A diverse workforce boosts your business

June 11, 2025

Donald Trump started his second presidency by ordering the US government to wind back or abolish diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, and some major companies followed suit.

DEI involves recruiting people from different backgrounds (diversity), treating all employees fairly (equity), and making them feel that they belong in the organisation and are listened to (inclusion).

Many aspects of a person can be included under diversity. Award-winning engineering firm Aurecon has diversity targets for gender, people with disability, indigenous Australians and Māori people, the LGBTQIA+ community and veterans. Increasingly, companies are appointing autistic and other neurodiverse people to foster innovation and a richer problem-solving environment.

Let’s explore whether Trump’s presidential order was wise by looking at the science and what successful companies are doing.

The benefits of DEI

Does having a diverse and included workforce pay off? The short answer is yes: diversity from the top to the bottom of the organisation benefits a business. The science is clear that a workforce comprising different genders, ages, nationalities, skills and other backgrounds advantages your business. It optimises productivity, increases innovation, and leverages the full potential of the workforce.

Having gender and ethnic diversity at the top of companies – at board and CEO levels – improves outcomes on financial performance, risk management, social responsibility and innovation. Ensuring top-level diversity has been shown to attract and retain top talent, generate innovation, improve employee performance, and enhance stakeholder value in competitive markets. Using DEI strategically not only addresses these key challenges but also enhances organisational performance.

Restricting diversity to the top misses out on benefits that flow from promoting diversity among the workforce more generally. For instance, in a study of 159 large French firms, having gender diversity at both the middle management and operational levels improved financial performance. Businesses with balanced diversity (between 40% and 60% female employees) at the middle management and staff levels are generally more profitable compared with predominantly single-sex firms, suggesting that gender diversity drives better performance.

Implementing DEI effectively

Achieving successful outcomes from a diverse workforce requires top management support. Michael Morgan from Insight says: “The technology industry is still largely run by men who need to consciously create more space for more women to be heard, to thrive and to lead, and at the same time, we need to provide the resources to allow women to become a bigger voice.”

This requires serious programs aimed at different levels in the organisation, as well as setting concrete targets. One example of this is tech company Infineon, which has set a global gender diversity target of 20% females in leadership positions by 2030, up from the current 18% in its 57,000 strong workforce.

Concrete steps towards DEI include: