More bosses are pulling the handbrake on costly diversity initiatives after realising they have allowed toxic identity politics to enter their workplace and wasted millions of pounds on pointless schemes. The Telegraph has more.
Behind office doors, HR departments at some of Britain’s biggest businesses have recently been feeling defensive and on the back foot.
Increasingly laid at their doors is the blame for allowing toxic identity politics to enter the workplace, and wasting millions of pounds on pointless diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes.
Pointing the finger are belt-tightening senior leaders scrutinising their returns amid soaring wage bills, with some even feeling betrayed for being shepherded by HR into the vicious culture wars.
Christoffer Ellehuus, the Chief Executive of workplace training company MindGym, says: “A lot of them are blaming HR for not having reined it in and having had a much clearer business focus about what they were doing.”
Fuelling this blame game are recent findings that Britain’s diversity drive is “counterproductive” despite businesses spending millions of pounds on ultimately ineffective workplace initiatives.
It was the conclusion of an independent report commissioned by Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, which discovered popular so-called ESG (environmental, social and governance) practices had little to no tangible impact on boosting diversity or reducing prejudice.
Ms. Badenoch in March warned British companies against outsourcing or delegating to workplace training consultants with “potentially conflicting incentives” which are ultimately selling “snake oil”.
She told the Times: “There are lots of people who just cook up stuff and say, ‘Oh, I’ve got a course. Why don’t you buy my course?’ … They’ve been making money out of selling stuff that is not evidence-based.”
Badenoch’s report is damning for HR departments who now face questions from their superiors about why they fell prey to so-called snake oil sellers in the first place.
This includes decisions to roll out divisive training programmes in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, designed to spread awareness around unconscious bias, white privilege and gender pronouns.
However, what were sold as quick fixes to create a fairer workplace – in online training sessions as short as 30 minutes – many have discovered to be little more than fashionable fads with damaging consequences.
Worth reading in full.
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“wasting millions of pounds on pointless diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes”
Far from pointless, though not the purported point (to increase “fairness” – whatever that is).
What would a non-pointless “DEI” scheme look like? What is the “point” of “DEI”? Why is it “good”?
It is intended to wreck free market capitalism by sabotaging meritocracy.
Absolutely.
and again
and again
The serial red arrow fiend strikes again
“…feeling betrayed for being shepherded by HR into the vicious culture wars.”
If all this causes companies to lose money and/or go bankrupt then it’s win/win for the anti-capitalists. Do companies not see that DEI (DIE) is Marxist?
“…quick fixes to create a fairer workplace”
The workplace was already fair as it could be.
“Fairness” sounds good but it seems like attempts to impose “fairness” (whatever that is) just lead to something that looks like the opposite of fairness.
And, as with all these things: who decides what is ‘fair’ and how do you challenge their decision?
The NHS advertises constantly for ‘Diversity Officers’. In an organisation that is already possibly the most diverse employer in the world…
Hmm. sounds familiar.
What metrics do HR departments survive by? If all other departments in a company have to show value for resources expended how do HR get away with just pissing money up the wall?
The only way to get away with saying black is white (or vice versa) is in politics – where lying is
expectedrequired.I was working at a company that embraced this stuff (like many others) after the BLM hysteria. I looked into it at the time and the research had already shown that these courses did not have any measurable difference on prejudice. We have turned away from science and embraced doing things just for the sake of doing them. I’d also add that as the company HR nazis cracked down on all form of political correctness and embraced lecturing us about sexism, racism etc. the workplace became increasing miserable as everyone was too scared to crack a joke.
I’m surprised they have no effect, they always seemed designed to rub against the nap and irritate, to me? Certainly, my own small experience leads me to believe we are probably in a worse place than we were 40 years ago.
I agree we are in a worse place than 40 years ago
Making life fairer for everyone. What’s not to like about that?
This is how, like a Trojan Horse, DEI infiltrated all aspects of our lives.
Good luck getting this nightmare back in the box, after you embraced it so enthusiastically. People tried to tell you but you mostly forced them out or passed them over… good, you can reap what you’ve sown, as we all will after five years of what is already, increasingly, appearing to be a lunatic potential government…
yep I’ve published a series of articles on this platform about this.
The only problem is that the MSM appear to have just woken up!
And we’re about to get all this nonsense on steroids from the Labour Party!
Only because they are seeing a drop in profits.