2025 Compliance & Beyond: Turning Challenges into Workplace Opportunities

In today’s volatile regulatory environment, staying merely compliant isn’t enough—organizations need to anticipate what’s next.

Watch SHIFT’s March webinar 2025 Compliance & Beyond: Turning Challenges into Workplace Opportunities, where our distinguished panel decodes recent regulatory shifts and reveals emerging workplace trends. Discover how to proactively address compliance risks while fostering a more respectful, inclusive workplace.

What You’ll Learn:

✅ Key regulatory changes impacting workplaces in 2025.
✅ Practical tools to transform liability risks into opportunities.
✅ Strategies to create a culture of compliance and inclusion.

2025 Compliance & Beyond: Turning Challenges into Workplace Opportunities Webinar Transcripts

It’s 3:01. I think as we see people are flowing in, but we will get started with introductions. My name is Karen Byington. I’m the director of Content at Shift. We are an HR compliance and workplace culture training company that provides e-learning solutions to help you not only meet your HR compliance mandates, but to create positive and inclusive work environments to help all organizations thrive.

And just want to give you, before I make the rest of the introductions, a few logistics. Some of you are attending for SHRM or HRCI credit, and we’re gonna provide you with a code sometime during the middle of the discussion. So please make note and we can follow up with you after to provide you with the credit.

And please, please, please feel free to use the chat feature on the Zoom meeting to ask any questions that you have. We may also pose some questions or ask you for some feedback during the course of the webinar. So use the chat to put in there. If we don’t get a chance to answer a question that you post, we will follow up with you after the webinar to address the questions that you have.

So we are really, really happy to have you all here today. Not only are we gonna update you on some important information that was released just last week by the EEOC and the Department of Justice, but we want to share some real world insights about how organizations across the country are navigating through these really complicated times. Because if you just read the headlines, you would think that DEI is dead and that organizations all across the country are folding to the pressure to roll back their efforts to create any diverse or inclusive workplaces. But we’re here to report from the front lines, not only from our experts and what they’re saying, but hearing directly from our clients. And spoiler alert, there is good news to share.

So we’re lucky to have our seasoned expertise here today to guide you through. So I’m gonna make some quick introductions. We have with us, for those of you who don’t know her already, Katherin Nook Freeman. She is the co-founder and president of Shift HR Compliance Training and a truly passionate advocate for building better workplaces. Katherin’s been an employment lawyer for over 30 years. She’s a dynamic employment law advisor, a training instructor and industry thought leader. And she really partners with clients to educate and evolve workplace culture and incorporate strategies to comply with the law to foster inclusive workplaces and create overall better workplaces for flourishing for all, and all of this while reducing unnecessary risk, which we are gonna emphasize throughout this whole presentation today.

And then we also have with us Anne Somi Edmondson and Paul Diaz, who many of you on here may know already. They are our seasoned veterans from our client success team who are joining to share their insights about what they’re hearing firsthand from clients and how they’re navigating these uncharted waters around DEI and compliance. So welcome Anne, Paul and Katherin. We’re excited to get started today.

Thanks, Karen. And I just want to add, I am so glad that Anne and Paul are on the call because as Karen said, they really have their fingers on the pulse talking to clients of all sizes from, you know, Fortune 50 companies to mid-market companies, to the startup companies who are interested in growing to publicly traded companies. And so we’re really gonna be able to get many different perspectives on this call from all of us and encouraging it to be as interactive as possible.

Sure. So Katherin, just to make sure we’re all starting on the same playing field of knowledge, can you just give us a quick refresher about the executive orders that we’ve been referring to and that we’re gonna refer to throughout the discussion? So there’s two of them. If you could just go through and give us a brief refresher.

Yes. Yes. And so, you know, when we refer to executive orders nowadays, it’s easy to lose track ’cause we’re talking about two in particular today, but there have been many since the beginning of the year. And so that’s one of the reasons why we are going to continue to host these types of webinars to make sure that you are all up to speed on many executive orders that really are being promulgated.

So two of the ones we’re going to talk about are included in our deck today. And the first is the one that’s entitled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism.” And just as a refresher and a level set, in case you haven’t been on our prior programs this year, this particular executive order stated that it’s the policy of the United States to recognize only two sexes and that sexes are not changeable and there’s no spectrum of genders.

