From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.

HR Brew

Courtney Vinopal

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Black and white men sitting on an unequal sign

How post-pandemic wage growth helped narrow the racial wage gap

Black workers saw higher wage growth than white workers from 2021 to 2023, and as a result the racial wage gap has narrowed to the smallest it’s ever been, according to Syndio.

The racial wage gap is narrowing, but occupational segregation may hinder further progress 

Mikaela Cohen

An interview with Kim Dabbs, author of ‘You Belong Here: The Power of Being Seen, Heard, and Valued on Your Own Terms’

“The workplace is one of the last places in the world that we don’t get to choose every single person that we’re surrounded by…so it’s also an opportunity to stretch and grow.”

Employee identity is important: Here’s how HR can honor it

Kristen Parisi

Unhappy women cradles head in hands in office

Employee happiness declining among disabled workers

Employee happiness and well-being increased overall, but disabled employees are experiencing large declines. 

Disabled workers are less happy and RTO policies are likely to blame, report finds

Different shapes next to each other as icons denoting DEI

The federal government has issued multiple threats 

 to companies with DEI programming since President Trump returned to office. These, coupled with 

 from right-wing activists, appear to be impacting how companies publicly approach DEI, according to a recent study from the Conference Board.

 A rose by any other name could be…a daffodil? The report found that companies have rebranded DEI terminology in public documents, oftentimes omitting references altogether. Terms like “diversity,” “gender,” “race,” and “DEI” peaked in Q1 2024, but in 2025, fell below 2021 levels. “DEI” has largely been replaced with language that companies believe is safer, like “inclusion and belonging.”

Furthermore, 53% of the 100 largest US public companies made “material” adjustments to DEI language, compared to the year prior. Companies were most likely to remove the word “equity” from documents.

While some believe companies may be able to avoid legal scrutiny by adopting softer DEI language, some 

 have warned that rebranding would not protect them. Some DEI proponents 

 backing away from DEI initiatives impedes the work. The government has threatened to target any companies still practicing DEI under a different name.

companies have also changed their approach to tracking and reporting workforce and board demographics, the Conference Board found.

There was little change in the number of S&P 500 and Russell 3000 companies that shared racial data, but there was a marked difference in reporting on gender representation, especially in management. In 2024, 71.2% of S&P 500 companies and 60.1% of Russell 3000 companies reported how many women were in management, but that dropped to 55.1% and 47.9% respectively in 2025.

Many S&P companies have stopped sharing board diversity numbers as well (54.8% in 2024 vs. 32.6% in 2025). Some 28.7% companies did not disclose the gender breakdown of their boards in 2025, compared to just 1.4% in 2024, and one-third of companies did not disclose racial diversity this year, up from 2.5% in 2024.

Employers are left to navigate changing political guidance and stakeholders while keeping an inclusive environment that attracts workers, the report cautioned.

“The decision not to disclose certain metrics, while it aligns with current compliance expectations, may carry longer-term costs by weakening stakeholder trust (including current and potential employees), limiting internal accountability, and complicating engagement with institutional investors and global regulators who may continue to expect robust human capital disclosures.”

Companies share fewer workforce demographics and change DEI language amid government pressure

S&P 500 companies are sharing less workforce data and reducing DEI language in public filings, new report finds.

As government pressure against DEI grows, companies go quiet

The Department of Justice (DOJ) released new 

 July 29 as the federal government targets DEI programming at public and private institutions, while warning organizations against trying to skirt the guidance.

 The guidance from Attorney General Pam Bondi was directed towards any entity that receives federal funding, and focused on “best practices.” While it isn’t legally binding, it points to several instances where programs may pose discrimination risks. Much of the document contained reminders on established non-discrimination laws like Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

Some institutions have talked about retooling DEI to be more about other factors, such as socioeconomic diversity, but the government also warns against taking such steps, noting they could be considered “potentially unlawful proxies.”

The DOJ claimed that “facially neutral criteria” in which employers may target a particular region to diversify its workforce may be legally risky if the proxy is meant to advantage a particular group.

