Recent business surveys link retreating from DEI to lower employee morale, customer boycotts, and reduced profits, with many employees threatening to quit. A significant share of leaders who rolled back DEI later reinstated policies. Leaders can rebrand and reimagine inclusion by harnessing joy as a form of resistance and a source of hopeful motivation. Black Joy affirms identity, voice, strengths, achievements, and wisdom amid marginalization. Widespread employee burnout or "quiet cracking" increases urgency for approaches that combine inclusion with well-being. Positive psychology findings on joy, strengths, allyship, and hope provide pathways for inclusive leadership to boost employee flourishing.
"One survey of business leaders in the U.S. found that 2 out of 3 say that after cutting DEI, their company suffered customer boycotts (as did Target) and diminished employee morale. The Catalyst/Meltzer 2025 survey reports that U.S. employees are displeased with the DEI retreat by companies, and more than 2 out of 5 say they'd quit if their employer stopped supporting DEI. In fact, 1 in 3 leaders who rolled back DEI policies reported later reinstating them."
"Consider Black Joy - a celebration and affirmation of Black identity, voice, passion, strengths, achievements, and wisdom, in a context where Black communities are often silenced and rendered invisible. It's a purposeful decision to be in and act from a place of joy, and it nurtures the confident hope that good things will happen, even when it doesn't seem likely. Joy matters now more than ever because employees are facing a burnout and mental health crisis, sometimes called "quiet cracking", which has cost"
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]