Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
#AccelerateAction: Are we Accelerating Fast Enough?
The 2025 International Women’s Day theme is #AccelerateAction. The irony is that at the current rate it will take 5 generations (this means 134 years from now) to bridge the gender gap[i]. Not much of an acceleration I must say unfortunately. With reasonable level of confidence, I can argue that my great great great grandsons or daughters will be lucky if they see this being achieved in their lifetime. Unfortunately, the sad reality facing us today is that several organisations have recently taken a myopic view on this and scaled back or eliminated their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. For instance,
1. State Street: A global financial service organization with a net worth of ~US$ 26bln, have quietly eliminated their board diversity mandates and removed the web page explaining their DEI goals.
2. American Airlines: The company did not include a section on DEI in their 2024 annual report, a departure from previous years.
3. JetBlue: JetBlue's most recent annual report lacks any statements on DEI hiring policies.
4. United Airlines: United Airlines also removed mentions of DEI from their latest annual report.
5. GSK: The British drugmaker has stopped setting diversity targets and removed its DEI page.
6. Paramount: They will no longer set numerical hiring goals for race, ethnicity, sex, or gender, and have ceased collecting demographic data from U.S. job applicants unless legally required.
7. PepsiCo: The company no longer uses representation hiring targets and has shifted its focus to more generalized business objectives.
8. Meta: Meta has decided to end its key DEI programs, including those related to hiring, training, and supplier diversity. This move aligns with a broader trend among some companies to scale back DEI initiatives due to changing legal and policy landscapes.
Recently a report by the World Bank Group came out, namely, Women, Business, and the Law 2024. An eye-opening report on the sad state of affairs around women. They state and I quote, “Although economies have made notable progress over the decades in enacting equal opportunity laws for women, today women enjoy less than two-thirds of the legal rights available to men. The lower number is because of major deficiencies Safety and Childcare. The weakness is greatest in women’s safety. Women enjoy barely a third of the legal protections they need from domestic violence, sexual harassment, child marriage, and femicide. Although 151 economies have laws in place prohibiting sexual harassment in the workplace, just 39 have laws prohibiting it in public spaces. Women do, then, face perils in using public transportation to travel to work. Overall, 139 economies lack adequate legislation prohibiting child marriage, which typically quashes a girl’s future educational and economic opportunities. Women spend on average, 2.4 hours a day more on unpaid care work than men—much of it involving children. Expanding access to childcare tends to increase women’s participation in the labor force by about 1 percentage point initially, with the effect doubling within five years. Only 62 economies—fewer than a third—have established quality standards governing childcare services. As a result, in 128 economies women may think twice about going to work while they have children in their care.”
While the report itself brings amazing revelations, but had we kept our eyes and ears open we would have been conscious enough about the changes and challenges in the social fabric of the country that hinders DEI. Let me elaborate this a bit with two of my practical experiences as I came back to a local role in Bangladesh after my long hiatus in Southeast Asia. I observed a much a higher incidence of Hijab usage (head covering) and Abaya usage (long loose robe like garment that covers the body) than what I was used to before I had left the country especially in urban areas of Bangladesh. Here are two stories that helped me to go under the skin.
· I was at a consumer home visit, something that we commonly and frequently do in the fast-moving consumer goods business to understand shifts and changes in consumer preferences. I was freely conversing with this young lady along with the research associate who was also a male. As we were discussing about her lifestyle, she started telling us why she always wears a Hijab and an Abaya when she goes out. The penny dropped immediately as I figured that she was wearing it not for religious compulsion, but as a shield against abuse she faces while travelling in public transport.
· Another remarkably similar incident happened at a gym I used to go that time. It was incredibly early in the morning, and as I was huffing and puffing on the treadmill, I noticed a lady in Abaya enter the gym. A bit unusual for an upmarket club gym to see such a thing. She went directly to the changing room and lo behold who comes out is the personal trainer for the female members of the club. Her previous attire was more for saving her grace from any of the external nuisances while she was comfortable in moving around in the gym attire and engaging with everyone else casually.
While such examples paint a gloomy story it also reiterates the importance of really upping our games to understand the drivers for power of diversity. Given my professional experience I had the opportunity to work across the globe which has taken me to various parts of the world and has opened my eyes and shown the power of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Here are some stories I hope helps you to understand the power of DEI.
· This was in my initial days in Unilever, I believe in 2004 or 2005, a good 20 years back at least. I had gone to our Unilever Thailand office for work and headed to the marketing floor. Once I reached the floor, having finished all the necessary security paraphernalia, I came to a floor where almost 70%-80% of the colleagues were women. Having grown in a country of similar ethnicity and surrounded by men, I suddenly realised how it feels to be the weaker sex.
· During my one of my Unilever global stints, I had 7-8 nationalities reporting into me. One of them was a Japanese Brand Manager, who had taught me how to appreciate understanding differences, within which lies the power of diversity. One fine morning as I started my work out of my Manila office, I received this email from her. Written in English and given the choice of words she used, I found the email to be rude, discourteous, and borderline insolent. I immediately picked up the phone and dialed her number and in south Asian frenzy asked her why she had written such a mail, only to be faced by this demure Japanese girl who was calmly explaining her argument which was not only logical but also very intuitive. I hung up the phone and later was reflecting what happened. It was only later that my boss explained how language is a barrier for expression. While as South Asian we think and write in English as if it is our 1st language many parts of the world people think in vernacular and then translate that into English. Many also have limited set of vocabulary to express themselves and hence the choice of words in communication may not be correct and may lead to misunderstanding at times.
· During the same stint I realised the power of diversity when I found that some part of my team was more analytical, some were more creative, while others were more execution savvy and then there were some who harnessed their strategic sides more. When I was able to complement the team the best of the world came together, and I understood the true power of diversity.
I am sure many of us would have so many such stories that liberated us from our blinders or helped in removing the tunnel vision. Our own unconscious biases (associations we hold, outside our conscious awareness and control.) is another Achillies heel we have, one of these days I will also write about it as well. Thankfully, some of the other standard bearers like Unilever, P&G, Delta Airlines, Google, Apple Microsoft and many such progressive organisations remain committed to their DEI initiatives. These companies have defended its DEI policies against external pressures and continues to focus on creating a culture of inclusion and belonging. We need advocate the causes of such organisations more so that we can work together against the tidal wave that is going against DEI, a fad that I am sure will also pass soon so that we may #AccelerateAction.
[i] https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/06/global-gender-gap-2024-what-to-know/