Chapter 2: Employee Perceptions Matter: The Challenges of Organisational Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Programmes

With the rising concern for employment equity, accompanied by the potential for social media backlash and boycotts of company brands, products, and services, organisations are focussing on equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in the workplace. They develop programmes and initiatives and allocate resources to these efforts. While there has been some progress, companies have also faced challenges that stymied the effectiveness of those programmes and the intended outcomes for their organisations. Based on in-depth interviews with 28 employees of organisations in various industries, this chapter identifies challenges at three levels based on employee perceptions. The findings categorise these challenges at the individual employee (micro) level, the organisational (meso) level and the national (macro) level. Furthermore, the findings suggest steps to remove some of those challenges, or at least minimise their negative impact on organisational EDI policies and practices.