’s a problem and, if there is, what to do about it.
Diversity fatigue is the emotional and psychological exhaustion individuals may experience when engaging in D&I-related activities or initiatives. It manifests itself in many ways including feelings of burnout, and resentment and a reluctance to engage in D&I initiatives run by the business. The term first emerged in the 1990s when equal opportunity became a major initiative in business and it captured the feelings of stress and exhaustion in trying to recruit diverse talent and increase diversity within companies.
Given the economic climate and the war for talent it’s not surprising to see the FT has highlighted this issue and the importance of getting it right in ‘How to overcome DEI fatigue and reap the diversity dividend’. They point to empirical evidence showing that companies with inclusive cultures are up to eight times more likely to achieve better business outcomes. They go on to give a number of suggestions as to how to avoid diversity fatigue based on a number of what they call ‘cornerstones behaviours’ which govern how D&I initiatives can be pitched to staff and then implemented successfully.
That article doesn’t give examples of what happens if things go wrong but we do have some case law that serves that purpose. So, for example, take the case of the advertising agency, Wunderman Thompson, that set itself the goal of reducing its gender pay gap. Ultimately, their approach was badly flawed, claims were brought, they lost in tribunal and the firm suffered a lot of reputational damage when the case was reported across the national press including The Telegraph, The Mail and The Guardian.
The case concerned two creative directors, Chas Bayfield, and Dave Jenner, both in their 50s, who were among five men dismissed from the agency after a female director, who said she was gay, vowed to ‘obliterate’ its reputation of being full of straight, white men – both men are white and straight. The firm presented at a diversity conference at which the female director, Jo Wallace, who introduced herself as a gay woman, gave a presentation in which she said: “One thing we all agree on is that the reputation JWT once earned – as being full of white, British, privileged [men] – has to be obliterated.” After the conference Bayfield and Jenner expressed concerns about the safety of their jobs. The two men were subsequently made redundant and went on to bring successful claims at tribunal for direct sex discrimination and victimisation. In an 80-page judgment, the tribunal concluded that “the decision to dismiss was related to the fact the claimants are men, that this was a conscious motivation in the decision to dismiss, for reasons including the desire to improve the gender balance in its senior creative team [and] the improvement to the gender pay gap figures which would result in their dismissal”.
Cases like that are quite rare - a single D&I initiative that goes badly wrong. The more common problem we see is a series of D&I initiatives, over time, which fail to have the desired impact and result in diversity fatigue, to a greater or lesser extent. So how do you avoid it? Kate Dodd is a diversity and inclusion specialist and she joined me by video-link to discuss that. First question, how would HR know if this problem existed?
Kate Dodd: “I think you would know there's a problem if you're struggling to find sponsors. So if you're looking for senior sponsors within your business and you're struggling to get people to engage with that at a senior level, perhaps you're struggling to get your employee network groups, so you might have established them but find that they are not really doing anything. You rely on your network groups to be very self-motivated and to be really enthusiastic and if you're struggling with that it can be a sign of diversity fatigue. Or you find that people are not engaging in stuff so, you know, you're having events etcetera and they’re either not being attended or they're not going down particularly well. I think those are all signs that you need to do something a bit differently within your business around diversity and inclusion.”
Joe Glavina: “Do you have any particular message for HR?”
Kate Dodd: “I suppose I've got two key things. The first thing is don't expect a quick win. Make sure that when you are talking about diversity and inclusion that you are making it very clear that this is going to take years, five years, ten years, nothing is going to happen really, truly, within a year or two. Don't be too initiative led because if you just have initiatives without any sort of lasting change behind it, things like reciprocal mentoring programmes, or having sponsorships etcetera, you're not going to be able to get there if you're just holding events to celebrate certain days - you need mentoring, sponsorship, those types of things, to create the lasting change. Choose one or two things and focus on them. What are your problems? What issues is the business trying to address here? Why did you start doing this and what do your employees want to see and focus on those things first. Don’t try and boil the ocean, don't look for quick wins, focus on those things. Then the other thing I would say that is really important is try and find things that engage everybody. So we know from the Bayfield case how easy it is to actually exclude people from diversity and inclusion initiatives, or alienate people, because they start to feel that there is such a desire and a push for diversity that they are actually disadvantaged by that. In this case there were two men that were successful after they were dismissed because previously it had been said that the company vowed to obliterate ‘white privileged British boys club’ basically and these people were subsequently dismissed and they were successful in their complaints of sex discrimination. So be very careful that what you're doing to try and encourage diversity doesn't inadvertently discourage other people or doesn't inadvertently exclude others and the best way to possibly do this is to find something that everybody recognises. So for example, we work with clients to help them bring about belonging to a culture, not just one of diversity and inclusion, but a culture of belonging, because all of us as human beings understand what belonging is and have a desire to belong and so, therefore, that is something that is much more inclusive if you have that as your focus as opposed to constantly talking about diversity and inclusion alone.”
That FT article is interesting and well worth reading. It’s called ‘How to overcome DEI fatigue and reap the diversity dividend’ we have put a link to the judgment in the transcript of this programme.
LINKS
- Link to judgment: Mr C Bayfield and Mr C Jenner v Wunderman Thompson (UK) Ltd & Others
- Link to FT article: ‘How to overcome DEI fatigue and reap the diversity dividend’
