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What’s in store for DE&I in 2025
What this year holds in terms of DE&I remains to be seen, but the politics, economics and technological advancements of the last year – and at the beginning of this one – will certainly hold sway over the challenges that organisations face.
In a recent article, Forbes forecast greater scrutiny into DE&I, as major players such as Boeing, Harley-Davidson and Walmart – already started to roll back their DE&I initiatives in 2024. And, as Trump takes his seat in the White House, with his calls to end so-called woke practices hitting the top of his agenda on his first day in office, what happens to DE&I in North America – and how the rest of the world reacts – remains to be seen.
The anti-DE&I furore will be countered by metrics gathered to shore up the arguments in favour of inclusion, Forbes argues: ‘Despite the DEI noise, numbers don’t lie,’ states Forbes, ‘and quantitative data will be a powerful tool to reveal disparities in the workplace and will help organisational leaders identify areas where interventions are needed.’
The voices of dissent around DE&I might make one think inclusivity has long been achieved, is old hat and has gone too far, but the truth is that there is a long way to go. In the UK, some major firms are struggling to meet their gender diversity targets. For instance, the FT reports that the ‘big four’ accounting firms in the UK are projected to miss their female partner targets for 2025, highlighting the ongoing need for effective strategies to promote gender equity at senior levels.
And while the UK gender pay gap is slowly falling – it was 7 per cent in April 2024 among full-time employees, down from 7.5 per cent in April 2023, it is clearly unfair and problematic. The diversity pay gap is also challenging, with UK Government figures for last year showing that the mean hourly pay for ethnic minorities was 19.04 per cent lower than for white employees.
While what the year brings is uncertain, some themes are likely – we asked the FAIRER team for their predictions for the coming year:
1. Measuring will take on greater importance
“Measuring inclusion, or employees’ sense of belonging,” says FAIRER’s Barry Boffy, “has traditionally been difficult as it has been rooted in relying on qualitative rather than quantitative data as evidence of effectiveness or necessity.”
He believes that organisations will be increasingly expected to provide evidence for their success and a return on investment when developing and implementing DE&I activities, with a focus on achieving a longer-term, sustainable impact. The latter can be proven by growing, or sustaining levels, of demographically diverse workforce data across the levels within an organisation, particularly at C-suite or board level; decreasing attrition, absence or employee complaints; healthy sentiment analysis and indications of an inclusive workplace; increased employee satisfaction, and increased business performance, innovation rates and competitive advantage.
“Less focus will be placed on the importance or value of what might have previously been thought of as initiative-driven activities, such as celebrating diversity days or observances, that might be seen to have less impact on longer-term success or any desired culture change,” Barry adds.
2. Neurodivergent talent will be under the spotlight
Hays has found that archaic hiring processes and workplace ideologies mean that neurodivergent people may face challenges when it comes to securing and maintaining employment. Two-thirds (65 per cent) of neurodivergent employees are concerned they’ll face discrimination from management, while the same percentage (65 per cent) of employers believe they don’t have enough educated staff to support neurodivergent workers.
However, this cohort of employees is often creative, innovative-thinking, hyper-focused, reliable, and honest, and can often outperform their neurotypical colleagues who, by contrast, have a flatter proficiency line with less extreme variations between strengths and weaknesses.
Barry Boffy says, “It’s likely that more and more companies will focus on neurodiversity throughout 2025, with the recognition that neurodivergent employees are seen as having the potential to be a valuable asset to any organisation. Some companies will actively attempt to seek out neurodivergent talent and create workplaces that support those with neurological differences.”
Challenges for employers, predicts Barry, will likely come in the form of ensuring that whilst attempting to attract neurodivergent talent that their recruitment activities are not exclusionary, or even discriminatory in nature.
“Recruiters will need to ensure that those who are neurodivergent are not thought of as having a common set of behaviours or skills demonstrated by all neurodivergent people,” he says. “Taking a human-centred approach to creating a neurodiversity-smart or inclusive workplace involves recognising that everyone has individual strengths and weaknesses, no matter their neurodiversity status and that no two neurodivergent people are the same or will have the same skills.”
3. Inclusion will be part of leadership development
In 2025, leadership development programmes will integrate DE&I as a core competency, focussing on empathy, adaptability and active allyship, says FAIRER’s Peter MacDonald Hall.
“Key actions will focus on helping leaders to recognise and mitigate bias in decision-making, encouraging sponsorship by pairing senior leaders with under-represented employees to create pathways to advancement, and reward inclusive behaviours by incorporating meaningful leadership performance evaluations and promotions,” he says.
Peter cites LinkedIn and BBVS as being among those enlightened organisations who provide managers and supervisors inclusive leadership training that focuses on creating equitable opportunities for team members. Shell, he adds, has embedded DE&I metrics into leadership accountability, linking these to bonuses and performance reviews.
4. AI will be used routinely
The use of artificial intelligence, or other machine learning, technology-based or data-mining tools, will become commonplace in DE&I related activities, particularly in the recruitment process, says Barry Boffy.
“These tools will not only be used to attempt to remove barriers to attraction and recruitment – for example, by searching for and removing gendered or other exclusionary language in job descriptions – but they will also be seen as vital to ensuring that human bias is removed from the assessment and interview processes, for example, by removing identifying or influencing factors from candidate applications.”
Similarly, Peter MacDonald Hall believes AI is revolutionising the way businesses and organisations approach DE&I by providing tools to track diversity metrics, identify biases, and design inclusive policies.
Peter foresees AI helping in the creation of inclusive job descriptions, with AI platforms such as HireView evaluating candidates objectively. He adds that AI will be used more widely for sentiment analysis to gauge employee feedback on inclusion levels and address raised concerns in real-time. It will be present in assistive technologies such as screen readers, voice-to-text tools or real-time translations for diverse teams.
“There are many examples,” says Peter. “Unilever uses AI to assess candidates’ potential rather than relying on CVs. Google introduced AI-powered accessibility features – live captions and sign language recognition.”
Barry believes that challenges for organisations, particularly those working in talent acquisition or recruitment roles, will lie in ensuring that inherent or systemic bias is not present in AI or other technology-based tools. Results should be sense-checked and adapted to reflect any unwelcome trends.
Added to this, Peter recommends constant vigilance to address potential bias in algorithms, ensuring training data is suitably diverse, and guaranteeing constant monitoring and refinement. Transparency, he stresses, is vital to ensure the use of AI tools is clear and auditable to build trust among employees.
Barry summarises: “AI should be considered a supporting tool, not a replacement for the human at the heart of any attraction, assessment and recruitment process with additional awareness-raising and training provided to ensure that employees understand the nature and impact of bias.”
Clearly there are some interesting times ahead for DE&I but there is much that can be done in terms of training and strategy – whatever happens. If you’d like to discuss how you can prepare for these trends, please get in touch to discuss your company’s needs.
Watch FAIRER Consulting’s recent webinar, which explains how HR can become more strategic with DE&I.
