Microsoft Lays Off DEI Team

[Ana the Ist]

Microsoft Laid Off A DEI Team, Saying It’s ‘No Longer Business Critical Or Smart’

Microsoft laid off a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) team this year, with a team leader sending an email saying the initiatives were no longer needed.The email, sent earlier this month and obtained by Business Insider, is from an individual whose name has not been released. It is unclear...

www.dailywire.com

"Microsoft laid off a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) team this year, with a team leader sending an email saying the initiatives were no longer needed.
The email, sent earlier this month and [COLOR=rgba(20, 20, 21, 0.91)]obtainedhttps://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-layoffs-dei-leader-email-2024-7 by Business Insider, is from an individual whose name has not been released. It is unclear how many team employees were laid off.[/COLOR]

“True systems-change work associated with DEI programs everywhere are no longer business critical or smart as they were in 2020,” said the email, which was sent to thousands of employees, according to BI.

It appears that the trend of killing off DEI in the workplace continues as Microsoft lays off an unspecified number of "DEI employees" (grifters seems a more appropriate description).

I've always seen this as just a matter of time and something that will be looked back at as an oddly racist period in history. One can hardly recall a moment when a Democratic Party official in front of microphone didn't make a token (pun intended) pledge to this racist ideology.

After all, your skin color, genitalia, and sexual orientation aren't reasons for you to get a job. Your qualifications and merit are. Hopefully, companies like United Airlines do the same before airplanes start dropping from the sky.


Thoughts?

 

[Laodicean60]

I've noticed corporations go where the political wind goes.

 

[Offline4Better.]

Microsoft Laid Off A DEI Team, Saying It’s ‘No Longer Business Critical Or Smart’

Microsoft laid off a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) team this year, with a team leader sending an email saying the initiatives were no longer needed.The email, sent earlier this month and obtained by Business Insider, is from an individual whose name has not been released. It is unclear...

www.dailywire.com

"Microsoft laid off a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) team this year, with a team leader sending an email saying the initiatives were no longer needed.
The email, sent earlier this month and [COLOR=rgba(20, 20, 21, 0.91)]obtainedMicrosoft laid off a DEI team, and its lead wrote an internal email blasting how DEI is 'no longer business critical' by Business Insider, is from an individual whose name has not been released. It is unclear how many team employees were laid off.[/COLOR]

“True systems-change work associated with DEI programs everywhere are no longer business critical or smart as they were in 2020,” said the email, which was sent to thousands of employees, according to BI.

It appears that the trend of killing off DEI in the workplace continues as Microsoft lays off an unspecified number of "DEI employees" (grifters seems a more appropriate description).

I've always seen this as just a matter of time and something that will be looked back at as an oddly racist period in history. One can hardly recall a moment when a Democratic Party official in front of microphone didn't make a token (pun intended) pledge to this racist ideology.

After all, your skin color, genitalia, and sexual orientation aren't reasons for you to get a job. Your qualifications and merit are. Hopefully, companies like United Airlines do the same before airplanes start dropping from the sky.


Thoughts?

Seems that this could be a remnant of the Democrat's racist history. The Jim Crow laws were upheld during the Grover Cleveland presidency. He was a Democrat.


Grover Cleveland info:

Grover Cleveland: Campaigns and Elections | Miller Center

millercenter.org

 

[Ana the Ist]

Seems that this could be a remnant of the Democrat's racist history. The Jim Crow laws were upheld during the Grover Cleveland presidency. He was a Democrat.


Grover Cleveland info:

Grover Cleveland: Campaigns and Elections | Miller Center

millercenter.org

DEI had a big upswing in 2021 through early 2022. You could hardly hear a Democratic Party member speech that didn't include the word "diversity" in a positive light. This is because of the lack of party values and the need to promote "something" the Democratic Party stands for as a moral endeavor.

Diversity in the workplace is very well studied though. There's really very little or very poor research showing that deliberate attempts to increase racial or sex or sexual orientation diversity improve any sort of outcomes....let alone productivity outcomes.

There was however an increasing body of research showing DEI "training" and "initiatives" led to negative outcomes.....creating an openly or quietly hostile workplace. This started to kill DEI initiatives by late 2022. By 2023....when inflation and consumer consumption failed to rebound sales in a lot of sectors....DEI became an easy target to cut workers from because it's not associated with the service or product....it's an ideological position that did little more than create useless positions and in the worst cases, racial discrimination lawsuits. DEI programs and trainers have been getting cut ever since.

It's true that some companies are still pursuing it...but I don't think they'll see any gains from it. Other companies still claim to pursue it...but it's generally relegated to some employee with no extra funds or authority, amounting to a token title that companies can point to as a moral flag.

