Employees often resist DEI initiatives, which of course hinders their effectiveness. One of the major keys to overcoming resistance to any effort is figuring out why people are resisting in the first place. Generally people will resist any kind of change, which happens because they presume the change to carry a form of threat attached. When it comes to DEI initiatives employees often resist because they experience some forms of threat which could range from: status threat, merit threat, moral threat, threat to individual identity and threat to social identity. Depending on the kinds of threat they experience, they then tend to engage in three kinds of resistance: denial, disengagement, and derailment.

The aim is to explain these forms and reasons of resistance and find a way to make DEI initiatives future-proof.

What causes DEI pushback?

Pushback to DEI efforts can stem from four types of perceived threat:

Threat to individual identity: Employees may respond negatively if they perceive DEI efforts as a threat to their self-identities. For employees from dominant groups in particular, DEI efforts may pose a significant threat to maintaining positive self-views or beliefs (i.e., seeing oneself as a person with positive or valued traits, such as being fair or anti-racist, etc.) When individuals from dominant groups feel shamed or blamed for DEI challenges in the workplace, they can be motivated to respond defensively to restore a positive sense of self. This defensive posture may manifest in pushback.

Moral threat: Employees can sometimes experience moral threat. This is the sense that if you acknowledge your privilege, you tarnish your moral image by linking yourself to an unfair system. This is most common when majority group members are generally committed to the moral ideal of equality. Because people are fundamentally motivated to see themselves as good and moral, those committed to the ideal of equality may experience threat when a DEI initiative highlights how their group has violated this moral principle.

Threat to social identity: Employees also derive a positive sense of self from the groups they belong to. Belonging to groups with high status and valued attributes contributes to employees’ positive social identities and their ability to access resources. DEI efforts may be perceived as threats to the positive social identities employees derive from being a part of dominant groups (e.g., men, powerful racial/ethnic groups, cisgender). 

Merit threat: Some employees may also fear that DEI initiatives imply that their achievements are not the result of their skills and qualities but rather their group membership. We call this the merit threat, in which advantaged-group members feel that recognizing the existence of bias, discrimination, and inequality “explains away” their own successes. Merit threat is especially common among majority group members who are strongly committed to value systems that prize hard work and individual merit. 

Pushback stems from employees’ desire to manage these threats. Employees may not necessarily be fully aware of the threats they feel or what aspects of DEI are triggering these threats. Organizations should learn about how these threats manifest in the workplace and leverage this information to identify and address pushback.

How HR teams can identify DEI pushback

First, HR leaders must find common language to understand and identify pushback. Pushback often comes in three forms:

• Denial: “This is not a problem.”
• Disengagement: “This is not my problem.”
• Derailment: “What about other problems?”

This framework addresses pushback that seeks to disrupt, invalidate or disconnect from ongoing initiatives designed to advance equity and inclusion for marginalized groups in the workplace.

Ways to combat pushback

Pushback can be tricky to navigate, because HR leaders and organizations are already dealing with an emotionally charged situation. Once organizations identify and understand the nature of pushback, they should move their focus to managing and mitigating it. Organizations must be cautious about continuing to center the experiences of marginalized groups when addressing pushback.

Communicate to obtain buy-in

HR teams and Organization leadership believe naively that because DEI initiatives are genuine and good that employees will buy automatically into it. Leadership teams must put in the work to tailor communication to create transparency about why a specific program is being rolled out and the preceding events that make the case for it. For instance, if a program was created as a response to the Black Lives Matter protests, HR leaders can combat pushback by communicating the context for the program, the role all employees play in advancing it and the outcomes it is intended to achieve.

Be sure to communicate to employees who are not already bought in, without invalidating their feelings. To head off attempts at denial or derailment, consider the different perspectives employees may have, anticipate the threats they may perceive as a result of your initiatives and address these proactively in your communication strategy.

Foster empathy by building awareness

A lack of empathy for marginalized groups often enhances the threat perceptions that drive pushback. Learning activities to build empathy and awareness of other groups’ experiences can help diminish the sense of threat. HR leaders should acknowledge employees’ gaps in exposure and readiness levels before assigning training and consider creating safe learning spaces for groups known to push back on DEI. Employees may not have the skills to engage with DEI sensitively.

Creating safe training spaces

Creating a safe training/learning space for a dominant racial group that is moderated by experts ensures they can openly ask questions that might cause discomfort or harm to marginalized people; for example, “Why is wanting to touch someone’s hair considered a microaggression?” These safe spaces allow employees to make mistakes and ask uncomfortable questions without feeling threatened and without putting the burden of educating them on marginalized employees.

Invite employees to engage in DEI efforts

Pushback arguments can also be traced back to a lack of clarity on employees’ role in DEI. HR leaders can involve employees by holding individuals accountable for DEI engagement. One way to do this is to encourage employees, especially those from dominant groups, to engage in ERG membership and to leverage their skills, networks and interests to ideate and contribute to sponsorship programs.

Conclusion

It is normal to expect resistance when introducing a new idea or process at any group or gathering. DEI is no different. The reason why these resistance seem to take HR teams and leadership teams aback is because they did not expect and therefore made no provisions for what to do afterwards, they are left confused. Organizations who wish to make DEI initiatives part of their core principles must know that it is a long game and they must spend the right amount of time playing it, using the right set of tools and strategies.