The DE&I news cycle has been like a firehose, and it doesn’t seem the spigot will be turned off any time soon.
Over the past year, some companies have quietly changed course on their DE&I initiatives. Now, two large retailers in the agriculture supplies industry are proclaiming that they’re largely walking away from their DE&I efforts.
However, one DE&I leader cautioned that such a move could negatively affect employee retention and safety.
What’s happening? On July 17, John Deere said in a statement on X, that it will no longer participate in or sponsor “social or cultural awareness” events.
The company, which has 80,000 global employees, said it made the move after “ongoing conversations,” and will refocus its business resource groups on “professional development, networking, mentoring,” and recruitment. It also said that “pronoun identification” is not part of company policy.
Despite this, John Deere ended its statement with a commitment to a “diverse workforce” and said it will continue internally tracking diversity numbers.
The announcement came just weeks after farm retailer Tractor Supply issued a press release stating it was eliminating DE&I roles and would no longer submit data to the Human Rights Campaign, which tracks how companies treat LGBTQ+ workers. The company also said it would “refocus” team member engagement groups on mentoring and “supporting the business,” and emphasize what it calls “rural America” priorities, like animal welfare and veteran causes.
Two workers at the company’s Ray Brook, New York, retail location resigned over the decision, according to the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.
“I felt that they betrayed not only their employees, but also a large part of their customers,” Joe Montella, the former general manager, who is gay, said.
When asked about the news by HR Brew, Tractor Supply had “no comment” beyond its statement. John Deere did not respond at the time of publication.
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Message to employees. Jarvis Sam, founder of Rainbow Disruption, a DE&I consultancy, told HR Brew that people leaders should think about the consequences that such changes might have on employee recruitment, retention, and safety.
“When organizations remove DE&I programs, it leads to increased turnover,” he said. “What it tells employees is that you’re no longer invested. You don’t care about their identities and how it shows up in the workplace.”
Sam also said that walking back these initiatives could make the workplace less safe for employees from underrepresented groups. “This opens the door for significant increases in discrimination and bias within the organization,” he explained. “Without structured DE&I programs, the risk of [incidents] associated with discrimination and bias tends to increase as the safeguards and accountability that existed before go away.”
Without accountability and transparency, some employees from underrepresented groups may not feel safe to self-identify. Furthermore, allies may fear retaliation when advocating for these communities, he explained.
“Managers are going to go into a bit of a whirlwind,” he said, as things like accessibility and disability accommodations are also less clear when companies retreat from DE&I efforts.
Looking ahead. Sam predicts that more companies will follow suit in the coming months and that ERGs will be the next DE&I efforts to fall by the wayside.
“What we’re seeing is this return to a narrative of viewing employee resource groups simply through the lens of direct affinity,” he said. “The reality is that ERGs, when built right and effectively, are open to all, but they center the experiences of specific marginalized communities.”