As corporate DEI retreats and political backlash builds, recruiters must hold the line on fairness. Our Stop the Bias 2025 report offers a blueprint to do just that.
Because DEI was never a fashion statement. And now’s the time to prove it.
DEI backlash is shifting boardroom sentiment…
Since President Trump issued the executive order “ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs” in January 2025, there’s been a wave of political and cultural backlash against DEI.
We’ve seen brands like Meta, Accenture, Goldman Sachs, Target, Google, Bud Light and McDonalds rolling back DEI language, programs, and sponsorship, and a wave of populist rhetoric that feels more suited to 1925 than 2025. (Like Mark Zuckerberg’s bluster that the corporate world has been “culturally neutered” and needs more “masculine energy” 🙄)
Unfortunately, this isn’t just US posturing. There’s a transatlantic ripple, with the backlash starting to reshape language, funding, hiring programs and internal policies around DEI for many organisations globally.
Although UK law continues to protect DEI in the workplace, winds of change are blowing. The risk is that organisations defer to legal bare minimums instead of true best practices, and DEI is quietly reframed, rebranded, deprioritised and dismantled.
For recruiters, it’s an exhausting battle. Forward-thinking talent acquisition teams have spent years making the business case for diversity — but just as DEI starts to gain traction, it’s back to fighting against the current.
It’s critical that recruiters double-down, stand tall, and don’t let the waves of political antipathy overcome them.
…but DEI still drives bottom-line results
The frustrating irony of this backtracking is that recruiters aren’t just ‘on their hobby horse’ with DEI. Business leaders mightn’t always believe it but you’re doing what you’re hired to do: helping build a stronger, more resilient workforce that’s better primed to meet organisational goals.
The fact is, time and again, DEI’s shown to drive better business outcomes. Not just better people ones. And organisations that continue taking a stance despite these headwinds see the benefits of DEI as strongly as ever.
Healthtech company Cera is one great example. Cera employs 10,000 frontline care workers — a notoriously hard space to recruit into. But their pioneering approach to DEI has been instrumental in overcoming the care sector’s hiring challenges.
For Cera, inclusive recruitment policies have empowered incredible results:
- Attracted one million carer and nurse applications in two years
- Attracted more than half of new applications from outside the sector
- 25% of recent recruits were previously unemployed
- New hires living with a disability is twice the industry average
- Sunday Times 100 Tech Inclusion Champion Award Winner
Moreover, Cera’s leadership is crystal clear that these benefits aren’t just about people and culture.
[Without DEI programmes like this] we wouldn’t have had as many applicants and so we wouldn’t have been able to hire as many people to work on the front line and deliver care. That of course would have affected our growth, and it could have also meant many people went on without the care they needed.
Recruiters aren’t just fighting a moral fight here, although we all want to be able to sleep at night. Championing DEI is good for people, yes, but it’s also the logical business decision.
Our Stop the Bias 2025 report helps you prove that, presenting robust and compelling evidence from reputable studies to earn the DEI buy-in you need. And then the practical actions to help keep DEI moving forwards.
People finders can keep on fighting the good fight
Now more than ever, recruiters’ efforts to champion and progress DEI matter.
Organisations that backpedal as soon as the political landscape changes show themselves up as masters of bluff and hollow rhetoric. They show their values are little more than a fashion statement. A glamourous bait-and-switch; not an authentic, trustworthy brand.
Our Stop the Bias report is a hands-on blueprint to help recruiters continue prioritising DEI, without enormous flashy changes.
It includes stuff like:
- Guidance on setting meaningful DEI objectives
- Fair recruitment practices every team can implement now
- Tips for diversity-ready job descriptions
- Guidance on adopting a skills-based process
- Checklist for promoting pay parity
- Leveraging recruitment tech to enhance DEI
- A roadmap to fair, fast video interviews
Most organisations don’t have appetite right now for massive, large-scale changes. So that’s not what we’re giving you. But driving progress on DEI doesn’t take massive, large-scale change.
You can totally scrap CVs, for example. (And there’s a good argument that you should). But without major process overhaul, there are also a heap of smaller changes that drive positive change. Like…
- Language tweaks in your job descriptions
- Publishing salary ranges
- Sharing interview questions so candidates can prepare
- Adding task-based assessments
Those are the changes our report surfaces and talks you through. So you can keep fighting the good fight for DEI, even if you don’t have the boardroom buy-in for transformative change.
Recruiters must protect people — and the bottom-line
At a time when DEI is falling out of fashion, we’re calling on recruiters to be rebels.
But this needn’t be a loud or flashy rebellion. Standing for diversity doesn’t need to mean total overhaul. It’s careful. Intentional. Persistent. Small actions, again and again, that ladder into transformative changes.
You’re not alone. Our Stop the Bias 2025 report is the pamphlet in recruiters’ back pocket, to protect your DEI efforts so far; protect your people; and protect the organisation from itself.
So in five years’ time, your organisation is five years further forwards; not wondering where it all went wrong.
Tribepad is the trusted tech ally to smart(er) recruiters everywhere. Combining ATS, CRM, Video Interviewing, and Onboarding, our talent acquisition software is a springboard for fairer, faster, better recruitment for everyone.
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