The DEI Struggle: A Guide to “Walking the Talk”

By Alia Huzaidi

If you have any experience with the inner-workings of the corporate world, you’ve almost certainly heard of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Whether it is through enthusiastic town halls, mandatory awareness talks, or embedded in the mission statement of your organisation, more and more companies are championing DEI at the top of their lungs.

“Invest in us,” they whisper, “because we invest in a safer, better world!”

But even with the very best of intentions, the gap between saying the right things and actually doing them is precisely where workplace culture either grows stronger or quietly starts to rot from the inside.

Don’t worry, I’m not here to give you yet another lecture on the moral importance of diversity, equity, and inclusivity (in the hopes that you already know it well *side-eye*). Think of it as a friendly hand on the shoulder from someone who's watched too many well-meaning companies launch a DEI initiative with fireworks, only to let it fizzle out by Q3 when the next budget cycle rolled around.

The goal here is to help organisations move from aspiration to action, sustainably and sincerely, so that inclusion & belonging stops being a slide in the onboarding deck and starts being something people actually feel every day.

The Gap Between Saying and Doing

Most organisations are genuinely good at saying things. LinkedIn posts, values pages, and anti-discrimination policies. Say them enough times, it’s easy to believe them to be true. The real question is, are these words implemented?

DEI should not be just a buzzword in the workplace. It should be a commitment, woven into the fabric of workplace culture. Not just in our policies, but the texture of our everyday interactions: in the way we speak to associates, to C-suites, or to each other. In the way we write a job description, run a performance review, decide whose idea gets the airtime, and who keeps getting talked over.

I’m not saying that being loud about DEI is the wrong thing to do. I’m saying that it shouldn't be the only thing we do. I’m saying that organisations need to have the willingness to interrogate its own structures honestly, and to look inwards and recognise the rot before it can truly stink.

“The door is open for everyone,” but we forget to count the seats. If your website loudly champions diversity but your boardroom remains 94% homogenous, DEI becomes nothing more than a branding strategy.

Reminder: Walk, Don’t Sprint

Here's a classic move: an organisation gets called out (or just spooked), so they immediately schedule mandatory unconscious bias training for every single person, announce three new initiatives, and post about it on LinkedIn before the ink is dry.

Workplace culture doesn't flip like a light switch. DEI work isn’t a sprint. It's a long, occasionally uncomfortable walkathon through organisational history, structural blind spots, and at least one very awkward all-hands meeting. The organisations that treat it like a PR campaign are the ones who end up putting out crisis comms later.

So start with listening. Radical, genuine, "I will not get defensive" listening. Run anonymous surveys. Host focus groups. Ask people what makes them feel invisible or undervalued. Interrogate your workplace culture where it actually manifests, then actually do something about it.

Equity Is Not a Synonym for Equality

Here's where things get a little philosophical so bear with me. Treating everyone exactly the same is not equity. Equality is handing everyone the same size ladder. Equity is noticing that some people started in a basement and maybe need a longer one.

People show up to the workplace with wildly different starting points. Different networks, different access to mentors, different levels of psychological safety. Pretending otherwise isn't neutral, it's just convenient.

Real inclusion & belonging requires actually accounting for those differences, not papering over them with a "we treat everyone the same!" policy.

Equitable workplaces ask the uncomfortable questions: Are your job descriptions quietly filtering out great candidates? Are your performance reviews rewarding output, or just rewarding the loudest person in the room?

The pursuit of equity in pay, promotions, and processes is the real differentiator between organisations that genuinely champion diversity and those that just have a very nice Careers page.

Make DEI Boring (In The Best Way)

The most effective DEI programs are, frankly, a bit unglamorous. They involve setting measurable goals tied to diversity representation, tracking equity in pay and promotions, reviewing progress quarterly, and connecting results to leadership performance metrics.

No confetti. No viral announcements. Just steady, deliberate accountability. The kind that keeps workplace culture moving forward even when no one is watching.

This is where organizations discover whether their commitment is real. If DEI goals vanish from executive scorecards the moment business pressures increase, that tells you everything about where the organisation's priorities actually live.

A culture that sustains real inclusion & belonging is built by leaders who model it daily, not just leaders who quote it in the company newsletter. Because when diversity is genuinely valued and people truly feel like they belong, something remarkable happens: the work gets better, the ideas get bolder, and the whole place becomes somewhere people actually want to be.

No confetti cannon required. (Though we're not opposed to one at the end.)

Curate Your DEI Journey with Speak Up Malaysia

Every organisation's DEI journey looks a little different, and that's exactly the point. Speak Up Malaysia works with teams to build inclusion & belonging strategies that are honest, sustainable, and actually felt by the people inside your organisation. No copy-paste frameworks. No one-size-fits-all workshops. Just real, tailored work that meets you where you are.

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