However, 2024 has not been kind to DEI initiatives and the recent announcement of the closure of The Tech Talent Charter – a UK government-funded body working to increase diversity in the tech sector – has dealt a crippling blow.
“It has been shown time and time again that businesses which embrace DEI frequently outperform and succeed at higher rather than those who ignore DEI,” said Paul Hatley, Managing Director, DataIQ. “We encourage all of our DataIQ members to embrace DEI and follow the data that shows the massive benefits a diverse, equal, and included team can bring to all areas of an organisation.”
There has been a continuous stream of anti-DEI rhetoric in recent months and Waseem Ali, Chief Executive Officer, Rockborne stated that “the global rhetoric around diversity is becoming one of dismissal and trivialisation.” The data proves it; DataIQ ran a one-minute DEI survey and shared it with hundreds of data practitioners who had expressed a DEI interest. Only one response was recorded over the month-long period. Though questions are rife, it seems no one is willing to offer any answers.
DEI in the news
Ali’s reference to the dismissal and trivialisation of DEI was surfaced on a global stage only days ago in the US presidential race by Donald Trump, who dismissed the interviewers’ question as to whether he agreed with the circulating Republican statement that Kamala Harris is a “DEI hire.” The former president asked again and again for a definition more expansive than “diversity, equality, and inclusion” after which he dismissed the question and proceeded to falsely state that Democratic candidate Harris “happened to turn black” some years ago. Here we have the trivialisation of DEI live on stage – a conversation of this calibre platformed to millions is only going to damage DEI and perpetuate misconceptions about its meaning and salience.
Further, statements from highly influential people including Elon Musk who posted that “DEI must DIE” on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) post and The UK’s former Chancellor arguing that councils need to make diversity budget cuts because conversations about diversity schemes were a “distraction” from “real problems” have fed into the anti-DEI narrative.
“The closure of The Tech Talent Charter is just the latest red flag that some firms are ‘quiet quitting’ DEI efforts,” said Ali. “Global tech companies like Google and Meta made significant cuts to DEI programmes in 2023 and statements from key figures also help to proliferate the sense that having a diverse workforce is a ‘nice-to-have’ rather than an essential, which isn’t constructive, particularly when sectors are facing talent shortages.”
“Meanwhile, we know that small to mid-size businesses are struggling with rising costs and squeezed budgets, and therefore anything deemed as ‘an extra’ is often seen as a bridge too far,” added Ali.
2024 has been a year where budgets have been tightened and the fight for investment in data-centric programmes has become more difficult. The times that investments have been made tend to centre around new AI technologies and not into personnel.
What the research says
“This comes at a time when diverse talent is falling out of the industry,” said Ali. “Our research of over 6,500 data professionals and found that the number of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic professionals in entry level data positions plummeted by more than half from 42% in 2022 to 12% in 2023. And entry-level female data professionals also more than halved from 35% to 11%.”
This research also found that the gender pay gap in the UK data industry widened in 2023, with men now earning 16% more than women in the same positions, up from 6% last year. “Until we eradicate issues such as the lingering gender pay gap, the data and AI industry is unlikely to be viewed as the destination of choice for global female talent,” Ali challenged.
This crisis reaches all the way to tech, too. “The tech sector is facing a debilitating talent crisis (The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) estimates a shortfall of over 173,000 workers in the UK STEM sector),” says Ali.
On course for AI catastrophe
Diversity of thought leads to improved profitability and increased innovation. This is not unique in the data space, though it may lead to greater woes than first anticipated. “A lack of diverse perspectives in any industry is problematic, but in an industry such as data and tech that is so reliant on innovation, it could be disastrous to its future,” warns Ali.
Ali rightly warns that this could have disastrous implications on AI innovation: “If teams that are developing data and AI strategies are not balanced, there is a danger that this could be reflected in the development and design of the technology.” In the industry, the signs are scarcely hidden; only 3% of CTOs in Forbes’ 50 List of Top AI Companies of 2024 are female.
What to do?
Those in the hiring seat must cast aside their myopic tendency to hire from a certain educational ilk, the ease of poaching STEM graduates from top UK universities often winning out over deeper consideration on what background and pre-learning is really needed for the role. Adding this to the business strategy ensures it does not fall behind as, in Ali’s words, a “‘nice-to-have’ rather than an essential”.
Widening the hiring pool might create more internal work, but it will only ever benefit company culture, processes, and diversity of thought. Flipped on its head, enabling an expanded pool of potential employees to learn about your organisation and the role type will benefit the industry at large, as nascent attention to skills and backgrounds that do not usually apply for such roles will increase application diversity.
Often, recruitment processes in an organisation are legacy processes. Recruitment processes in the tech sector are notoriously lengthy. Candidates may already feel “under qualified” due to background-related imposter syndrome, so a lengthy, unclear process may immediately ostracise them.
Ali spoke of this occurrence, fleshing out the implications for DEI: “We also know that neurodiverse candidates struggle with lengthy testing processes, with surprise elements and psychometrics. At Rockborne we try to be very clear about what the process will be and give people plenty of time and information to prepare for every step.”
For DataIQ members, exclusive DEI guidelines provided by DataIQ go into greater detail regarding the best practices, shaped by the DataIQ DEI group.
