SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Ford becomes the latest company to scale back its diversity and inclusion policies:
Ford is changing some of its diversity and inclusion policies, joining a growing list of companies altering their approaches amid a changing legal and political environment and online pressure from the right.
Ford CEO Jim Farley said in an email to employees Wednesday that the company has changed some of its policies in the past year. It has shifted its employee resource groups' focus and ended participation in external culture surveys by the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group. In 2017, Ford boasted about its recognition from the organization as one of the best places to work for LGBTQ equality.
Right-wing activist Robby Starbuck posted a copy of the email on X and took credit, saying he had told the automaker he was looking into their policies. (Ford confirmed the accuracy of the email to CNN.)
"We are mindful that our employees and customers hold a wide range of beliefs," Farley wrote in the email. "The external and legal environment related to political and social issues continues to evolve."
Farley said that Ford remains committed to creating an "inclusive workspace and building a team that leverages diverse perspectives, backgrounds and thinking styles."
Ford joins Harley-Davidson, Tractor Supply Co., John Deere and other companies in revising or pulling back on their diversity, equity and inclusion programs (DEI), support for gay Pride marches and LGBTQ events, strategies to slow climate change and other social policies.
Some companies have backtracked more than Ford. Tractor Supply, for example, announced in June that it will withdraw its carbon emission reduction goals and eliminate jobs and goals focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. It will also stop sponsoring LGBTQ+ Pride festivals and voting campaigns
Starbuck, a former Hollywood music video director turned conservative activist, has claimed credit for these moves. But business experts have told CNN that Starbuck's activism alone does not fully explain these decisions, and some companies' commitments to diversity and inclusion were thin to start.
The Human Rights Campaign criticized Ford's announcement, saying the company was "abandoning inclusive employees policies and support" and "cowering" to Starbuck.
"Ford Motor Company's shortsighted decisions will have long-term consequences," Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said in a news release Wednesday. "Ford Motor Company is abandoning its financial duty to recruit and keep top talent from across the full talent pool. In making their purchasing decisions, consumers should take note that Ford Motor Company has abandoned its commitment to our communities."
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday September 02, @11:32AM (7 children)
So these companies finally found out that the people that call for diversity, DEI or whatever terminology is the correct one at this point in time are not their customer base. People walking in PRIDE parades and such events are not the core customers of companies such as Harley-Davidson, Tractor Supply Co. and John Deere. These people that do walk in the parades and such might want these companies to cater to and acknowledge them and their believes but they are never, or rarely, going to be customers of them.
So they want the attention but they will not engage in some kind of reciprocity and actually buy these products in a sufficient amount to cover the costs. So why would the companies support them again? It's odd cause what they are doing is pissing of a large part of their actual core customer market in doing this. People that would never get into the PRIDE and diversity ideals for one reason or another. They tried to cater to a market that just didn't exists except in fantasy-land.
They should cater to the market that actually supports you and buys your products or you cater not to a market that doesn't buy your products and never will. It's sort of amazing that it has taken these companies this long to sort of get it. In lack of a better description the liberal urban elite isn't the core market for these products, never have and never will. Blue-haired-lesbian-bikers just isn't a sufficiently large demographic for Harley. Middle aged dudes with biker fantasies are. No matter how much you spend on PR and HR and whatever that just isn't going to change. I'm sure they got it before, but they didn't want to get hung in the media. The pendulum have swung a bit again. It's ok to not engage in this media fantasy without an actual customer base.
In some regard I am wondering if this have not actually damaged their existing market. By turning customers away to other brands that didn't engage in this sort of thing. That these policies have removed both customers and potential employees for feel good costs and a perceived value that would never materialize.
Robby Starbuck (was he named after BSG?) is just trying to ride the pendulum in the other direction trying to take credit for something he probably can't even have a significant influence over anyway. Trying to the the posterboy for some other fantasy movement.
(Score: 2) by helel on Monday September 02, @09:48PM (1 child)
So you're saying the core customer base of these companies are bigots?
I honestly don't understand the kind of person you're describing. If I'm in the market for something the thing I care about is who has the best design and engineering. Worrying about the sex, gender, skin color, or imaginary friends of the people that make it is just so foreign. To think somebody might choose a different tractor just because they're worried a brown person might have built it? It's beyond insane.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Tuesday September 03, @05:18AM
This isn't about design and engineering, it's about marketing. Do you really think McDonalds have the best burgers in the world, or even the best cost-benefit for burgers in the world?
We are _all_ more susceptible to marketing that we'd like to think we are. And if the right marketing can draw in an audience of customers, the wrong marketing can just as easily drive them away, product quality be damned.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday September 03, @12:18AM (1 child)
That strategy is a long term dead end. If you want to continually increase sales, you need to increase the market to whom you are able to sell. That means selling to a more diverse market. The easiest way to attract a more diverse market is to make them feel they are not some sort of outlier in their community if they buy your product.
The current backlash against DEI is simply pandering to a vocal political minority. Hopefully, in the long run, it costs the cowards who fall for this a great deal.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday September 03, @03:21PM
The problem is eternal growth isn't sustainable either. Eventually you'll run out of customers. Or well not everyone wants to be a customer of the product you sell. This isn't about the product in itself, this is just marketing in that regard.
They don't like the image or ideals or the product you want to sell. If you look at say Harley Davidsson, who is their core customer? You can just look at the images in on their website. It's not people in PRIDE-parades. They want to sell bikes to "Men", they want to sell some image of freedom, modern cowboys, bikers or whatever it is they are trying to associate their bike with. It is for a lack of better terms middle aged men with biker fantasies and to much money. That really shouldn't have anything to do with DEI or Diversity or PRIDE or whatever. But they decided to jump on that bandwagon and it has clearly backfired cause their previous audience couldn't be taken for granted and they didn't like the DEI message.
So if they had continued down that path with the imaginary customer that like those things they wouldn't have sold a lot of bikes anymore. But by catering to them they are, or would have, destroying part of the market that used to or are their core audience. Cause those people don't want to ride a dyke-bike or be associated with it. If HD had started to sell large amount of pink bikes catering to women or whatnot a lot of their core audience would start buying Indian or some other brand.
The current backlash about DEI is that they, or companies in general, drank the coolaid are trying to sell other values that are clashing with some peoples believes and ideas so they want no part of it and I guess they are tired about being quiet and just swallowing. You can't have all the cake. It's one bite or the other.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday September 03, @09:37PM (1 child)
It's not about catering to your existing customers. It's about seeking new customers.
Most corporations don't actually give two hoots about DEI. They see it as a way to expand their customer base. It would likely work fine if you didn't have bigoted assholes like Robby Starbuck stirring shit up.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Tuesday September 03, @10:55PM
Yes. But those new customers comes at a cost. That cost is their old customers that might not want to be associated with their new DEI propaganda. So gain some, lose some. If they thought they would have gained more new customers they would have continued down the DEI-path. By stopping it's a fair conclusion they have concluded the shitstorm was not worth the trouble and it did not make business sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 04, @08:02AM
Someone didn't watch Brokeback Mountain...