Allan Schweyer: [00:00:00] Welcome to C-Suite Perspectives, a signature series by The Conference Board. I'm Allan Schweyer, principal researcher in the Human Capital Center of The Conference Board and the guest host of this podcast series.

Today's episode examines what employees based in the US, Europe, and Asia actually experience when it comes to diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) and where leadership perceptions diverge from frontline reality. Drawing on new global data, we explore what's working, what isn't, and what the C-Suite must do next to turn DEI from intention into measurable impact.

Overall, we had over 1,300 responses to our survey. Representing the four major economies of Europe-- including the UK, Germany, France, and Italy-- as well as responses from across the US and Asia, including mainland China, India, and Singapore. Joining me today are Marion Devine, principal researcher, Human Capital [00:01:00] Center, Europe, and Matthew Maloof, researcher, Human Capital Center, here in the US.

Welcome Matt and Marion.

Matt Maloof: Thanks, Allan.

Marion Devine: Thanks, Allan.

Allan Schweyer: I'm going to start with you, Matt, but certainly Marion, chime in as well. Matt, how do employee attitudes toward DEI differ across major global regions?

Matt Maloof: It's important to recognize that DEI support was high across all three regions but the really important part was that the differences were about whether DEI is well calibrated and producing a real business impact. When looking at the percentage of workers in those regions who said that they want to work in a place with broad diversity-- that means a mix of genders, a mix of thinking styles, a mix of ages, and a mix of race and so on-- we found that on average US responded, 77% said, yes, they do want to work there and it's important to their workspace; in Asia, 70%; and in Europe, 67%. [00:02:00] Overall, support for DEI was high. But then, and we'll touch on this as we get through the conversation, there were tidbits where we found a little bit of nuance where differences arose.

For example, when asking was there too much effort dedicated to DEI or too little effort dedicated to DEI, we found that the US was a little more polarized, while Europe had a little bit more skepticism and Asia had the least dissatisfaction overall, meaning, they were the most for DEI. We can see the three regions, broad support overall but differences in the nuance.

Allan Schweyer: Great. Matt, it sounds like we're doing pretty well with DEI then globally. You even mentioned investment amounts. So Marion, I'm wondering, does this mean we're investing the right amount in DEI and does this perception vary by region?

Marion Devine: Yeah, Allan. Overall, as Matt says, across most regions employees say their organization is investing about the right amount. And there are a few [00:03:00] differences. For example, the US is perhaps a little bit more critical: about 31% in the US say companies invest too much and that's compared to only 12% in Europe.

But you have to balance it with other things. Americans are more likely to say that DEI improves collaboration and belonging. It is nuanced across Europe: there are some differences. We saw that in France, 24% say that companies devote too little to DEI. They're a little bit more critical and that's the strongest sort of more-action-is-needed signal in Europe.

As Matt said in Asia there is generally more positivity, more enthusiasm. I think that really when you stand back from it, the issue isn't simply whether companies are investing enough. It's whether the investment really feels calibrated and relevant. It's about not thinking in terms of volume, more programs, more campaigns. But really what is working, what resonates locally, where might there be pockets of [00:04:00] skepticism or even fatigue? It's not about the investment as such. It's about really tailored and relevant and targeted interventions.

Allan Schweyer: Yeah. What I think you're getting at too, Marion, is the big question. I mean, it's not so much whether we're investing maybe too little, the right amount, or too much. Matt, I'm going to ask you this, do these investments translate into measurable business and workforce outcomes?

Matt Maloof: I think the clear answer is that they do, and with this, there's two angles.

We asked respondents to tell us if the DEI practices that the organizations deploy-- things like ERGs, leaders who communicate the importance of DEI-- had a positive effect on their work experience. We found that across the three regions, they said that they did.

And then when we asked them if the DEI practices had a positive impact on things like collaboration, innovation, engagement, retention. There's two more that I'm not recalling right now. But we found that they also said that those had a positive impact on their experience.

Now, the nuance here is that they weren't [00:05:00] super large percentages, right? In the US it was 58%. In Europe it was 51%, and Asia it was 63%. And improving your collaboration or your engagement for 58% of the team is still a worthwhile investment and still produces positive results. It's just making sure, how do we transition or modify the practices that we're using to meet the needs of the other 42%, for example, in the US.

There is definitely a clear reason to use these strategies and deploy them. It's just making sure we're doing it in a way that helps more than just slightly over half of our population.

Marion Devine: And something i thought was interesting was that if you just look at the data, it looks like retention is one of the lowest levers as it were. But actually all these other ones that people talk about-- engagement, collaboration, productivity at work-- those are drivers of retention. So even if people don't consciously say, oh, DEI, it helped, is a factor in keeping me at a company. Actually all the effects of DEI do have an [00:06:00] impact on people's working experience and therefore ultimately retention.

