Who is to blame for the DEI lawsuits? An HR director reveals the truth

Who is to blame for the DEI lawsuits? Finally, we have some answers! Here is the second slice of our three-part interview with Neil Morrison, group HR director at the British water company Severn Trent.

With reference to high profile cases including Lloyds Banking Group, Thames Valley Police, the Open University and Cambridgeshire County Council, we ask:

  • Why don’t DEI and HR professionals understand the Equality Act 2010 – and do they even need to? (Neil suggests not – find out why…)
  • How did an external training session result in an employment tribunal costing Lloyds Banking Group £1m – and what questions remain about what went wrong?
  • What is impairing people’s judgement? Are professionals acting on their own politics – or is there a fear that their brand won’t be seen as tough enough on racism, sexism, transphobia, etc?
  • Are there too many DEI ‘grifters’? How did an explosion in demand from employers for equalities training open the door to DEI trainers with questionable credentials, and iffy advice?
  • Did anybody read the government’s Inclusion at Work report, published in the spring? Was the low level of interest really down to the ‘Kemi Badenoch’ factor? (Spoiler: Yes!)
  • Are employers taking notice of the rising number of employees who are winning DEI-related cases at employment tribunal?
  • Have staff networks suffered from mission creep, and is it right that they are now directly feeding in to company policy?
  • Is it time for the smartest HR directors to take charge, and return to a more thoughtful, ‘common sense’ approach to managing problems around DEI issues?
  • These lawsuits are expensive, stressful and – crucially – avoidable. Don’t we all want to reduce the risk of them happening?

Enjoy the episode!

PS. look out for the next one… where we’ll ask Neil how heads of DEI have got away with behaving like activists, and whether the UK’s DEI industry is about to shrink dramatically…

Is DEI doomed? An HR director speaks!

In this ground-breaking episode, a sensible, experienced, centrist HR director busts multiple taboos – answering questions about how and why DEI has gone wrong in so many organisations. Neil Morrison, group HR director at Severn Trent, gets into race, disability, trans inclusion, Israel/Gaza… the lot. We cover:

  • Was it a mistake for brands to rush in with statements about Black Lives Matter?
  • Why are so many DEI professionals overstepping their role into policing employees’ words – and sometimes even their thoughts?
  • What problems is bad practice in DEI creating for organisations internally? (Think productivity, retention and grievances?
  • Is it time to consider the impact on recruitment and employer brand? For example, have John Lewis’s bold statements around gender identity put some people off applying to work there?

Could this conversation be a turning point for HR? The start of a collective effort to investigate where we’ve lost our way, and how to navigate a path to ways of working that are more productive – and genuinely inclusive? Let’s hope so.

This was such a brilliant conversation that we’ve split it into three episodes – this is the first. Episodes 7 and 8 (coming soon) will cover:

  • Whose fault are the DEI-related lawsuits – and are organisations taking notice?
  • Have staff networks suffered from mission creep – and where is the quality control for external training?
  • Why are so many Heads of DEI behaving like activists?
  • Can HR directors continue to ignore the problems that bad DEI is creating? (Spoiler: No!)
  • Should DEI professionals start looking for new jobs?

If you love or loathe DEI, this conversation will challenge you. If you take a centrist view and think it’s time for HR professionals to start talking more honestly about the challenges that our organisations face, it will feel like a breath of fresh air. Here’s to more discussion – enjoy the episode!

PS. If this conversation chimes with you, our podcast host Tanya de Grunwald is collecting senior HR professionals who share Neil’s view that bad practice in DEI is proving to be problematic, with the aim of finding solutions together. If this is you, please contact Tanya via LinkedIn. Thank you!