DEI Initiatives That Repair a ‘Leaky Roof’

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts have been around for a while, but their impact can sometimes be underwhelming. A pair of papers co-authored by ILR Assistant Professor Merrick R. Osborne examines why some DEI initiatives succeed while others fall short. The papers also suggest how to design more effective efforts.

The first paper tackles social hierarchies, while the second examines identity. “These two papers talk to each other,” Osborne said. “They add complexity to our understanding of what makes for an effective organizational initiative or attempt to reduce prejudice.”

Both papers are “asking us to focus on marginalized people,” Osborne said.

The Roof Is Leaking

Published on Nov. 17, 2025, in Research in Organizational Behavior, “Buckets Under a Leaky Roof: An Integrated Framework of Obfuscated Social Hierarchies in Organizations and Their Impact on Interpersonal Dynamics” presents a novel “leaky roof” framework to explain why efforts to maintain an egalitarian, meritocratic workplace through DEI programs don’t always succeed. The framework focuses on both the macro level of structural forces and the micro level of personal interactions. The paper is based on an extensive literature review.

The research team found that these programs work best when they are created with an understanding that external social inequities do impact an organization, just like rain dripping through a leaky roof impacts a building: DEI efforts that ignore outside influences act like buckets under leaks in a roof: they are a stopgap, not a real fix. Provided examples of buckets were certain types of allyship and diversity training.

“Managers don’t always ask ‘how are my decisions about who’s hired and who’s fired situated in a broader social context?’” Osborne observed. “Decisions are not just influenced by the information directly in front of us. Societal influences and pressures seep into the thought process, ultimately generating biases that shape decision-making.” 

The team identified actions – such as microaggressions, microinsults and microinvalidations – as the carriers of these undesired outside influences. They define these terms carefully to improve understanding. 

Osborne said, “precision in the language we use to describe our experiences is important … a lot of consternation wasn’t about whether microaggressions are actual experiences that people have, but also an understanding of what they are, how they manifest and what they mean.”

The paper defines “microaggressions” as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults to the target person or group.” In other words, they are slights or snubs that telegraph information about belonging or status.

Pointing out that not all these types of aggressions are consciously intended to cause harm, the researchers suggest that these aggressions are motivated by a desire to reduce anxiety caused by the gap between egalitarian expectations in the workplace and real-world, unequal social hierarchies. Whatever the motivation, the researchers say, they reinforce and perpetuate structural inequities.

The Importance of Identity and Intersectionality

The second paper, published Dec. 9, 2025, in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences and titled “Taking an Intersectional Approach to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Interventions and Policies” discusses how specific identities – such as “Black women” – are important to keep in mind when shaping a diversity initiative, instead of just broad identities, such as “women” or “Black person.” The research team points out that a lack of attention to intersectionality can “sometimes result in these initiatives failing large portions of the groups they are purportedly designed to help.”

“This paper is about articulating interventions and recommendations for how to manage the reality that … all employees have some form of intersecting identities,” Osborne said.

Osborne and his co-authors reviewed research on DEI initiatives that often work well and suggested how to make them even more successful by shaping them with an intersectional analysis. 

“Intersectionality is a term used to describe how any given individual has multiple social identities – and those social identities, working together in tandem, influence the outcomes that the individual experiences,” Osborne explained.

According to Osborne, Black women and white women may not experience a DEI effort aimed at women equally if the effort is inadvertently aimed at addressing issues white women experience in the organization, without accounting for how Black women may have distinctly different experiences due to also holding a Black identity. 

Recommendations for Effective DEI Efforts

For people wanting to create or assess diversity initiatives, Osborne emphasized the importance of acknowledging social hierarchies outside the workplace. “We argue that shifts away from explicitly being in conversation about diversity, equity and inclusion are obfuscating the problems that companies have and making it worse,” Osborne said. “Because it’s not like putting a Band-Aid on a wound, it’s saying that the wound is healed when it’s still openly bleeding or possibly even getting infected.”

Additional tips offered by Osborne are these:

• Don’t focus on solving problems after they crop up; instead, build systems that reward and encourage engagement with organizational initiatives. Examples include rewarding employees who engage in diversity initiatives and creating formal structures, such as employee resource groups, that support specific groups.
• Sharing demographic data can be a successful way to highlight gaps in diversity, but when you do so, include enough detail to show which sub-groups are benefiting or being left out. 
• Design programs for specific groups, such as Black women or autistic people.
• When trying to increase minority representation in leadership roles, it is not enough to simply promote people; instead, the workplace culture must eliminate reasons for the gap. For example, some companies’ internships may (unintentionally) only recruit from certain schools—thereby generating inequality in who gains work experience and becomes a strong job candidate.