Allan Schweyer: That's a great point, Marion. Sometimes we can't directly attribute good business outcomes to a program under the DEI umbrella but you can correlate it, as you say, to things like improving retention, which does impact the bottom line.

I should mention too I was a co-author of the report. One of the things that struck me was the big differences between the perceptions of executives, managers, and frontline employees. Marion, where did you see this? What were some of the biggest gaps and surprises there between executives,managers, and workers?

Marion Devine: Yeah, it's really interesting looking at differences in perception. And it is perception but of course perception really counts. Across almost all these measures, senior leaders are more positive. They are more likely to say that the organization is investing meaningfully, that the programs are effective and certainly that DEI improves business outcomes. In a way it's not [00:07:00] surprising because they perhaps see the strategy, they see the investment, they perhaps have that overview that employees don't have.

When it comes to workers, they are more cautious. They're not quite so convinced and managers are somewhere in the middle. The sort of moral of the story really is that, first of all, it's critical that managers are in a way the bridge between the workers and the executives. If they are equipped and aligned, they can translate some of that strategy, some of those initiatives into the daily practice, the daily experience at work. And actually, I think it's encouraging that in Europe, 74% say that their manager makes them feel included and respected, and 79% in the US say that too. Obviously managers are doing quite a good job. So really it's more about trying to get a little bit more alignment between those three cohorts and definitely gathering and acting on employee sentiment. There's a bit of work to be done there if employees are a little bit more [00:08:00] cautious about impact.

Allan Schweyer: You mentioned the role of managers, Marion. That struck me too as just how big the difference was in a worker perceptions of DEI if their managers were behind DEI. Matt, if you can explain that a little more, the role that managers play in driving those perceptions amongst workers and driving, to some degree, whether DEI efforts are even effective at all.

Matt Maloof: Yeah, absolutely. Marion started and hit the nail on the head and saying that managers are that middle lever. If I was a C-Suite executive reading this piece, I would take away that this is the lever I want to strategize around. It's because we found that at minimum, across the regions, employees who said that their managers made them feel included and respected said they were three times more likely, at minimum, to perceive a positive impact from DEI strategies.

Just for an example, looking around fairness and inclusion policies, if an employee said that they felt included by their manager, [00:09:00] in the US 65% said they had a positive impact. In Europe, it was 66% and in Asia it was 78%. But if they said that their manager didn't make them feel included, it was 20% in the US, 24% in Europe, and 15% in Asia. That's a huge jump, at the low a 40 point swing and then at the highest 60 point swing.

If I wanted to strategize around making my DEI practices provide the best return on investment (ROI), I would dedicate the most time in making sure my managers are prepared to have those conversations, support their teams, and make them feel included and respected.

It's important to note that this puts sort of large burden, I want to say, on managers, but an organizational lift, right? Even if the managers are doing a lot of the work. We still found with practices like executives who communicate the importance of DEI, that they still need to be participating. And so this is definitely an important lever and you should pay special attention to it but you can't think that it's the only thing that I need to focus on.

Allan Schweyer: Just before we take a break here though, I want to [00:10:00] zero in on something you both mentioned. For our audience here, it seems to me it's not so much that managers themselves have a very high perception of DEI like the senior leaders seem to have in our survey. What it boils down to more is that managers make the effort to make their teams feel included and then that is going to drive more trust and buy-in for DEI initiatives amongst the workforce. Would you say that's right, or either one of you comment on that?

Matt Maloof: If we think of it from like a level perspective, being an individual contributor, you're hearing these DEI practices and messages from up top but that's not the person you're necessarily interacting with, the day to day and then in the moment to moment. And so managers have a key, I don't want to say power, but like a moment of time in which they can make those policies feel better or not as impactful. It's like you said, it's not that they are specifically more positive around it. They just have a unique [00:11:00] role to play in the organizational effort.

Marion Devine: It probably as well, there's something about the nature of trust here because when you think about the components of trust, having a clear policy, a commitment, all those organizational factors is very important. But we trust people as well. We trust things when we see them in action, and that's where the manager comes into play.

Allan Schweyer: Great. Thank you both. We're going to take a short break. I'm going to be right back with more of my conversation with Marion Devine and Matthew Maloof.

Welcome back to C-Suite Perspectives. I'm your host, Allan Schweyer, principal researcher in the Human Capital Center of The Conference Board. I'm joined by Marion Devine, principal researcher, human capital Europe, and Matthew Maloof, researcher, human capital, US. So Matt, let's talk about DEI mechanisms and which matter most to employees. Is it the [00:12:00] quality of their leadership? Is it training? Is it having employee resource groups (ERGs) in place or good policies? What did the survey results tell us?

