The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiative in the United States was created to battle systemic racism and discrimination, encouraging companies and organizations to do their part to overcome this barrier and do their best to hire people from historically disadvantaged groups.
It was an effort to help workforce look more like our nation’s population. Recently, politicians and activists, and even some billionaires have attacked even the conversation around equity. The challenge with this approach is that we are in the middle of a talent shortage. Many of the companies I work with keep saying the same thing.
They need talent, like yesterday. And they want every source explored to find and develop homegrown talent. It’s true that some DEI initiatives were mismanaged by some companies in an effort to show that they were doing something that they weren’t. But this controversy is distracting us from the sheer numbers.
We need to develop and empower more potential workers and professionals while we can in the face of a shrinking population. The consequences of sidelining part of our potential talent pool could affect everything. What I see is a rise in health care costs because of the shortage of nurses, doctors, and specialists….
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