DEI: The Importance of Balancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with Talent and Culture | Fitzgerald on DEI

The Big Themes:

• What it takes to be great: companies must strongly consider incorporating DEI initiatives into their businesses but must be careful not to let the focus on talent and culture fall by the wayside.
• Go back to the "foundational" piece: The "big initiative" of today's companies should be addressing exactly what the priorities are.
• Attract talent, but know how to retain it: A strong focus on acquiring talent, and a lack of thought about retaining talent, had created a "gap that has really widened in the last few years."

The Big Quote: "What I'm hearing and what I'm seeing in the market today is that DEiI is the only focus. Now, I'm not saying that across the board, I'm just saying generalities. There are great companies that have been corrupted into a single focus over the last couple of years... but it's one of three priorities. It needs to be one of three priorities. It can't be the only priority. And I think what I'm hearing from a lot of my friends in the big companies...they overhired to meet these DEI agendas. And now, they're laying off some of these people that they hired because they didn't focus on the other two priorities: culture and talent. You have to have all three to make, you know, to make a great hire."