Matt Maloof: Overall, we found that at the top of sort of those practices and strategies, we found three that stood out. It was fairness and inclusion policies. Two was dedicated leaders who can communicate the importance of DEI. And then the third was ERGs. What I want to zero in on is that these mechanisms and strategies are visible and they're tied to the day-to-day experience. But, and this is important, building off of what we were just talking about before the break, was that in part, their effectiveness is also highly contingent on how the organization strategizes around them. Like I said before, if the manager is involved and making their workers feel included and respected, this sort of strategy will be more effective.

What we found was that, for example, with dedicated DEI leader and the perceived positive impact it had, in the US we had 65% of workers; in Europe, 61%; and in Asia, [00:13:00] 74%. And then, for example, ERGs in the US, 62%; in Europe, 56%; and in Asia, 71%. What this tells us is that one, employees and workers want to see policies that promote fairness through either pay equity or complaint resolution or inclusion expectations. Two, they want visible leadership. They want their sort of leadership to communicate this importance and talk about DEI rather than shy away from it.

And then ERGs, is the idea that they would have a group that they can communicate to and feel, included and being able to have conversation with. But like we said before, those differences do appear in the level and how much effort is dedicated to the strategy.

Allan Schweyer: Interesting. So leaders who talk about DEI, ERGs where they can talk about DEI and, from the balance of what you said, seeing it happen. Not just hearing about it. We always talk about how it's [00:14:00] different between age groups. Younger people might have perceived DEI differently than, say, people of my generation, who we might call baby boomers. Marion, maybe this differs between regions. But how did generational differences affect the perceptions of DEI value and effort?

Marion Devine: I certainly was surprised in the way that generational differences didn't factor that largely in our results. It's not a divide as such. There were some regional differences. In the US generational views are a bit more spread out, so older employees are a bit more likely to say there's too much focus. Younger employees, there's more of them saying that there's not enough focus.

In Europe attitudes were much more aligned across age groups and I think, in general, in Europe we didn't see any real polarization, whereas we did perhaps in some of the other regions. In Asia younger employees are often very aware of DEI initiatives and they tend to report a strong positive impact [00:15:00] but they can also be critical as well.

So the generational issue is less important than perhaps you might have expected. Probably the key takeaway for leaders is just don't make assumptions. Don't stereotype generations. Just treat each generation with respect and really it's possibly about different career stages than generations that really matter.

Allan Schweyer: Really interesting. Now again, I coauthored the research, so I'm not surprised right now, but I was surprised, as were you, when we analyzed the results and saw that there wasn't a big difference. I know it was a little more pronounced in the US. Matt, did you have any comment on that before we move on?

Matt Maloof: No. Basically, it's similar thing that I predicted that there was going to be larger differences and was surprised to not see them.

Allan Schweyer: We also looked at whether a person worked in an office setting, whether they worked in a manufacturing or industrial setting. Frontline workers versus I guess non frontline workers. Did we see any differences there or in terms of [00:16:00] perceptions?

Matt Maloof: So same here. When we first started the work the hypothesis that I was operating under was that there were going to be these large differences. But what we found, particularly in the US and Europe, is that it was relatively consistent over the worker types, over employees who say they work in office settings and employees who say they work in industry settings.

For example with the US, the percent of employees who said that their organization was dedicating the right amount of effort to DEI in the office, 49% said yes. For industry and frontline workers, 45% said yes. And then in Europe, 52% in the office and 56% in industry and frontline. Those are really small percentage differences.

The big difference was in Asia, where we had in the office 47% saying that their organization was dedicating the right amount of effort and then 67% of industry and frontline workers. That's a much wider sort of 20-point gap. What that actually means, what we're looking at it is nearly half of the office employees in Asia [00:17:00] believe that their organizations were doing too much, right? But only 18% of the frontline and office frontline and industry workers felt that way. And so there is this perception gap that was occurring in the region.

Allan Schweyer: So there is a perception gap but as Marion and you both pointed out, it's not profound. A little bit more, when we look at it granularly in Asia somewhat. But I think it's fair to say that most of our respondents do appreciate efforts at DEI, certainly appreciate diversity in the workforce.

We didn't run this survey globally last year. We ran it only in the US and there was a significant dip overall in what we might term workers' appreciation for DEI. It was higher last year than it was this year and it was higher in 2024 than it was in 2025. So let's address the elephant in the room.

There's been a lot of pushback. There's [00:18:00] been a lot of political pressure, at least in the US and to some degree even in Europe, on DEI in general, of DEI programs that work. So we did ask our respondents to say how comfortable they were discussing DEI at work. I want to ask that question and start with you, Marion, but even if you want to expand that to talk about whether you see maybe some impact of all this political pressure happening or reflected in our survey results this year. Marion, why don't you start and then Matt.

