The president and right-wingers have railed against it, but diversity helps companies retain customers and employees.
By Greg Owen for lgbtqnation.com
Confronted by the current presidential administration’s relentless, politically motivated attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts across the federal government and in every corner of American society — from universities and research facilities to tech and the arts — one constituency is standing firm in its commitment to DEI: the country’s most iconic corporations.
A new analysis from the Human Rights Campaign indicates why: DEI is good for business.
Since the president took office in January, over 20 hostile shareholder resolutions were filed demanding companies shed their commitment to DEI, including Visa, Deere, Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Levi’s, American Express, Coca-Cola, Berkshire Hathaway, McDonalds, Amazon, Netflix, Walmart, Alphabet, American Airlines, Caterpillar, Best Buy, Mastercard, and Costco, according to Fortune.
Filers of these resolutions criticized companies for “all DEI policies and programs that grant or deny employment or advancement opportunities based on race, sex, or other protected characteristics.” This rhetoric echoed the presidential administration’s calls for terminating such policies, based on racially prejudiced and misogynistic far-right disparagement of DEI programs.
But across those annual meetings, shareholders (representing over $9.8 trillion in value) have voted with management to continue DEI policies and programs.
Those decisions weren’t based on altruism alone, if at all: HRC’s study backs up previous research demonstrating that companies embracing DEI are more profitable than their peers that don’t.
Some of those resolutions opposing DEI specifically called out HRC’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a leading benchmark for LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion.
The new research by HRC and Whistle Stop Capital analyzes nearly two decades of CEI and corporate data, revealing that the longer a large company has had LGBTQ+ inclusive policies in place, the stronger its financial results.
The analysis demonstrates that companies with high CEI scores saw greater cumulative revenue growth than low-scoring companies over a 15-year period. Over a 10-year period, top-scoring companies reported average net income more than eight times higher than their lowest-scoring peers. Additionally, higher CEI scores were linked to greater gross profit and more stable share price performance, suggesting more consistent, long-term investor confidence.
The findings debunk the political attacks on DEI as harmful to businesses, employees, and by extension, society at large.
