McDonald’s, which continues to be embroiled in controversy over sexual harassment, has faced stinging criticism this week after signalling it was rowing back on diversity, equity and inclusion programmes.
On Monday the fast food giant said it would retire specific goals introduced in 2021 for achieving diversity at senior leadership levels. It will also scrap a scheme that encouraged its suppliers to develop diversity training and to increase the number of minority group members represented within their own leadership ranks.
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Many of the diversity initiatives were launched four years ago after a series of sexual harassment lawsuits filed by employees and a lawsuit alleging discrimination brought by a group of black former McDonald’s franchise owners.
In the US, Walmart, John Deere, Harley-Davidson and others rolled back their DEI initiatives last year in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action in university applications. The victory of Donald Trump in November’s presidential election has also given impetus to those wishing to erode diversity and equity initiatives.
Trump named Stephen Miller, who leads a group called America First Legal that has aggressively challenged corporate DEI policies, as his incoming deputy chief of policy.
Last summer, vice-president-elect JD Vance introduced a bill in the Senate last summer to end such schemes in the federal government.
Backing away from DEI as soon as it’s convenient to do so just shows that they always viewed it as PR” – David Rice, People Managing People
David Rice, HR expert at People Managing People, said: “Companies who succumb to prevailing political narratives on DEI never took it seriously anyway. Some will use it as a way to trim oversight of hiring, retention and promotion, based on diversity, which does mean more than race despite perception.
“For McDonald’s they have a lot of resources, they could implement new technology designed to mitigate bias and perhaps that’s what they intend to do. But their DEI efforts are only four years old, implemented due to social pressures of the time following George Floyd. Backing away from it as soon as it’s convenient to do so just shows that they always viewed it as PR. The elimination of the supply chain mutual commitment to DEI also shows that it’s not a company value.
“Inclusion is great, but it’s in the process of being transformed right now to potentially being an entirely fluffy and meaningless term where no one is quite sure what is meant by it. It’s about to become something where, for example, someone is dismissed for expressing negative views of an ethnic group and the dismissal is considered an exclusionary practice, wokeism or limitation of speech. The only reason inclusion isn’t banned like diversity is that it’s easier to twist to whatever narrative you want.
“When McDonald’s says it is ‘embedding inclusion into business as usual operations’, what I hear is a corporate way of saying be nice to everyone while conducting business as usual. The fact that they have to introduce a new ‘golden rule’ concept of treating people with dignity, fairness and respect might as well be a confession that business as usual didn’t include behaving in that way previously. So now, the new rule is going to magically make it happen.”
In an open letter to employees and franchisees, McDonald’s senior leadership team said it remained committed to inclusion and that it believed a diverse workforce was a competitive advantage. The company said 30% of its US leaders were members of underrepresented groups, up from 29% in 2021. McDonald’s previously committed to reaching 35% by the end of this year.
McDonald’s said it had already achieved the goal of gender pay equity at all levels of the company and that it was likely to have 25% of total supplier spending go to diverse-owned businesses by the end of the year.
McDonald’s said its diversity team would now be referred to as the global inclusion team. The company said it would also continue to report its demographic information.
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