Marion Devine: Yeah, this was a question that we were all very interested in. We have been seeing companies in Europe particularly struggling with how to respond to some of the developments that are going on in the US and concern about how they are communicating their DEI efforts. But we found actually that when looking at what do the employees think, surprisingly in the US, the size of portion said that they're [00:19:00] comfortable discussing DEI at work. In Europe, it's a bit lower, but it's not necessarily hostile. I think you might just say in Europe it's perhaps a bit more restrained. And in Asia, many employees describe themselves as somewhat more comfortable rather than extremely comfortable.

Again, it wasn't quite what we expected. It's a very interesting topic in itself, which we could talk about for hours because of course we've got cultural attitudes here. We've got the culture of the organization to factor in as well. So I think there are nuances and it's a conversation that's well worth having. But it's important to remember that silence doesn't automatically mean opposition. Silence needs to be looked at. I think it can be uncertainty or cultural norms or concern about saying the wrong thing.

I think the risk isn't open disagreement. You can do something with open disagreement. There's something to respond to. And in fact, our DEI leaders in Europe have been talking about engaging with resistance and opposition and actually seeing that as a [00:20:00] positive thing.

The real risk is quiet disengagement. That can be the real barrier to building an inclusive workplace. When people are just disengaged, they're quiet, they're not talking about it. Again, the takeaway for leaders is it's not about forcing conversation. It's really about understanding the culture of your own organization and at the workplace level. And also just creating that psychological safety that people do feel that they can talk. And really it's also about making sure that inclusion feels practical. It's not something abstract or ideological. People can talk about it in very everyday behaviors and situations.

Allan Schweyer: Thanks, Marion. Matt, your thoughts on that.

Matt Maloof: Definitely agree with everything Marion said but wanting to add on that. Again, when we looked here specifically at how managers who support their workers and make them feel included and respected played a role on how comfortable they were talking about DEI, we found that [00:21:00] managers who do that lead their workers to feeling more comfortable. It's important to recognize that those conversations could be happening in a variety of places and building that trust, that component that Marion talked a little bit about earlier, is super integral for making workers feel comfortable in having those conversations.

Allan Schweyer: Yeah. Thank you both for that. I liked the idea that if they weren't talking this would be something to be very concerned about. You want to get them talking and, as you both said, the manager has a big role to play in creating that psychological safety and environment for people to feel free about speaking about DEI, despite the pressures and maybe managers should start those conversations.

My last question to both of you is what is the main takeaway from this research for the C-Suite? What strategic shifts should senior leaders make to improve DEI credibility and the return on investment? Marion, do you want to start? [00:22:00]

Marion Devine: Yes, Allan. Again, where there's a lot of scrutiny, perhaps some controversy, I think one of the big messages is employees broadly support these DEI initiatives, but what they're less convinced about is impact. Therefore, something that's important for leadership is to really think about how do they prove the value and the impact of their DEI. It's about less noise but more evidence and stronger everyday leadership. When it comes to measuring impact, it's really looking at the things that matter about belonging, trust, are people seeing fairness in advancement. So measuring what really changes.

The second takeaway is really focus on the things that have high impact. Cut the low impact initiatives, do fewer things. Have the confidence to do fewer things but do them well.

And then third, and I think most important, invest in managers across all regions. As Matt's saying, when employees feel respected, included by their managers, the perception of DEI shifts [00:23:00] dramatically. So manager behavior is really important to look at. Then I suppose finally, Matt, I hope I'm not taking everything here, it's to localize. What resonates in Europe may differ from the US or Asia. Think global in your strategy, your targets, your vision. But when it comes to the implementation, definitely think local.

Allan Schweyer: Thanks. Matt?

Matt Maloof: I definitely agree with those four. And then one that sort of stood out to me as I think is an important takeaway is that there's an opportunity cost to silence. And what do I mean by that? We found that workers want to have these conversations and they want leaders who are talking about these sort of strategies and practices, and bringing that transparency to the front of the organization.

It's important to remember that you may not have it perfect right now, but to build it out better and to get closer to being the best strategies and practices can be, you need to have those conversations and talk about them with your workforce. And so a key takeaway is don't [00:24:00] shy away from the conversations.

Allan Schweyer: Yeah. Thank you both very much. And I would just maybe wrap it up by saying-- I don't want to oversimplify it but just listening to what you both said just now-- make people feel included, respected, and make them feel like they belong could go a long way toward making DEI, if we even want to call it that, strategies work. That could be the single thing, and not that that's easy, but the thing that leaders can do to make the biggest difference from what I'm hearing.

Thank you both. I thank you for joining us today and it's as always great to be with you both.

Matt Maloof: Absolutely. It was a pleasure.

Marion Devine: Thank you.

Allan Schweyer: And thanks to all of you for listening to C-Suite Perspectives. I'm Alan Schweyer, and the series has been brought to you by The Conference Board.