“What the DOJ memo is flagging is that, ‘Don’t try to scratch your nose through a different avenue and call it neutral,’” Alyesha Asghar, co-chair of the equal employment opportunity and inclusion practice at Littler told HR Brew, citing examples of what would constitute a red flag to the government.

“If an employer was to say, ‘You know what, no, we don’t care about prohibited protective characteristics, we’re just going to expand our recruitment and hiring based on geographical zip codes. But the zip codes are conformed, gerrymandered, in essence, to hit certain communities that are majority, historically marginalized communities. That’s what the DOJ memo is trying to avoid.”

 hiring or employment practices that benefit one group over another, Asghar doesn’t think that something like recruiting from, for example, Christian universities or Historically Black Colleges and Universities would be impacted.

“You truly have to be expansive,” she said, emphasizing that just because an employer holds a recruitment event at a university, does not mean anyone is guaranteed employment. “Just having those relationships with HBCUs and women’s colleges is not an issue, but if you had relationships with HBCUs and women’s colleges, but not with majority institutions, that would be a problem.”

 Perhaps most striking, the guidance suggests that employers should not be allowed to have organized resources or facilities based on protected characteristics, according to Asghar. She believes that it’s an indirect nod to employee resource groups (ERGs).

“This is implicitly talking about employee resource groups,” Asghar said, noting the focus on segregations in facilities or resources, even when they’re “technically” open to everyone. “Identity-based framing can give rise to perception of segregation.”

She explained that a women’s ERG, for instance, that’s open to all could make a cisgender man feel otherized, which opens the company to risk, in her view. “Employers need to be very vigilant…in the continuous good shepherding of the ERG.”

While the instructions are directed towards federal funding recipients, the DOJ indicated that the guidance is actually broader, stating that “public and private employers should review this guidance carefully to ensure all programs comply with their legal obligations.”

It’s unclear how much pull the guidance has, as scholars 

 that despite President Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders, the pre-existing laws remain, and employers are also beholden to state laws.

Still, Asghar doesn’t believe that the DOJ will dissuade employers from all DEI initiatives, and pointed to the administration’s focus on religious bias and anti-American sentiment in the workplace. “I don’t think they’re trying to make everything that’s diversity, equity and inclusion illegal. However, organizations that have DEI programs are probably more likely to be caught by scrutiny.”

DOJ issues new guidance on DEI practices

The memo is the latest move from the Trump administration, which is encouraging employers to eliminate DEI programs.

New DOJ guidance on DEI includes a subtle warning on employee resource groups

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued new religious inclusion guidance for federal agencies this week as the Trump administration continues what many see as a pro-religion agenda.

 encourages federal agencies to be more welcoming to employees engaging in religious expression and reminds employers that religious discrimination is illegal under the First Amendment. Employees may “live out their faiths in daily life,” which includes the workplace.

The OPM reminded government agencies that they cannot “discipline or discharge employees for their religious observance and practice,” and provided several examples of acceptable religious conduct at work, including displays of religious items (like a bible or jewelry). 

The guidance also indicated that employees should be permitted to gather in groups during off-duty time to express their religion. Employees are also allowed to attempt to “persuade others” of their religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature, and encourage colleagues to express their faith.

Most of the guidance appears to simply remind agencies of the existing laws, and comes just two weeks after the OPM issued 

 encouraging federal agencies to provide flexible work schedules and remote work as reasonable accommodation for religion when appropriate.

The directives came during the same month as a Senate Judiciary Committee 

, which the administration has vowed to end. However, religious inclusion is often considered part of DEI, as one lawyer noted to HR Brew.

“The memo seeks to ensure that the federal workforce is a ‘welcoming place’ for people of faith (which means inclusion), and also expresses concern about ‘recruitment and retention’ of people of faith—core concerns of the field of DEI,” David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at NYU School of Law told HR Brew via email. He added that the guidance largely focused on Christian symbols of faith, with only small references to Judaism, but omitted any inclusion of other religions.

