Remember when flags, pronouns, staff groups and awareness days seemed like risk-free, feelgood ‘inclusion’ initiatives? When elections didn’t create tension in the workplace? When publicly supporting #MeToo and BLM was not only fashionable but essential? When DEI focused on expanding your talent pool and retaining the best people – and ESG was about maximising the financial benefits of being a socially and environmentally responsible organisation?

If that memory has faded fast in the last two years, you’re not alone. The smartest employers have found out the hard way that well-intentioned policies, training and targets are inherently political, and loaded with negative unintended consequences.

Far from creating peaceful, happy workplaces, and boosting productivity and profit, employers now admit that some of these practices are doing more harm than good – dividing teams, creating conflict and producing unnecessary legal, commercial and reputational risk for their organisation. Meanwhile, they result in negligible meaningful or measurable business benefits.

In the most extreme cases, they have backfired badly, leaving a mess that today’s leaders need to clear up, fast.

Unfortunately, undoing the damage is proving to be a challenge for employers. Some of the worst ideas are baked into businesses (from procurement to board-level recruitment), leaving exasperated business professionals with a task akin to removing the eggs from a cake.

And even rethinking surface-level manifestations – such as activist-led staff groups, and pronouns in email signatures – is likely to provoke a backlash among employees who view them as vital displays of an organisation’s values and ‘allyship’ for marginalised groups and urgent geopolitical causes and conflicts.

Part 1: The HR Directors’ Perspective
We began with insights, analysis and strategic advice for employers from Neil Morrison, HR Director at Severn Trent, and Sarah Mason, Chief People Officer at SThree, in conversation with Tanya de Grunwald, founder of This Is Working, and host of This Isn’t Working podcast. We asked: why have so many employers welcomed politics into their workplace – and where do the main problems and risks lie now? What needs to change – and which strategies are likely to be the most successful, and the least disruptive?

Part 2: External Perspectives and Q&A
We heard reflections on Part 1 from Fiona McAnena, Director of Campaigns at Sex Matters, Rosie Kay, Co-Director at Freedom in the Arts, and Joanna Williams, author of ‘How Woke Won,’ who also contributed their own perspectives on how we got here, and the best ways out. Then our audience – senior professionals from across the business world – were invited to ask questions, and share their own challenges and solutions around this complex puzzle. Happily, we ended with good news – reaching a consensus that the best strategies will combine strong leadership, a clearer lens on ‘purpose’, and reasserting standards around professionalism.


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All photos by Jas Lehal Photography