In the torrent of executive orders issued from the moment US President Donald Trump reached the White House just a few weeks ago, many were directly targeted at dismantling DEI—Diversity, Equity and Inclusion—policies across all federal government departments and agencies.
He went further in a questionable (but not unusual for Mr Trump) speculation that such policies at the Federal Aviation Authority may have contributed to the crash involving a military helicopter and a passenger jet in Washington, DC, that cost 67 lives. The comments were made not unrelated to the ongoing accident investigation but took place even before the bodies had been recovered from the Potomac River.
Rather quickly, some companies in the US also dropped their DEI policies (and, like federal departments and agencies, also removed any trace of such policies from their websites), following the President’s cue (in fact, some started backtracking on their commitments since his election back in November).
It is difficult to tell whether this obsession by the new administration with DEI policies is the outcome of the gender- and race-related debates that have been raging in US politics for quite a while, including attacks on initiatives such as Black History Month and charges that affirmative action leads to ‘reverse discrimination’ against the majority white, straight population.
Or, alternatively, whether Mr Trump and his followers just think a more diverse workforce isn’t something that matters or the issue is collateral damage to their ‘war on woke’.
If it is the latter, that is a big mistake. What good DEI policies try to tackle is not “woke”—it is the need for employers to work harder towards removing preconceptions and prejudice (some of them unconscious) from their recruitment process to have the very best, irrespective of their gender, how they look, or what they do in the privacy of their own homes.
Broadly, and thanks to the clever wonders of nature, 49.6 per cent of the world’s population is female, and the World Health Organization calculates that around 16 per cent of all humans living on this planet have some type of disability, with varying degrees of complexity. Disability, gender, sexual orientation, and, naturally, race have no direct links with someone’s ability to work and fully contribute to society—and finding ways to engage a broader share of the population makes perfect sense.
But the need to work extra hard on DEI matters is perhaps best explained through anecdotal evidence. A few years ago, Bishop Desmond Tutu—one of South Africa’s most prominent anti-apartheid campaigners—told a story about how, despite his track record and the colour of his own skin, he had a moment of hesitation when he first boarded a South African Airways plane with a Black pilot in the cockpit.
No one could dream of accusing him of being racist, but his first reaction was, essentially, down to conditioning in a country where no person of colour would be allowed to develop a career in more senior or important roles, like aviation.
South African Airways only joined the rest of the civilised world and began hiring Black pilots after the end of apartheid in 1994. And, incidentally, major commercial airlines began hiring their first female captains in the 1970s, and surprise, surprise, there has been no link between these more inclusive employment policies and air safety.
But even if employers refuse to accept that diversity and inclusion in the workplace is a good thing for society and a good way to ensure they have the best employees, there is also a market logic to this. If about half of the population is female, it makes sense for companies to have the right mix of men and women in the workplace so that products and services are designed to reach the broadest market possible.
The same applies to race, disability, and sexual orientation—in fact, some major manufacturers and retailers spotted these opportunities and are making good progress in lines addressing the specific needs of certain groups. A typical example is the cosmetic industry, which has historically catered to the needs of white women, ignoring other ethnic groups.
Some, including our own Sasha Comestics, spotted the market gap, making diversity not only a good thing but a profitable one, too. Good DEI policies were never and will never be about excluding other groups, but about including all, from recruitment to workplace culture.
This is important—there is little point in making recruitment more diverse if the culture at work remains discriminatory and even hostile towards others. Take sexual orientation, for instance; this category was left out of anti-discrimination laws here in T&T.
Hiring a gay man or woman who has the right competencies and skills for the job is unquestionably a great step forward towards building a more diverse and inclusive workforce. But allowing a culture where they can be or feel discriminated against, disrespected and bullied by colleagues for their sexual orientation will do little or nothing to improve things. Quite the contrary.
None of this is rocket science, but as the US remains the most powerful and influential country in the world, and given its geographical proximity to us, it is inevitable that some of the Trumpian ideological winds (and a fair bit of hot air, too) will eventually reach these shores.
Let’s not only hope but actively work against the risks of populist and supposedly ‘anti-woke’ ideas taking root here.
The fact is that good DEI policies can lead to more profitable businesses as well as a better and fairer society. Let’s not drop it but, instead, keep up with this good work.