“I think this memo is yet another example of how DEI opponents are often not against DEI per se, but rather are just fighting over which groups deserve the solicitude of DEI,” Glasgow said.

“Opponents of DEI are often perfectly comfortable with actions aimed at giving a boost to Christians, conservatives, Americans (versus immigrants), and so on. They just don’t like programs that give a boost to groups they disfavor, like people of color or LGBTQ+ individuals.”

window decal for the US office of personnel management 

Office of Personnel Management issues new religious guidance

The move comes despite the administration’s calls for an end to all DEI practices.

Office of Personnel Management offers new religious inclusion guidance for federal agencies

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Civil Rights, led by Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, held a hearing on July 24 to discuss the state and merits of 

. The hearing largely focused on the racial component of DEI, and explored how the Trump administration is handling companies that continue DEI efforts under other names.

 Schmitt began his opening statement by saying that DEI policies are meant to mainly hurt white, Christian men while others take over. Schmitt said that diversity officers and HR managers have set up a “victim hierarchy,” and that “DEI isn’t just illegal. It’s a fraudulent and cynical ideology from top to bottom built on layers of lies.”

Schmitt went on to say that people in favor of DEI programming are not concerned about equality. “Their entire mission is to elevate members of certain groups over members of other groups and remake America in their own image,” Schmitt said. “It’s about exclusion of the competent, the qualified, the meritorious when those people are members of the wrong race or sex.” Schmitt believes that DEI is about racial quotas (note: DEI programs are not focused on racial quotas, which are illegal).

The committee first interviewed Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice, who said she is in charge of protecting “the civil rights of all Americans against illegal DEI initiatives.”

Dhillon said that the Civil Rights Division is currently overseeing multiple potential cases, including the local government hiring practices in Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Chicago, noting the federal government believes these entities are engaged in racial hiring.

Robert Stewart, state senator for Alabama’s 23rd district, disagrees with the way DEI has been portrayed by some. “DEI initiatives are not preferences or perks,” he told the committee. “They are attempts to rectify generations of exclusion and ensure equal access to opportunity. To eliminate these efforts under the guise of enforcing civil rights is to misinterpret history and undermine justice.”

 Throughout the hearing, some Republican committee members focused on organizations that rebrand their DEI programs. “Whatever the name is, in every instance, it amounts to the same thing: A new racial caste system sanctioned and enforced by the administrative state,” Schmitt said.

Dhillon told Schmitt that she is committed to ending DEI practices in all forms. “Either DEI will end on its own or we will kill it,” she said. “When I hear the slogan DEI, what I hear is discrimination, exclusion, and intolerance.”

She went on to say that the DOJ is relying on whistleblowers inside organizations to alert them when rebranding is happening, and that she speaks with the EEOC “almost daily” about ongoing investigations into corporations. “When those investigations are concluded without satisfactory resolution or termination of the DEI policies in question, these matters are often referred to the Civil Rights Division for further enforcement,” Dhillon said.

Most companies see diversity and inclusion efforts as a business imperative, according to 

 from Catalyst and the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at the NYU School of Law. Some advocates have warned against rebranding DEI too quickly, even as 

,” where companies continue doing DEI work quietly.

“The reality is, once we start to change our name, that’s the beginning of changing our mission,” former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams 

. “It’s the failure to hold a righteous position that gets us in the most trouble because it fractures us, and it creates an internal set of dynamics, an internal set of debates that allow them to distract us from where the real attack is coming from.”

“We’ve seen in some cases corporations, universities, [and] other institutions take on and actually abandon some of these exclusionary programs and policies,” said Gene Hamilton, a lawyer and cofounder of America First Legal, which has sued several large employers including 

, over their DEI practices. “But in many other cases, they seem to be just deleting the language or changing the language and morphing to things trying to fly under the radar long enough to think that they’re going to evade federal enforcement, or they’re going to evade private liability.”

Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono asked Hamilton if any court has ruled that DEI efforts are unconstitutional, but Hamilton could not point to one. Hamilton claimed the Supreme Court ruled DEI as unconstitutional. Hirono pointed out, however, that was not what the court determined, and many 

“The constitution mandates equal protection of the laws for everyone. Full stop,” Hirono said. “It does not bar diversity, equity, and inclusion. Programming relating to diversity is not illegal just because Donald Trump says so.”

Three shadows of heads with the US Capitol building portrayed in them

Senate Judiciary committee discusses DEI rebrand efforts

“Either DEI will end on its own or we will kill it,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon.

Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearing focusing largely on DEI rebrands

Working in leadership at a hospital can be complicated—there are a range of education and job functions, all while everyone is ultimately responsible for patient care. HR Brew recently sat down with Nancy Maldonado, chief diversity officer at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, to discuss launching the organization’s DEI team, how she measures success, and the unique challenges at her border-city hospital.

 Maldonado didn’t plan on a career in DEI, and began in health and wellness with a master’s degree in exercise physiology, then developed her own consulting business for corporate wellness programs.

She was working on her PhD in public health when an opportunity arose with the American Heart Association. “I started working [for a] nonprofit, and then just fell in love with this idea of, ‘I can make a living by doing really great work,’” Maldonado said, and worked as a community health director before moving onto the Chicano Federation, a social services organization.

The nonprofit work taught Maldonado about equity work, and advocating for communities of color, so she felt prepared when Rady Children’s Hospital created the chief diversity and inclusion officer role in 2022.

“I understand when you’re making decisions how to have that big picture view,” she said. “Sometimes where folks in my position or my role get maybe burnt out is that they’re not able to see that bigger picture, and not have that global understanding.” But Maldonado had the skills to develop a good relationship with the CEO and ensure DEI had proper visibility and buy-in.

While Rady Children’s Hospital had worked with diversity consultants, the organization really needed Maldonado to develop a new program. “Part of it was that the workforce was so hungry for it [DEI], so I didn’t come into a completely blank slate…but I didn’t have a team,” she said. “It was exciting and frustrating and fulfilling.”

Maldonado said her biggest challenge was moving fast enough for the organization and individuals, from patients to families, when she was a one-woman show. “It’s a big system, so keeping that in perspective and that I needed to move at the speed of the system,” she explained. “I always felt like there was just more that we could be doing.”

She takes a wide-view approach to DEI, even including job roles and tenure in her planning. “If somebody’s not at the table, and we’re really intentional about saying what voice are we missing? Who needs to be here to give us that different perspective, or to fill a gap?”

 of time in high-level meetings, she also focuses on individual coaching for employees for various work challenges. “We don’t have a canned or set [DEI training] curriculum,” she said. While not all DEI training is effective, Maldonado believes that workers still need development opportunities, and that involves training.

“We’ll go in and meet individually with people, and that’s where some of the coaching is happening,” she said. “Then we can create customized curriculum, and that can look like anything. It rarely looks like one session.” To her, the impact happens thanks to her customized approach and every day coaching.

The DEI program also leans on employee resource groups and a DEI council that’s now in its fifth year. “The intent is for them to be representatives of the workforce so they are sharing what they’re hearing,” Maldonado said, noting that the council shows her where there are opportunities for change.

The DEI program’s success is, in part, measured by employee engagement and patient care scores. Maldonado examines psychological safety and belonging to understand how employees are doing because engaged employees “are going to deliver better service to our patients and families, and they are going to get better care.”

Still, Maldonado recognizes the unique stressors that employees are experiencing right now and tries to mitigate the effects of the outside world. “It shows up in the way that people interact with each other at work. It shows up in the way that teams communicate or don’t, and then it shows up in patient-to-provider interactions as well,” she said, noting that safe open spaces are especially important for employees right now. Rady Children’s Hospital hosts monthly dialogue sessions, where employees have guided personal conversations.

“Being in a border town right now is really hard,” she said. “Not just for our patients and families, but this is impacting our people on a very personal level, with their families, with them, so it’s been a really tough time.”