And as part of that executive order, the US Attorney General is to issue a guidance with respect to governmental agencies to correct what this new administration viewed to be a misapplication of the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision in 2020. And for those of you who don’t recall, that decision is the decision that addressed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. And it stated that sex discrimination includes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and transgender status. So before, Title VII was unclear, didn’t specifically address those two categories, sexual orientation, transgender status, but the Bostock decision clarified that it does in fact apply to that. And of course now the US Attorney General is issuing guidance to show that that’s not the case.

And that executive order also said that the Attorney General shall issue guidance to ensure the freedom to express the binary nature of sex, male and female, and the right to single sex spaces in the workplace as opposed to how many employers had shifted over the past few years. And this particular guidance specifically applied to federal contractors, those who have contracts with the federal government and subcontractors as well as federally funded entities and not just governmental contractors.

And then finally, as part of the executive order, it authorized leaders in different governmental agencies to prioritize investigations and litigation. And it listed the following leaders: the Attorney General of the United States, the Secretary of Labor, the general counsel and chair of the EEOC, and any other agency head with enforcement responsibilities under the Civil Rights Act.

Yeah. And Katherin, can you just go over quickly what the impacts of this particular order is having on private organizations as well as federal contractors?

Yes. So first of all, it really depends what state you are operating in or states you’re operating in, because there are many states that still do find transgender status, still do protect transgender status, for example. And so you really need to have a good understanding. And those of you who are experienced in HR, I’m sure do as to what your state’s requirements are in terms of preventing harassment, discrimination. And in terms of, you know, propagating these different policies.

So when we talk about bathroom policies, for example, this is something that might be implicated under this new executive order if your particular state that your company is operating in doesn’t have its own protections. So for example, the executive order 14168, which I just spoke to you about, it rescinds the EEOC’s prior workplace guidance, which had in fact supported the concept that not allowing employees to use a restroom that corresponds to their gender identity would constitute harassment. So now that’s been rescinded. So that no longer exists.

However, if you’re in a state like New Jersey, for example, where it could be considered harassment if you don’t allow an employee to use a restroom that corresponds with their gender identity, nothing’s really changed for you, at least in New Jersey, but it may have in other states in which you operate.

Another example would be pronoun policies. Again, the EEOC’s workplace harassment guidance previously, which has now been rescinded, said that repeated misuse of an employee’s preferred pronouns. So if you have an employee who says, “I like to be referred to as they,” and in the past if employees kept referring to that person as “she, she, she,” when they like to be referred to as “they,” that could be grounds for harassment under Title VII in the federal law. Well now that has been rescinded, that EEOC guidance no longer exists. But again, if you live in a state like New Jersey and New Jersey does view that type of behavior or response to be a potential factor in harassment or discrimination case, then nothing has changed for you.

So again, you’re really gonna want to seek whether it’s your internal counsel, your external counsel, to figure out which of these policies are or are not impacted as a result of these executive orders and in which locations in which we operate. And in terms of gender identity, as I mentioned, the executive order tried to correct the application of the Bostock decision, but an executive order cannot set precedent over Title VII, which is legislative law or the Bostock US Supreme Court decision. So it can’t alter case law or legislation.

So the second executive order that we’ll be talking about today related to this topic is “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” So what does this DEI related executive order mandate and how does it impact the private sector?

Right. Well this, and this will be the meat of our conversation today. So essentially the order directs federal agencies to stop issuing contracts to private organizations that implement illegal DEI frameworks. So the clarifying word is illegal. You can’t have an illegal DEI framework and their goal is to return to a merit-based contracting philosophy.

Of course, the way we look at it is, especially as an employment lawyer, I look at it as I’ve been analyzing DEI programs for companies for years, making sure that they have a legal DEI program. So if they have a legal DEI program in place and had one in place over the past few years, there are very little, if any changes that need to be made depending on what the employer was doing. So I’ve always encouraged my clients, if you’re gonna put DEI programs in place, let’s make sure we analyze it under current law and make sure what you’re doing is legally acceptable.

So the agencies are supposed to stop issuing contracts if you have an illegal DEI framework. But if you have a legal one, arguably it should not be an issue for you. And then again, it mandates that all government departments and agencies take action to end illegal private sector DEI practices.

And it also instructs agencies like the EEOC, and we’ll see how busy they’ve been over the past few weeks too, to investigate companies which continue illegal DEI initiatives. So in a way it’s, as a result, it’s really sort of serving as a wake up call slash witch hunt to many companies to really go on a fishing expedition to see if these companies are engaged in illegal DEI initiatives.

And I know Ann and Paul may share more along these lines, but what I’ve been seeing is that our clients, the largest mid-market to even the small, they’re just making sure they go back, they take a look at, they legally review their DEI initiatives and programs so that if the EEOC were to investigate them, if somebody were to file a complaint, that they are confident that they’re doing everything within the legal bounds of set law and they’re finding, you know, they’re finding strength in that.

