Revelio Labs: Attrition is 2x higher in diversity teams

The ‘culture wars‘ are coming for businesses, and their diversity, equity and inclusion commitments.

The huge progress that’s been made since 2020 – when the murder of George Floyd (and the resulting ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement) prompted corporations across the world to pledge to do better around diversity – is stalling, and in some cases moving backwards.

That’s according to research from the Tech Talent Charter.

HR leaders are battling to not just to keep their diversity budgets, but also retain staff dedicated to pushing the inclusion agenda in their organization.

In February 2024 alone, layoffs at the likes of Zoom and Snap have affected employees in their diversity teams.

UNLEASH reached out to Zoom and Snap for comment – we are yet to receive a reply from Snap, but a Zoom spokesperson said: “Zoom remains committed to DEI and ensuring its principles remain firmly rooted in our DNA across our entire company.”

According to data produced by Revelio Labs, the likes of Salesforce, Meta, Tesla, DoorDash, Lyft, Walgreens and Honeywell have also experienced high attrition from their diversity teams.

Speaking exclusively to UNLEASH, Revelio Labs’ chief economist Lisa Simon makes it clear that these reductions in diversity team sizes at these huge companies aren’t necessarily all attributable to layoffs – as the Washington Post reporting hinted at.

In reality, it is as much to do with voluntary turnover and resignations by staff. And while they are being replaced – “we’re seeing the turnover rate to be much higher than the actual headcount reduction” – this is still a worrying trend.

People are leaving on their own account”, because “it seems these companies have not a provided an environment where these roles can be productive”, notes Simon.

They feel they can’t make the difference they wanted to in businesses, and “it’s clearly not a priority for these companies to make [these diversity employees] stay”.

Simon adds that a major issue for companies is that management have “unrealistic goals” for how quick the returns will be diversity programs.

“This is a very slow moving problem”, it won’t be solved by hiring a head of diversity or a small team, that can’t fix an organization’s talent pipeline over night.

These conclusions are based on Revelio Labs’ exploring the attrition data of 10,000 large companies, both public and private, with a presence in the US.

Analysis found that the attrition rate of diversity roles is almost twice as high as other roles.

While Revelio Labs did not compare diversity attrition with other HR roles specifically, Simon tells UNLEASH that “HR does tend to have a lower turnover rate”, so this suggests there’s something “amiss” in the diversity space.

This is of particular concern as the growth rate of diversity roles across those 10,000 companies sites at a worrying -8%.

Credit: Revelio Labs.

It’s not all doom and gloom with diversity

Despite the challenging landscape, there remain lots of bright spots.

A big part of the work we do at UNLEASH is to share the stories of employers going above and beyond on various HR topics. In the realm of diversity and inclusion, we’ve shone a light on the great work of companies like KPMG, Sky, The Body Shop, and Lloyds.

These companies, among many others, really do create hope that not all is lost on diversity – plus the Tech Talent Charter’s research did find that huge strides have been in certain areas, specifically neurodiversity and socio-economic diversity.

Other good news comes from Revelio Labs research did find increases in diversity team sizes in more traditional industries like real estate, healthcare and retail.

For instance, retail giant Kingfisher plc’s diversity team grew 117.2% in 2023, Victoria’s Secret’s team increased by 65.9%, and Farfetch saw 54.8% growth.

Healthcare giants Dr Consulta and Moderna also saw increases, as did real estate giant American Tower.

For Simon, this finding “gives me hope” that the benefits of diversity are “trickling down through the economy”, and haven’t got stuck in the tech bubble.

Credit: Revelio Labs.

Data and the path forward on diversity

It is clear that the situation around diversity attrition is complicated, and specific to particular sectors, and even companies.

Simon reminds UNLEASH that it is important to remember that the tech giants who dominate the list of brands with a reducing diversity team size really led this charge in 2020 – they may have over-hired then, and are now just rebalancing and course correcting.

Whereas a lot of team growth comes from brands earlier on in their diversity journeys.

However, the key to success is for employers to really lean into data and analytics, as industry expert and previous UNLEASH America speaker Serena Huang writes in a recent newsletter.

HR need to interrogate their own attrition and tenure data, and figure out how the figures for their diversity teams compares to the rest of company.

If it gives them cause for concern, then HR teams need to really find out the reason, and do something to fix it.

They need to really prove to their diversity teams (and not to mention the wider workforce) that, despite the culture wars, the organization is committed to being a diverse, equitable, and inclusive employer.

Given how beneficial diversity and inclusion is for business, now is not the time for employers to take their foot off the gas.

Yes, there’s a looming recession, but HR needs to push for continued investments in this space to stop that progress back sliding any further and impacting business bottom lines.

Remember, this diversity work is “a marathon, not a sprint”, in the words of Simon. Politicized culture wars come and go, employers need to stay the course if they want to continue to thrive.