Diversity backlash is nothing new
When Birmingham City Council was taking Equality and Diversity very earnestly an adjacent Local Authority would have non of it. A colleague of mine working in HR took the post of head of HR in this anti E&D organisation. I was surprised they went to work there and on meeting them a couple of months after taking up the position I asked how they dealt with the hostility to E&D amongst board members. I assumed the response would be that he was unable to progress issues around women, people with a disability, homosexuality, and faith. But far from it . They said they were continuing to work in the same way as they had in Birmingham the difference was HR never refers to E&D but instead talked constantly about fairness. Equal pay for women was a fairness issue, tackling bullying was a fairness issue, recruitment was a fairness issue. True there was no Black workers support group, no compulsory race awareness training and no recruitment targets but they insisted this did not mean they were unable champion E&D just that they had to do it in a different way.
So when I read that organisations are rebranding Diversity to avoid the growing backlash I am reminded of my colleagues experience. Many organisations have in any case been changing the emphasis in EDI to focus more on Inclusion. The reason being they recognise they have a diverse workforce/ organisation what they need is to make every one feel they belong. But if rebranding is just calling things by a different name to avoid some of the negative criticism associated with EDI then talking about “fairness “ might work. Certainly I take my colleagues experience as evidence that HR can still champion an agenda that does the same job as EDI but under a different banner. After all the aim is to establish a compassionate, fair workplace where everyone feels they belong not to have impressive sounding EDI statements.
Blair McPherson former director author and blogger www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