Yeah. And that’s, I think sort of where we left off after the last webinar is the discussion was the problem with illegal DEI not being defined anywhere, but then the EEOC and the Justice Department just released some guidance last week. So can you tell us a little bit about what we’ve learned since we met last and what this memo, if it’s giving us any further clarification or guidance on that illegal DEI?

Yes, yes. So the EEOC’s memo highlighted a few unlawful DEI practices. So, and again, much of this employers have known and have been doing already, but it’s a good wake up call for those perhaps who hadn’t scrubbed their DEI programs yet.

But for example, it said that affinity groups, ERGs, employee resource groups, which limited membership in those groups would be a problem. And so now what most employers are doing is they’re making sure that they don’t limit membership, they don’t limit attendance, they encourage all allies, for example, and anybody else interested in learning more about a particular resource group to attend. And the reality is that we all know there’s very little extra time in a day. And so most people who attend these types of ERG groups and meetings are gonna be dedicated either to the cause or to supporting the cause or at least learning more about the cause, which isn’t a bad thing either. So negative implications from that are really limited.

The EEOC’s memo also highlighted as an unlawful DEI practice, if there was training that was limited based on a protected characteristic. For example, I was just in a program the other day talking about examples of what would be a problem. And one example of training that, you know, could be problem under this guidance is that if you, for example, separated white employees from black employees or male employees from female employees in different training sessions on preventing harassment and discrimination on understanding unconscious bias concepts, et cetera, you could see how that could potentially be a problem. It’s not something I would ever recommend a client do to begin with. It’s not something Shift’s courses would ever address. Perhaps employers who are not as knowledgeable about learning and development best practices might do something like that. And if that was the case, that would be considered illegal DEI.

And there were other references to an employee being able to possibly allege some type of DEI related training created a hostile work environment by showing that the training was discriminatory. And so, again, the way we look at it as Shift is, this is why you need to be really careful about whatever training you roll out internally, externally, through e-learning, through instructors, you want to make sure that you are following best practices and that your training instructors, your training company really understands this. And when we heard this at Shift, again, we said that this is something that we’ve consciously thought about all along because we don’t need the EEOC’s memo to tell us that you don’t want training to create a hostile work environment by allowing the training to be discriminatory in some way.

Another example of the memo addressing issues was in the hiring context. So a number of organizations have, over the years used diverse slate requirements and the EEOC pretty much came out and said, you can’t do that anymore. And you know, quite frankly, I didn’t really know of that many companies. I know many companies talked about wanting to do that, wanting to have more diverse slate requirements. But now that’s one of the clearer areas that you really can’t engage in that assignment.

Is that the Rooney Rule, is that the Rooney Rule that people used to refer to?

Exactly, yeah. Good question. Having at least one diverse candidate being considered for a position. And, you know, then there were also studies that show that having one really doesn’t make a difference anyway. You really need multiple people with diverse backgrounds in order for you to get a desired result. So the Rooney rule wasn’t really proven to be that effective anyway. So for most companies, they say, look, doing away with this requirement isn’t necessarily going to change our goals and our outcome in this regard.

And then with respect to assignments, the memo stated that client preferences are not a defense to race or color discrimination. And that employers could raise bona fide occupational qualifications as an affirmative defense in limiting circumstances for hiring an individual based on religion or sex, et cetera. So if they had a legitimate business reason for hiring somebody of that sex, that would not be a problem.

So those were really the key points in the memo. But like I said, nothing was really a rude awakening because so much of that, if you were really trying to comply with DEI best practices previously, you were probably already doing.

Right. Yeah. So the good news is that this aligns with what Shift has already been understanding, what most of our clients we believe have already been understanding about what is the best practice. So as long as you were following those all along, there shouldn’t be too much change or adjustments you’d have to make.

Can you tell us, Katherin, a little bit about some of the recent cases that are coming up and that have been filed to challenge the executive orders? Because this is where it all gets tricky. I mean, you have executive orders and you have the law, and now we have court cases coming through that are challenging. So can you, as clearly as you can, and it’s not easy, walk through what’s happening?

We can touch the tip of the iceberg here. You know, I was saying to somebody, I just feel for employers, because I mean these are lawsuits that we’re, the next couple we’re gonna talk about have been filed against Trump. But if we’re talking lawsuits, there have been so many other lawsuits that are starting to be filed against companies, employers, because of the social discourse, because of the conversations people are having, because you have more employees who are feeling unsafe in the workplace.