 

[Offline4Better.]

DEI had a big upswing in 2021 through early 2022. You could hardly hear a Democratic Party member speech that didn't include the word "diversity" in a positive light. This is because of the lack of party values and the need to promote "something" the Democratic Party stands for as a moral endeavor.

Diversity in the workplace is very well studied though. There's really very little or very poor research showing that deliberate attempts to increase racial or sex or sexual orientation diversity improve any sort of outcomes....let alone productivity outcomes.

There was however an increasing body of research showing DEI "training" and "initiatives" led to negative outcomes.....creating an openly or quietly hostile workplace. This started to kill DEI initiatives by late 2022. By 2023....when inflation and consumer consumption failed to rebound sales in a lot of sectors....DEI became an easy target to cut workers from because it's not associated with the service or product....it's an ideological position that did little more than create useless positions and in the worst cases, racial discrimination lawsuits. DEI programs and trainers have been getting cut ever since.

It's true that some companies are still pursuing it...but I don't think they'll see any gains from it. Other companies still claim to pursue it...but it's generally relegated to some employee with no extra funds or authority, amounting to a token title that companies can point to as a moral flag.

Yeah, I remember it around the turn of 2022 or so. It was a 12-18 month fad.

My company that I work for had a lot of DEI stuff, and still does (though toned down a bit), but it was really bad in 2022, cos Monkeypox was around, and there was a disability group that talked about mental health and how it relates to Monkeypox (there is barely a connection). Of course, the topic of discussion was all about Monkeypox, so I stayed away from that group, and will never be part of any DEI stuff. You know why Monkeypox existed in 2022? Cos people need to not have sex before marriage.

Common sense people. Even the Bible says no sex before marriage.

 

[MForbes]

I've noticed corporations go where the political wind goes.

It don't work, and companies are starting to realize this; however, the DEI pushers are still in office, and DEI is still being forced on all government hiring / firing / promotion actions.

If things change in November, then hopefully the mass move to DEI during the current administration will peter out. The ineptness of some federal workers has become really pathetic, irritating and laughable. I know because I'm working in that cauldron.

 

[iluvatar5150]

I wouldn't read too much into this. DEI initiatives may very be ineffective, but MS has also made some wacky, apparently-short-sighted moves lately. Their closure of certain Zenimax game studios ran counter to both things they'd said earlier and goals they articulated immediately afterword. I know a bunch of people who work for a variety of their divisions (mostly games, but not entirely). I don't know anybody who's got a ton of faith in their leadership.

 

[MForbes]

Good John Stossel interview on this subject:

 

[Reasonably Sane]

Good John Stossel interview on this subject:

As usual, Stossel nails it.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

I wouldn't read too much into this. DEI initiatives may very be ineffective, but MS has also made some wacky, apparently-short-sighted moves lately. Their closure of certain Zenimax game studios ran counter to both things they'd said earlier and goals they articulated immediately afterword. I know a bunch of people who work for a variety of their divisions (mostly games, but not entirely). I don't know anybody who's got a ton of faith in their leadership.

I suspect they’re going from in-house staff to a third party source.

 

[Laodicean60]

Good John Stossel interview on this subject:

I've always liked Stossel from the 80s till now. I get a different perspective instead of the drumbeats from the left and right.

 

[iluvatar5150]

I suspect they’re going from in-house staff to a third party source.

Possibly. We also don't know which team this is, what their scope was, and whether their responsibilities are being cancelled altogether or merely shifted onto another group. MS has a lot of business units, and things get restructured all the time.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

Possibly. We also don't know which team this is, what their scope was, and whether their responsibilities are being cancelled altogether or merely shifted onto another group. MS has a lot of business units, and things get restructured all the time.

Correct. Especially since I wonder if they’re working up a split between some of their divisions a la Disney.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I suspect they’re going from in-house staff to a third party source.

I suspect they're just looking at bottom lines. DEI is never a part of production or service....it's like a division of HR that doesn't add anything.

You have to remember, these DEI folks come in and make claims about increasing productivity and having a stronger work culture. When that doesn't materialize a year or two later....why pay these people 6 figures and waste time in their training sessions and meetings? DEI hires dropped 30-40% in 2023, and they only seem to be dropping. AI will only accelerate this trend...and then there's the scammers....

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/05/16/facebook-nike-furlow-smile-prison-fraud.html

Lawsuits...

DEI backlash has companies quietly changing their programs to avoid wave of lawsuits alleging discrimination

A case against the Fearless Fund alleges that one of its grant programs discriminates against non-Black women and asks the courts to imagine a similar program designed only for white applicants.

fortune.com

One has to wonder keep these DEI instructors/teams at all?

