Recent developments in the legal landscape have resulted in a lower bar for proving discrimination claims. Plaintiffs no longer need to prove that management's actions caused "significant harm" to them, and merely "some harm" was sufficient for a case to be ruled in their favor. While this is commonly hailed as a win for workers, some proponents of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) fear that the situation could be used by anti-DEI movements to strike down various diversity programs, with litigants alleging that these diversity programs discriminate against members of a majority or privileged group.
While both sides of the political aisle will indeed be strategizing on how to gain the upper hand, Lauren Argenti Rawlings, founder of Precita Placements, believes that DEI will remain very important for companies. In fact, it will become even more important in the future.
According to Rawlings, Generation Z is entering the workforce at a time when it’s shrinking, with the older generations on their way to retirement. This gives Gen Z more bargaining power and the ability to influence organizational culture. According to a 2018 study by Deloitte, social activism is more important to Gen Z than previous generations, and 77% of Gen Z employees said that working at an organization whose values align with theirs was important. They are also the most ethnically diverse generation in history, which is why they want to see DEI genuinely prioritized in their workplaces, going beyond just lip service.
In today's society, we are more keen on corporate social responsibility. Despite economic headwinds, a consumer survey by Bain & Company showed that more than 70% of consumers are willing to pay a reasonable premium (approximately 10%–25%) for sustainably made products.
Rawlings says that these findings show that the US as a whole is moving towards values promoting diversity, as its population becomes more diverse – white people will become a minority in the US by the mid-2040s, according to census projections. She believes that stripped of political labels and agitating remarks online, almost everybody in the US is actually on the same page. Over the past several years, the business case for diversity has frequently been stated, with more diverse organizations performing better.
Precita Placements is an executive search firm that was founded by Rawlings in 2019 to help make the corporate world more diverse by finding and placing untapped talent in leadership roles. The company is constantly growing its portfolio of highly qualified VPs and C-level executives who happen to be diverse, ensuring that it finds the "best athlete", or a candidate with exceptional skills that meet the organization's needs, for the role.
According to Rawlings, fears about DEI being used to discriminate against the majority are mostly unfounded, as its aim is to make an organization's leadership more reflective of social realities. For example, the ideal diversity of an organization's C-suite or board should be around 50% women. With this in mind, diversity means different things for different organizations. Rawlings shares that she had worked with an all-female executive team, so hiring a male executive was actually making the company more diverse.
"With the aforementioned changes in the US' demographic makeup, 20 years from now, being a diverse organization will look quite different than it does today. Creating more polarization is never the solution," Rawlings says. "Precita works with clients to help them find outstanding talent that is qualified for the roles and just happens to be diverse."
According to Rawlings, when trying to place candidates, Precita treats each search as if it were brand new, avoiding recycling lists of candidates. Despite this, its average time to placement is 72 days, which is much lower than the industry average.
Despite the doom and gloom about the backlash against DEI, Rawlings has observed a positive development in the industry. In recent years, companies have been treating the need for diversity as a given, and she no longer needs to explain to corporate leadership why they need a more diverse organization.
"When I first started doing diversity search work, I would spend the first half of every pitch meeting explaining why it was important," she says. "Today, we don’t need to do that anymore. It’s been ingrained into wider corporate culture, and that shows progress, as people realize that the world is more complex today than it was before."
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