Imagine a new person on the team. A different accent. A different skin colour. A different pace of speaking.
A nice welcome, emojis on Slack, a welcome pack. But nobody mentions diversity. DEI? Silence. It used to be there. Now it has disappeared.
Diversity, equity and inclusion.
HR says: “We are all equal, why talk about it.”
The manager adds: “Let’s focus on what unites us.”
Nobody is being malicious. It’s just as if… the topic has become uncomfortable. Maybe no longer fashionable?
In 2020 diversity was everywhere. Today? It is increasingly disappearing from the radar.
What happened?
DEI – a hot topic that has cooled
After the death of George Floyd, #MeToo and grand slogans about equality, companies threw themselves into DEI.
New positions. Slogans. Programmes. Departments. And now?
Meta, Amazon, Twitter/X, Google – all have significantly cut their DEI teams.
More than 50% of DEI specialists in the USA lost their jobs within two years (Revelio Labs). Bloomberg put it bluntly: “For many companies, diversity was a post-2020 move forced by pressure. When the pressure disappeared, so did the budgets.” And Poland? In surveys, most people prefer to work with people “similar to themselves”. Few know what DEI even is. It simply… doesn’t add up for people, because on the one hand there are declarations and abstract slogans, and on the other an unpleasant reality and company practices that don’t live up to even a fraction of those slogans.
Trump is back, DEI disappears from government offices
In January 2025 Trump signed an executive order: a ban on funding DEI in the administration, the removal of training and policies, and checks on grants and institutions for “ideology”.
“We are removing DEI from every corner of government. We are restoring neutrality and meritocracy.” (Politico)
And what does this mean for companies? For many: a green light to let it go. There is no longer any need to show off. Programmes can be wound down. Because nobody wants to fall foul of customers or politicians. Nobody wants to spend money on something they don’t have to. In Poland, DEI probably only existed at the level of corporations funded from abroad. It hardly took root in SMEs at all. Because it’s some kind of American nonsense.
DEI fatigue. Weariness. Cynicism.
Training, campaigns, webinars, slogans. A lot of talk. Little change.
“We have a flag in our email signature, but not a single woman has been promoted.”
“Everyone talks about inclusivity, but nobody knows what it means.”
People are not against diversity. They are tired of nothing standing behind the words. And maybe… it’s also simply a human reaction? In a world full of uncertainty, we look for what is familiar. It’s not about a lack of empathy. It’s about the need for security.
Or maybe… this isn’t the end of DEI at all?
Maybe it is a silence... that gives a chance to mature. Without noise. Without PR. Without stock photos of people with different skin colours, or forced Netflix films in which non-white actors play elves or Hamlet. We don’t say “we are inclusive”. We simply give people a voice. And space.
Not more diversity. More courage.
Maybe we don’t need another training on inclusive language. Maybe we simply need to say:
“We don’t know how to do this well. But we want to try – really. Without the pressure that while we are trying and learning, others will build their careers on our stumbles.”
Because diversity begins when someone says something completely different from everyone else – and nobody interrupts them. Nobody cuts them out. They just listen.
“Are we sure our decisions don’t exclude someone… who simply isn’t visible?”
This is not the end of DEI. I prefer to believe it may be a beginning – just less spectacular. More real. Diversity doesn’t have to be loud. It has to be real. And done not by PR, but by people. People like you. And me. Done through the practice of mature management.
