Upcoming EEA YouTube Show: How Companies Got DEI Wrong and What They Can Do About It
This upcoming Enterprise Engagement Alliance YouTube show April 24, 2025 addresses what many organizations got wrong about DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and what they can do about it.Click here for EEA sponsors; here to subscribe, and here for an RRN media kit.
The Enterprise Engagement Alliance anticipated the negative reaction to the prevalent approach to DEI in 2021. Our approach focused then and now on DEI as a source of value creation, not as an ethnic retribution or compliance issue.
Click here to register for this live YouTube show April 24 at 1 PM ET. It features Eric Darrisaw, Principal of New York-based Lazarus Advisors, Board Member for the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility in New York and who is Co-Engagement Officer for the NACP ETF alongside program guest Dorien Nunez, who is Co-Founder, The OMNIResearch Group, New Orleans. Rounding out the panel is Allan Schweyer, Principal, Human Capital, for the Conference Board, New York. Darrisaw and Nunez recently co-authored along with Bruce Bolger, EEA Founder and program host, this article: Here’s How CEOs Got DEI Wrong and What They Can Do About it.
Given the general pushback on DEI and legal pressures from the Trump Administration, the time is right to legitimately re-evaluate the best path forward. In 2021, when the issue of DEI in business was reaching its peak in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the EEA published both an article, It’s Time to Focus on the ROI of Diversity, and produced a YouTube show The ROI of DEI. It warned against using the same approach in business utilized to address social inequity issues in government, law, and society. The show and article cautioned that much of the efforts in business could be seen as wasteful and virtue signaling unless tied to clear value creation.
Four years later, this show will focus on what went wrong and what can be done to correct it. A recent survey of 1,000 human resources managers by Resume.org found that 56% believe the organization’s efforts were primarily for virtue signaling. It finds that 12.5% of companies are eliminating or reducing DEI programs in 2025, due to shifts in the political climate. Savings on DEI funds are being shifted to operations and AI by 40% of respondents, according to the survey. This recent ESM article outlines the changes in DEI regulations under the Trump administration as well as the latest shareholder activity on the subject.
Rather than address the issue of DEI in business as a racial equity or compliance issue as it is in society and legal matters, should the issue not be better addressed in terms of value creation, a business opportunity, and risk mitigation? If it makes sense that an organization should draw investors and stakeholders from every possible community, what is the best way to do that without preferential treatment based on race, age, or gender preferences?
Enterprise Engagement Alliance Services
Celebrating our 15th year, the Enterprise Engagement Alliance helps organizations enhance performance through:1. Information and marketing opportunities on stakeholder management and total rewards:
- ESM Weekly on stakeholder management since 2009. Click here to subscribe; click here for media kit.
- RRN Weekly on total rewards since 1996. Click here to subscribe; click here for media kit.
- EEA YouTube channel on enterprise engagement, human capital, and total rewards since 2020
Management Academy to enhance future equity value for your organization.3. Books on implementation: Enterprise Engagement for CEOs and Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap.
4. Advisory services and research: Strategic guidance, learning and certification on stakeholder management, measurement, metrics, and corporate sustainability reporting.
5. Permission-based targeted business development to identify and build relationships with the people most likely to buy.
Contact: Bruce Bolger at TheICEE.org; 914-591-7600, ext. 230.
