How one DEI leader is sustaining diversity efforts amid rollbacks

Corporate America’s relationship with DEI has been hot and cold.

The US has a decades-long history with DEI. Following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, many companies established or renewed efforts to rectify racial inequalities in their workplaces. But since then, some of those same companies have changed course, as the political and social tides have turned.

“Everyone invested in 2020. Everyone wanted to stand on a podium to say, ‘This is what we believe in,’ but I believe that the fallout happened because those efforts weren’t real. They weren’t authentic,” said Rita Parker, chief diversity and inclusion officer at information management firm Access.

Parker started in an operations role at Access in January 2020. When the Peabody, Massachusetts-based company with over 2,700 employees created a new diversity and inclusion leader role in 2022, Parker said she quickly raised her hand.

“Our CEO, at the time, decided, ‘Hey, I’m going to put a stake in the ground to show people we are all about diversity,’” she told HR Brew. “I decided I would raise my hand to do something totally different, because I have a passion for people. I’ve led people all of my career, and I have a passion for people feeling valued and included.”

Standing firm on DEI. For many of the companies that changed course on DEI, it was “just words and not actions,” Parker said.

“It’s so important that if you were trying to build any type of initiative, it has to be embedded, so it wasn’t embedded in their systems. They didn’t build a strategy for it,” she said, adding that she’s worked to “infuse” DEI into each part of Access’ business.

“It’s all about building the infrastructure around your people and listening to what your people are telling you,” she said. “I’m not going to be successful hitting any type of business goal or business imperative if you don’t focus on your employee bottom line.”

To those whose anti-DEI rhetoric suggests the work isn’t inclusive of certain groups of people, Parker said, “I think people miss this whole point…Diversity, equity, and inclusion is about making sure that people feel like they belong, and they’re engaged in any organization, and with that, it doesn’t leave out anyone.”

Where’s DEI going? Parker’s priority is to sustain the DEI efforts that she’s built over the last few years.

“That’s tougher than building it,” she said. “That sustainment means you continue to stay connected to the voice of your employee, and you continue to stay connected to the voice of your customer.”

To that end, standing firm on existing DEI commitments will be critical, Parker said, because if leaders reverse course, and then try to reintroduce investments later, they risk creating distrust among employees and consumers. This can already be seen in some companies that have retreated on DEI, according to Parker.

“Any organization we work in, you can see it, you can feel it. You know what the culture is in the organization just by leadership actions,” she said. “Then you realize, ‘Okay, we’re losing revenue. We’re losing people’...and if you sit back at the desk and say, ‘Oh, the reason why is we have a big piece of our strategy missing, and this is it.’”

Target, for example, invested in DEI, but retreated earlier this year. The backlash from shoppers following that decision, namely boycotting the retailer, has negatively affected its bottom line, Retail Brew reported in April. Costco, on the other hand, also invested in DEI, but doubled down on support when others wavered. In August, Target’s foot traffic fell 3.3% year over year, Retail Brew reported, while Costco’s foot traffic went up 5.2%.

“It impacts not only employees, but consumers. Consumers walk with their money…They saw the hit because of that, so I think it’s going to be important for them to be very thoughtful about it,” Parker said. “I wouldn’t want to be in that position, I tell you that.”