How to save workplace diversity schemes from the DEI backlash (without collecting more data)

Kevin Guyan, Chancellor's Fellow, University of Edinburgh

Tue, Mar 11, 2025, 1:55 p.m. 5 min read

In a radio discussion on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace, a journalist asked me which year these schemes started in the UK. I felt thrown by the question. It assumed that the broad array of initiatives associated with DEI, including policies, training programmes, themed events and staff networks, had an inception date. I responded, as I often do: “It’s complicated.”

DEI schemes are facing significant challenges. In the USA, president Donald Trump has used executive orders to terminate initiatives across federal agencies. Some private companies, including those with headquarters in the UK, have also seized on this moment to cut these commitments.

Critics may argue the objectives of DEI schemes have gone too far and mutated into a dogmatic belief system.

It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly, for them, a line was crossed. Perhaps it was when senior civil servants urged their teams to recognise “white privilege”, when employers introduced changes to reflect colleagues’ neurodiversity or when policies began acknowledging trans and non-binary people?

As a researcher and writer on DEI, I find myself pushed into a corner. Aware that comments like “It’s complicated” do not create a snappy soundbite, I feel coaxed into defending all these schemes. Even though my work has long argued that many approaches do nothing to address entrenched inequities in organisations (for example, poor working conditions, low pay and precarious employment – problems not unique to minority communities).

Even worse, they can give the illusion of action, preventing more worthwhile initiatives from taking place.

But there is an opportunity to reimagine DEI in the workplace, ensuring that potentially transformative schemes are not abandoned because of political winds. That may also mean choosing not to defend schemes that were never fit for purpose.

To help shepherd in this new era, it is essential to focus on how organisations categorise and count workers. In most UK workplaces, employees are invited to disclose information about their sex, race, sexual orientation, disability, religion and other characteristics in their human resources record. This data is used to give insights on diversity across roles, calculate pay gaps, design recruitment schemes and for other targeted initiatives.

Data about workers’ identity characteristics – and the contours of categories that determine who counts – is the fuel that powers DEI schemes. For individuals who fall between category cracks, a data-first approach was never going to represent their lives and experiences in a meaningful way and always force them into boxes not of their choosing.