Of course, happy to!

(and secretly, I love this question - thank you so much for chatting with me over the comment section!)

Spoiler alert, it's a long one.

I don't know where you're located, but here in the United States, there are a couple of very interesting things happening simultaneously:

1- The decimation or significant reduction of DEI Teams, DEI budgets, and DEI Programming. Some companies will claim it's due to budget cuts and financial reasons, but DEI and Talent Teams have been disproportionately impacted.

2- Very senior DEI Professionals are so burned out due to the lack of meaningful and real progress (on top of losing their whole teams) that they're just quitting left and right. Just last week, 4 of the most senior DEI Professionals in the tech industry quit in the same week.

3- The political landscape in the US is pushing against DEI policies and talent from historically excluded communities overall. I fear that blocking affirmative action in companies will be next.

4- Many companies are reverting their WFH policies and forcing everyone to return to the office.

So, with all that said, I do believe that some companies are using the current landscape to go back to pre-2020 strategies, where DEI wasn't at the front and when the employer held all the power.

Bringing DEI into a company will impact the power structure. It will open doors for those who didn't even get the chance to know that there was a door in the first place; it will equitably allow for more people and more diverse talent to get a seat on the table - some companies won't allow that to happen and will do what they can to maintain the status quo.