You might think the headline’s a bit clickbaity, but honestly, I’ve been pondering this question for a good few months now.
I was catching up with some friends recently, and when the topic of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) came up, they both had a similar viewpoint: companies should simply hire the best person for the job, end of discussion. It shouldn’t matter if they’re male, female, Black, white, or anything else – just the most qualified individual.
In theory, they have a point, don’t they? That’s how it should ideally work.
The idea that companies should just “hire the best person for the job, regardless” certainly sounds fair and meritocratic at first glance. Why should someone’s gender or background matter if they can excel in the role? It’s a sentiment many share, and it’s easy to see the initial appeal of this straightforward approach.
However, this perspective often overlooks a rather significant hurdle: unconscious bias.
The idea that companies should ‘hire the best person for the job, regardless’ sounds fair and meritocratic at first glance
Even with the best intentions, our brains can have ingrained preferences for people who are similar to ourselves, which can lead to skewed decision-making. This isn’t about people deliberately being unfair; it’s more about those automatic, often unnoticed biases that can influence who gets an opportunity.
During my time at an employee benefits publication, D&I was a frequent topic. Reports and surveys consistently highlighted how ingrained these biases can be.
For instance, CIPD research from 2015 indicated that job applications with names perceived as being from minority ethnic backgrounds received fewer positive responses compared to those with names perceived as being of white origin, and male interviewees experienced more success than their female counterparts.
Now, I don’t think anyone’s deliberately being unfair here, but it’s human nature to click with someone who has a similar background to you. That’s the tricky part about unconscious bias.
It’s human nature to click with someone who has a similar background to you
Another CIPD survey in 2022 revealed that only 25% of employers actually consult data before planning new inclusion and diversity initiatives. This suggests that many organisations might be implementing D&I efforts without a clear understanding of the issues they’re trying to tackle or whether their actions are likely to be effective.
The same report noted that reviewing job descriptions to accurately reflect job requirements and using structured interviews are among the top practices employed to foster more inclusive and diverse recruitment processes.
This indicates a recognition of the need to actively counter potential biases right from the initial stages of hiring. In fact, a 2023 report showed that a significant 57% of UK businesses consider equality, diversity and inclusion a strategic priority when recruiting new staff.
So clearly, for many organisations, D&I isn’t just an afterthought but a key part of their talent acquisition strategy.
Advisers urged to shout about their profession to improve diversity
What I think these D&I efforts did, at least initially, was to shed light on those hidden biases, so people could actually understand what was going on.
It’s something I think about a lot, personally. As a Black woman, the idea that I might walk into a room and someone could just see me as a “D&I hire” is a bit disheartening, especially when they don’t know the work I’ve put in or the less direct path I’ve sometimes had to take to get here.
Now, with the Trump administration in the US winding down DEI initiatives, quite a few American companies have reacted by pausing or stopping their own D&I work. But that might actually be a misstep for them. A survey from Numerator found that supermarket chain Target has seen shoppers, particularly those who care about D&I, switching over to competitor Costco. Interesting, right?
Beyond it just being the right thing to do, embracing D&I actually makes good business sense. It allows you to connect with and serve a wider range of customers. Whether that’s having a better understanding of different cultures, how they handle money, or even just realising you might need to communicate differently with neurodiverse individuals.
Beyond it just being the right thing to do, embracing D&I actually makes good business sense
And with women now holding a significant 60% of the wealth in the UK, there’s a huge potential client base out there who might prefer a different approach or simply prefer a female adviser.
I recently spoke to Andrew Montlake from Coreco, who won the Diversity and Inclusion Champion of the Year award at our sister publication, Mortgage Strategy. His thoughts on the US cutting back on DEI and whether it would affect the UK were pretty insightful.
He confirmed that some big companies with their head offices in the US had asked their UK teams to put D&I activities on hold. He also made a really good point about “D&I fatigue”.
He said it’s happening in two ways: people thinking “oh no, not more D&I, haven’t we dealt with this already?” and people like me or him feeling like they’ve tried hard but aren’t seeing enough change quickly enough. He does worry that some of that fatigue will creep in.
You might just find yourselves getting left behind while more genuine companies move forward
His feeling was spot on: “If a company sees Trump’s stance and thinks, ‘Great, we don’t need to bother with this expensive, time-consuming D&I stuff any more,’ it probably means they weren’t really committed to it in the first place.”
And I think that’s the key takeaway. If you’re just doing D&I as a tick-box exercise, without genuinely caring about having a diverse workplace with a real mix of ideas and solutions, then it was never going to work. You might just find yourselves getting left behind while more genuine companies move forward, powered by fresh perspectives from diverse backgrounds.
So, a fleeting trend or a fundamental shift? I’m betting on the latter, but only for those who are truly invested.
