🔒Editorial: DEI policies can help businesses succeed

Clearly, a firestorm is encompassing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across public and private sectors. But it doesn’t have to. Whether your own perspective is these policies conflict with a merit-based approach to hiring and promoting staff or you see them as building a stronger workforce and better serving a diverse set of customers, there is quite a bit of common ground. Ultimately, these policies are about maximizing companies’ opportunities for revenue and profits, better serving their customer bases, and building stronger workforces.

For her story “United force” on the cover of the March 24 edition of WBJ, Staff Writer Mica Kanner-Mascolo sits down with the leaders of three Central Mass. businesses who are sticking with DEI, despite potential threats to their revenues from government funding: construction firm Fontaine Bros., behavioral health provider Spectrum Health Systems, and Edward M. Kennedy Community Health Center. While all three are somewhat insulated from threats to cut government funding, each of these organizations still are risking significant revenues by maintaining their efforts in the face of some significant political headwinds.

Despite this, all three made it abundantly clear that these policies are woven into the fabric of their companies and greatly contribute to what makes them successful, and removing DEI from their business framework would cause substantial harm.

At Spectrum Health, President & CEO Kurt Isaacson said its DEI efforts not only boost employee morale, but they help the company provide better care to its clients, as patients are more likely to report better experiences with providers who have similar lived experiences. At Fontaine Bros., CEO David Fontaine sees DEI initiatives as the company’s responsibility to provide opportunities to people representing the community. Since that helps Fontaine employ people from a range of backgrounds, the company can better meet the needs of the communities it serves. And like other community health centers, Kennedy Health was founded on the principle of providing care in an inclusive way to those in need, regardless of their ability to pay. Removing DEI would be akin to reversing the center’s entire mission, said CEO Steve Kerrigan.

While DEI initiatives can cover multiple aspects of business operations, much of their focus over the last five years has been on workforce development: recruiting, retaining, and promoting. When well executed – and there are certainly many examples of poorly executed programs – DEI efforts tap into underutilized segments of the population and enhance education, training, and development opportunities so companies can boost the overall quality of their workforces and reduce turnover. Since unemployment in Massachusetts has hovered around 4% or less for nearly this entire decade, few companies have been immune to workforce shortages and higher turnover rates, which carry a high cost.

Some firms have abandoned or sidelined DEI efforts due to a lack of results, others have modified or dramatically reduced those efforts due to political pressure or funding threats. Yet, many have found their company is stronger and their customers are better served from their efforts to broaden and diversify their workforce and operations. Maintaining policies that help businesses succeed in a competitive market should be a no-brainer.

This editorial is the opinion of the WBJ Editorial Board.