Employee Lifecycle
This is the stage where belonging either takes root or dies, often before a new hire has made it through their first week.
What is Onboarding?
This 1964 U.S. law outlawed discrimination in employment and public accommodations, shifting responsibility for inclusion toward institutions and creating a compliance-based approach.
What is the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
This January 21, 2025 executive order revoked EO 11246 — the 60-year-old foundation of federal contractor affirmative action.
What is EO 14173: Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity
These are the two simple definitions of Inclusion and Belonging as reframed in the session.
What are Inclusion = fair access; Belonging = being valued?
This higher-education practice—used by universities to promote underrepresented student enrollment and often targeted by anti-DEI laws and court rulings—uses race or ethnicity as one factor in admissions decisions.
What is affirmative action?
Rather than leaving immediately, disengaged employees often do this first, costing organizations full salary for partial contribution.
What is disengage (quietly/silently)?
Popularized in the 1990s as organizations moved beyond compliance to culture, these employee-led groups provide support, advocacy, and influence on policies to strengthen workplace belonging.
What are Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)?
EO 14173 required federal contractors to certify DEI compliance under this act — making a false certification potentially subject to treble damages and significant penalties.
What is the False Claims Act?
Despite higher regulatory and public scrutiny, these three core business realities remain unchanged for leaders.
What are diverse teams, talent expectations, and trust remain?
In January 2025, this retail giant became a symbol of corporate resistance when more than 98% of its shareholders voted down an anti-DEI proposal — even as 19 Republican state AGs simultaneously sent a letter demanding the company eliminate its DEI programs within 30 days.
What is Costco?
This is why referral-heavy hiring without intentional process design quietly compounds a lack of diversity over time.
What is homogeneous networks?
From the 2010s onward, organizations began treating this as a measurable outcome—using engagement scores, attrition and promotion analyses, and people analytics to assess whether employees feel safe, valued, and able to contribute.
What is belonging?
On March 14, 2025, this federal appeals court stayed the preliminary injunction blocking the DEI executive orders — allowing them back into force while the appeal proceeded.
What is the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals
These are the three operational guardrails that leaders should focus on to reduce risk while advancing impact in Inclusion & Belonging
Fairness, consistency, and transparency
This retail and apparel company has been under investigation by the EEOC since May 2024 for allegedly engaging in a pattern or practice of disparage treatment against white employees.
What is Nike?
According to the research, DEI isn't a program you add, it's this.
What is infrastructure?
In this year, this act came out prompting workplace accessibility.
What is The Americans With Disabilities act in 1990?
On January 22, 2026, the EEOC voted 2-1 to rescind its entire 2024 harassment guidance. Chair Lucas stated this explicitly — to make clear the rescission did not open the door to unlawful workplace conduct.
What is: "Rescinding this guidance does not give employers license to engage in unlawful harassment. Federal employment laws and Supreme Court precedent remain firmly in place."
According to the slides, this is where inclusion shows up most clearly in organizations, the areas that are the biggest drivers of belonging.
What is in these parts of the employee life cycle: hiring, promotion, performance reviews, leader behaviors, and managers' capabilities?
This major tech company announced it would pause certain diversity training programs and remove race-conscious hiring language after state-level bans on DEI initiatives affected vendor contracts and public-sector partnerships.
What is Google?
This stage is often treated as purely administrative, but it's actually the last data point an employee uses to finalize their story about your organization.
What is offboarding?
This document is a milestone document in the history of human rights and was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on December 10th, 1948.
What is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
This 2020 Supreme Court decision established that Title VII prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity — and critically, it remains good law even after the EEOC rescinded its guidance and the EOs took effect.
What is Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020)
These are the recommended ways to measure success in Inclusion & Belonging.
What is measuring engagement, retention, and employee voices?
On May 5, 2026, the EEOC filed suit against this major media company, alleging it discriminated against a white male editor who was passed over for Deputy Real Estate Editor — despite being rated more favorably than the candidate who was hired.
What is The New York Times?