How Do U.S. Employees Feel About Workplace Diversity?
Engage2Excel’s latest Experience & Engagement Survey from Q4 2024 has unveiled a powerful insight: an overwhelming 71.3% of U.S. employees favor their employers’ initiatives to create an inclusive work environment. The survey responses from 5,000 employees across various industries, highlight the critical importance of creating workplaces where everyone feels valued and has equal opportunities. This diversity-related feedback sends a compelling message to organizations reconsidering their diversity programs.
Backlash Against Diversity Programs
Companies are increasingly scaling back or eliminating diversity programs. These changes are due to political pressure from those who view such initiatives as “woke” or discriminatory and recent legal rulings such as the Supreme Court decision against affirmative action.
Confusion Between DEI and Affirmative Action
In today’s polarized political environment, efforts to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace are often mistakenly associated with affirmative action programs.
While affirmative action is often discussed alongside DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), it is not considered a direct part of DEI, which represents a broader concept focused on creating an inclusive and equitable environment for everyone. Affirmative action specifically targets proactive measures to address the historical underrepresentation of certain groups. While DEI aims to ensure equal opportunity for all, affirmative action may involve preferential treatment to achieve that goal. Employers contemplating changes to longstanding diversity programs are well advised to consider employees’ views.
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Historical Perceptions of Workplace Diversity
Table 2 shows trend results from our survey, which began tracking employee perceptions of workplace diversity in 2016. This survey, developed by Dr. Jack Wiley, our chief scientific officer, represents all major industries and job types and includes proportionate representations of gender, age group and race/ethnic origin. Over an eight-year period, more than two thirds of workers have favored their employers’ workplace diversity initiatives.
Uniform Favorability Across Racial/Ethnic Groups
The most compelling evidence of positive support for workplace diversity initiatives is seen in Table 3, which compares favorability scores of respondents by racial/ethnic group. Over two thirds of all major racial/ethnic groups responded favorably to their employers’ efforts to enable a diverse and inclusive workplace environment. Only a single percentage point difference existed between the favorability scores of White/Caucasian and African American respondents. The favorability scores for Latin American/Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander respondents were lower across all diversity survey items, indicating room for improvement.
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