 Maldonado understands that it’s also an uneasy time for DEI practitioners, but she’s been able to keep employees engaged in their work by focusing on employees who may have more “neutral” views about DEI.

Maldonado estimates that 20% of workers are all-in on DEI and 20% hate it. “I’m really focused on [the other] 60% because that’s where we can have the biggest impact. And it’s folks that maybe don’t understand it,” she said, so she shows employees why the work is good for patients. “I’m not there to change anybody’s beliefs. I’m not there to change anybody’s mind. I’m there to help people deliver better care.”

“The more that we’re able to connect with people, the more that they see themselves reflected in the folks who are providing their care, and that’s in culture, language, identity all of the above, the better experience they’re going to have, which impacts their care outcome. And at the end of the day, that is why every single one of us should be there, and if it’s not, then that’s a different conversation.”

How a hospital DEI program succeeds

Rady Children’s Hospital leans on a DEI council, monthly dialogue sessions, and customized training.

How one hospital chief diversity officer is keeping employees engaged for better care

July is Disability Pride Month. It’s a month where disability is celebrated, and not treated as a tragedy, as the country recognizes the continued fight for equality.

But taking center stage this year are three Trump administration directives that some say would impede disability progress in a world that, 35 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act, still regularly leaves out disabled people.

“They’re [the administration] viewing people with disabilities, perhaps as second class citizens,” Armando Contreras, president and CEO of United Cerebral Palsy, told HR Brew. “They’re viewing them in a way that they are not a fabric of our economic engine.”

. Earlier this month, the Department of Labor abandoned a rule that would have ended the subminimum wage for disabled people, claiming that the program remains necessary. Section 14(c) was developed in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act and allows employers to pay disabled people below the minimum wage in certain instances.

Currently at least 35,000 disabled people are paid a subminimum wage, and sometimes make just 25 cents an hour, according to last year’s investigation by 

. Many disability advocates and disabled workers claim that rule 14(c) allows for segregation and exploitation of disabled workers.

For decades, advocates have called for an end to rule 14(c), and the Biden administration had been on that path before Trump came back to office. The subminimum wage will still be legal nationally but 16 states, including Illinois, Virginia, and Oregon, have already passed measures to phase it out.

Some would like to see the subminimum wage continue, and believe it’s best for people with “severe disabilities” and good for the labor market, according to 

“It’'s like an economic inequality for people with disabilities.” Contreras said. “People with disabilities are the fabric of society, and they contribute to the country, and they should have the same opportunity as anybody else to earn a living wage.”

Contreras added that 14(c) is a concern for all disabled people, not just those currently making less than the minimum wage. People making close to the minimum wage could be afraid that employers will feel more open and ready to use 14(c), and possibly put more disabled workers back on a path to poverty, he said.

 On July 1, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer introduced a proposed rule that would end a key provision in Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, 

. If it goes through (as expected, after the comment period ends on September 2), federal contractors will no longer be required to have disabled people make up 7% of their workforce.

In the rule filing, the Labor Department expressed “concerns that the self-identification and utilization goal regulations [in the existing regulations] are inconsistent with the ADA.”

However, Anupa Iyer Geevarghese, former deputy policy director at the DOL’s Office of Federal Contractor Compliance Programs (which the administration shut down), told Mother Jones that employers weren’t asking the government to end the mandate and is concerned that the move restricts job opportunities for disabled talent.

 Meanwhile, a Department of Energy (DOE) rule introduced in May could upend yet another Rehabilitation Act provision by eliminating Section 504 that requires new and modified federally funded buildings to abide by a universal set of accessibility standards, 

The DOE believes the mandate, which has been in place since the 1970s, is redundant and is “unduly burdensome.” The agency was fast-tracking the rule (a move advocates said was highly unusual for this type of policy change), but placed the changes on hold on July 21, after receiving an influx of “adverse comments,” Disability Scoop 

Disability advocates are concerned the new rule will have far-reaching negative effects. “This would inevitably lead to the construction of less accessible or even inaccessible facilities,” Amy Robertson, a civil rights attorney, told 

. “It would also create havoc (for) the entities that receive funding from the Department of Energy, as they would no longer have to follow the (Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards), but would still be open to liability under general non-discrimination requirements.”