 

[Offline4Better.]

I wouldn't read too much into this. DEI initiatives may very be ineffective, but MS has also made some wacky, apparently-short-sighted moves lately. Their closure of certain Zenimax game studios ran counter to both things they'd said earlier and goals they articulated immediately afterword. I know a bunch of people who work for a variety of their divisions (mostly games, but not entirely). I don't know anybody who's got a ton of faith in their leadership.

There is a reason why folks use Linux more so also, cos it offers more freedom compared to MS. I might get Linux in the future.

 

[rjs330]

I have a feeling that eventually DEI will be relegated to government agencies only. The private sector will get rid if them becauae they aren't actually doing anything valuable for the company and only cost money. They may even recognize that it's hurting the company becauae they aren't actually hiring the best people.

 

[Offline4Better.]

I have a feeling that eventually DEI will be relegated to government agencies only. The private sector will get rid if them becauae they aren't actually doing anything valuable for the company and only cost money. They may even recognize that it's hurting the company becauae they aren't actually hiring the best people.

Once it goes to the government agencies, imagine how our government will perform. The gov't would probably start faltering, instead of hiring folks with the most experience.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

It's not surprising that some companies are choosing to lay off those teams. (especially at tech companies)

In many cases, it's a huge expense (financially), and something that does nothing more than irritate their employees.

Fun fact, the highest concentration of libertarians (and libertarian-leaning individuals) in the US are concentrated in, you guessed it...the tech sector.

Working in the tech sector myself, I can attest to that...I have some of those leanings myself.


True story, the company I work for appointed a "Chief Diversity Officer" (this was a person making upwards of $200k/year) - along with his staff of 9 people - who developed "mandatory" trainings and "compulsory" seminars (I put those in quotes, because half of us didn't bother attending)

I believe how the one conversation with my boss (the CTO) went was "Hey, me and my team have about 20 hours of dev work left on this high-priority project + testing time, it's already Wednesday afternoon and the client wants it in place by Monday morning...if I make them go to that breakout session for two hours, I'm telling them they can leave 5pm tomorrow and Friday, and I'm not going to ask them to work over the weekend, which means you may have to set expectations with them and tell them it won't be ready Monday, you still want us to go??"
(spoiler alert, we didn't go)


They all just got laid off at the end of 2023.


For anyone who's worked in the IT space, they know we're an eclectic bunch, but we all generally get along, most of us all have the same (sometimes dark) sense of humor and are thick-skinned, but above all else, IT people have the mentality of "tell me what needs done, but don't tell me how to do it"

In fact, I do have a gay employee (I was actually a groomsman at his wedding), and he was the one who made the joke "I'm glad we didn't end up getting roped into that, it sounded pretty gay" - he said it in a fake "southern accent" (to which we all had a good chuckle)

 

[Pommer]

Microsoft Laid Off A DEI Team, Saying It’s ‘No Longer Business Critical Or Smart’

Microsoft laid off a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) team this year, with a team leader sending an email saying the initiatives were no longer needed.The email, sent earlier this month and obtained by Business Insider, is from an individual whose name has not been released. It is unclear...

www.dailywire.com

"Microsoft laid off a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) team this year, with a team leader sending an email saying the initiatives were no longer needed.
The email, sent earlier this month and [COLOR=rgba(20, 20, 21, 0.91)]obtainedMicrosoft laid off a DEI team, and its lead wrote an internal email blasting how DEI is 'no longer business critical' by Business Insider, is from an individual whose name has not been released. It is unclear how many team employees were laid off.[/COLOR]

“True systems-change work associated with DEI programs everywhere are no longer business critical or smart as they were in 2020,” said the email, which was sent to thousands of employees, according to BI.

It appears that the trend of killing off DEI in the workplace continues as Microsoft lays off an unspecified number of "DEI employees" (grifters seems a more appropriate description).

I've always seen this as just a matter of time and something that will be looked back at as an oddly racist period in history. One can hardly recall a moment when a Democratic Party official in front of microphone didn't make a token (pun intended) pledge to this racist ideology.

After all, your skin color, genitalia, and sexual orientation aren't reasons for you to get a job. Your qualifications and merit are. Hopefully, companies like United Airlines do the same before airplanes start dropping from the sky.


Thoughts?

After a saw cuts through the wood completely, one ceases to use the saw.

 

[Sabertooth]

The email, sent earlier this month and obtained Microsoft laid off a DEI team, and its lead wrote an internal email blasting how DEI is 'no longer business critical' by Business Insider, is from an individual whose name has not been released. It is unclear how many team employees were laid off.

(I just wanted to see what that was supposed to look like...)