The first months of Donald Trump’s second term as President of the United States was always going to be a turbulent time.

But for supporters of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), the sheer volume of corporate allies rolling back, watering down or abandoning altogether their commitments must have been a hugely unwelcome shock.

Swathes of organizations have announced – in varying degrees of volume – a reverse to their policies as the war on anything with even a whiff of woke continues.

From a wider perspective, this trend shows just how quickly the tide can turn against what had been a core pillar for numerous organization’s human-centric strategies.

While the Leader of the Free World has made his disdain for DEI in government departments clear during his election campaign, Trump followed through by eliminating “illegal DEI” activities from federal agencies in January.

But a significant factor has been the willing participation of various business leaders in forcing out DEI mandates. Elon Musk, Lululemon founder Chip Wilson, and billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, have all made outspoken public remarks about DEI in the past year.

It’s also perhaps of little surprise that tech giants Meta and Amazon quickly dropped DEI policies following Trump’s second inauguration, given that Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos were both in attendance.

Like most socio-economic issues that have bled – or in this case, been brute forced – into the corporate world, there is no simple resolution. It’s highly likely that dividing lines between those for and against DEI will only become further entrenched in the short term.

A quiet retreat from historic commitments will hurt employees

There’s a reason so many of the organizations that are pulling back from their promises and commitments to DEI are doing so as quietly as possible.

It speaks volumes that so many companies are communicating their decisions through internal means, although that invariably finds its way into the press regardless. 

Compare this to the way organizations had previously introduced these policies and initiatives – the lack of fanfare now is deafening. Indeed, it seems like the only ones truly celebrating these moves are Trump, et al.

Overall there is a sense of shame almost in the way these reversals are being communicated to employees, a sense of desperation in the linguistic gymnastics conveying how some will focus their efforts in areas that are basically synonyms for D,E or I going forward.

It’s almost inevitable that no-one has cared to ask employees what they think of all this. For the majority nothing will change, but that’s also the whole point – employees that benefitted from DEI initiatives, whether that be widened talent slates in the recruitment process, training programs or support for LGBTQ+ events, are the ones who lose here.

It would be understandable for this cohort of workers to lose faith in their employers in such circumstances, a feeling of the rug being pulled from under their feet leaving only unstable ground to move forward on (or backwards, depending on your viewpoint).

Of course, there will also be some that agree with the removal of DEI from their workplace, cheer that the workplace should be first and foremost focused on work instead of social issues, and promote that all traces of DEI be removed permanently.

This is where HR leaders and managers find themselves in 2025. On the outside, it looks like a lose-lose scenario, stuck between mandates from the very top and employees feeling abandoned by their employer.

HR is at a DEI crossroads and needs to choose the right way forward

The issue for HR leaders is one of conviction – do they acquiesce to the will of boards and accept that this is simply the way the wind is blowing, or do they dig their heels in and ensure that DEI lives on, albeit with different branding?

When I asked the question ‘Will workplace DEIB become a victim of the culture wars?’ at the start of last year, it was clear from the responses from HR experts UNLEASH spoke to that there was a resounding need to embed DEI across organizational priorities.

Organizations that have previously taken a different path with DEI may have made themselves easy victims for anti-DEI warriors by painting a target on themselves. 

Some of the key criticisms against DEI policies are that they can be too performative, lead to increasingly politicized and divided workplaces, favor certain groups of employees over others and can be implemented without proper accountability.

Examples such as Wells Fargo’s ‘fake interviews’ and Google’s head of diversity’s social media activity show that successful DEI is all about getting a committed leader that understands this is a nuanced and delicate topic, one that requires a deft touch and flexibility.

One and done DEI policies cannot hope to encompass the broad spectrum of the modern workforce, one that is often multi-regional, multi-faith and multi-gendered. Policies that are mandated from a government, regulatory or even board level cannot hope to succeed as intended because they do not take into account the individual needs of the workforce.

HR leaders that keep their conviction in the virtues of DEI will know this and will be working hard to instill those beliefs across their organizations, regardless of the noise surrounding them.

It’s clear that the agenda against DEI will be maintained throughout the current US Presidential term, but it will be interesting to see how far it spreads in other nations. We’re already seeing different regional arms take opposing stances, such as Deloitte and McDonalds in the US and the UK.

But this trend also speaks to much wider and systemic issues that cannot be ignored – that a handful of people have accrued so much wealth and influence that they can force organizations, representing millions upon millions of workers around the world, to suit their own world view.

For the time being, that world view doesn’t include DEI in the workplace and it may be some time before it returns, perhaps under a new identity.

But I believe it will return, because at the end of the day DEI is about people – and people will never go out of fashion.

The question is: How much damage will have been done in the meantime and can it be reversed?