Inaccessible buildings means inaccessible workplaces for disabled people, and Contreras said the new rule signals the government doesn’t care about access. “If you get hired, and you can’t go to work, are you going to even want to go to work if you don’t have an environment that is welcoming?”

Still, Contreras remains hopeful for disability inclusion moving forward. “For many years, the government was moving towards this inclusivity,” he said. “It’s my hope that they continue to play a major role, or we need to begin to bring that awareness again, that people with disabilities are part of our community. They are not a separate community.”

Empty hospital wheelchair with a large penny sitting on it

Trump administration policies could harm disabled workers

The administration is keeping the subminimum wage, eliminating certain accessibility requirements and abandoning a federal contract rule. 

 how to reframe diversity, equity, and inclusion language for more than a year. They’ve trotted out phrases like “employee experience” and “inclusion and belonging.” But what about…blueprint?

SHRM, one of the largest consortiums of HR leaders in the world with nearly 340,000 members, recently 

 that it rebranded its DEI-focused annual conference that’s been around for nearly 30 years, and many DEI leaders said it’s another disappointing move by the organization.

The conference, which began in 1996, was once called the Workplace Diversity Conference and slowly evolved to SHRM Inclusion. Now, as politicians and right-wing activists have made DEI a political cudgel, the conference was renamed Blueprint last month. SHRM claims that the name change doesn’t shift the mission for building an inclusive workplace, but that remains to be seen.

“We’re doubling down on inclusion for all by offering you deeper legal insight and real-world action plans,” SHRM CEO Johnny C. Taylor Jr., said in a 

 about the change. Taylor insists that the rebrand is about offering new legal guidance and that the organization isn’t “afraid” of DEI language, but terms such as equity and inclusion are largely absent from the SHRM Blueprint conference website.

Blueprint will focus on a “compliant, connected, competitive.” And Taylor 

 his SHRM 2025 keynote that workers are entitled to equality but not equity (although many scholars argue that equity is essential for DEI).

 does not appear to focus on its DEI roots. The word diversity is used just once, while inclusion, equity, and equality aren’t anywhere to be found. The focus instead is on the legal frameworks, hinting at the executive orders around DEI (which haven’t actually 

 despite the Trump administration’s executive orders).

The new language is different from just one year ago, when SHRM talked openly about equity, conscious inclusion, and creating a better workplace where all employees “have the opportunity to thrive.”

Some HR professionals commended SHRM for the move. “The HR profession is progressing and changing and we as professionals need to meet the challenges by being prepared…Thank you for ensuring we are ready to face the storms,” James Abeyta Stevens wrote in response to Taylor’s post.

HR Brew asked its community about the change, and more than 30 people 

 in opposition, with a number of DEI and HR leaders commenting that the organization is engaged in erasure. Some of the respondents believe SHRM is “capitulating” to political pressure. (The organization has made several controversial DEI-related decisions in recent years, as it 

 its DEI language last summer to focus more on inclusion, and was scrutinized for its response to Covid-19, George Floyd, and the Black Lives Matter movement, 

“SHRM Blueprint is more than a rebrand. It dilutes the historical foundation of the learnings and labor that defined the DEI movement and distances the work from its purpose,” said Glenwood Avery, who works in talent acquisition.

Jim Link, CHRO at SHRM, told HR Brew he stood by the organization’s rebrand. “I am 100% comfortable that the idea of establishing a blueprint for how we move forward as a human resources community,” he said, adding that this approach is all to ensure that the new model is “business accretive…The way that we’re addressing this [is] legally compliant, workforce unifying, workplace unifying.”

Illustration of a worker painting over a wall mural that reads DEI.

DEI