The whole concept of psychological safety, they feel like they’re in a hostile work environment because there are all these muddy lines between what people can say and can’t say. And so, you know, I could just tell you from my law firm’s perspective, ’cause I’m involved in two companies to shift the learning company and the law firm, we’re ramping up hiring attorneys and we’re defense side because we know our clients as much as we don’t want them to get sued, and even if they do all the right things, employees are hearing a lot of social discourse and engaged in it in the workplace and are gonna be feeling uncomfortable. And so I think one of the big takeaways from this conversation today should really be what can we, as HR leaders and DEI leaders do to build the strongest foundational culture, workplace culture we can to really help our employees continue to work together, to increase that psychological safety, to decrease the legal threat and, you know, still achieve our goals of building inclusion throughout our organization.

So I’m gonna touch on just a couple of cases. There are many against the Trump administration and one of the big ones is the National Association of Diversity Officers versus Trump. And essentially in that case, the lower court on February 21st issued a nationwide, not just in Maryland where the case was decided, but a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking three provisions of the executive order. So saying the executive order in these three areas is stayed, the Trump administration can’t move forward.

And those were the provisions requiring federal contractors and grant recipients to certify that certification requirement that they don’t operate any illegal DEI program. So that was one of the things that was stayed, wasn’t effective as of February 21st. The second was a provision directing the attorney general to encourage the private sector to end DEI, and then the third was…

But on the grounds of it violated the First Amendment freedom of speech because if an employer or individuals believe in DEI and they’re legally compliant, they should be able to express that interest.

So unfortunately, even though that court decision was a nationwide preliminary injunction on March, later on in March, the appeals court reversed this ruling and issued a stay suspending the injunction until the appeal was privately heard. So basically the executive orders are still in effect now and will be until the appeal is heard and that should be heard within, you know, within the short term future. So we’re really keeping our eyes on that to see what happens, are any parts of the executive order invalidated, barred, et cetera. But as of right now, as drafted, they are in effect, the requirements in that particular executive order still exists. So I think that’s the main one for now, Karen.

Okay. All right. Thank you so much Katherin, for this overview and update. It’s so much information to take in, but important that we kind of set the groundwork of what we’re talking about. ‘Cause as clients are changing, what are they changing in relation to?

So before we go on, I just want to give, for those who are here for SHRM or HRCI credit, the HRCI code to write down is 698364. And we’re gonna put these in the chat if you want to copy them. The SHRM code is 25Z as in zebra, QH as in Harry, M as in Mary 2. So again, those are gonna go in the chat if you write those down and follow up with us after, we will provide you the information for your credit.

Now just take a minute to let our audience know that we’ve been very busy at Shift, and Katherin alluded to this, to make sure that all of the trainings that we provide, that we are working to keep our clients compliant and prepared for this changing landscape. And we’ve been continuing to do what we have always done, which is create and review courses for legal compliance. All of our courses are developed with legal input.

And in addition to that, we’ve always gone one step further. So not only are they legally compliant, but we work closely with social psychologists to review all the language in our course so that we are never putting our learners on the defensive. And I mentioned that because that’s one of the issues that’s come up is that training can, you know, produce a hostile work environment if a learner takes the course and feels like they’re being targeted or triggered or put on the defensive.

So this is something that we have always acknowledged as, you know, potential risk in wanting to make sure that our courses never put the learner on the defensive in that way. We are always ensuring that our laws as laws and policies change and evolve, that we ensure that our courses remain compliant.

In the case of these executive orders, we have been working very closely with our legal team, one, to ensure that the courses legally comply and do not in any way fall into the category of what would be considered illegal DEI. Secondly, we’ve been taking a look towards evolving attitudes and sensitivities that have been changing. So language and content may adjust just to reduce risk of complaints. So it’s not necessarily a legal issue, but something that we are just looking to the future and making some adjustments.

For example, while it’s not illegal, we had a module in our preventing workplace harassment and discrimination course that was titled “Gender in the Workplace,” where we focused on issues of sex discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, LGBTQ issues based on the terminology preferences outlined in the executive order. Katherin first talked about we changed the language and now that module is called “Sex Discrimination.” So we kept all the important content but felt going forward it’s best to reflect some of these changes.

So additionally, where there are more gray areas that Katherin was talking about, also around pronouns and bathroom usage in the workplace, especially if you’re in a state that doesn’t have, you know, their own mandates around this, we removed some supervisor best practices that give instruction around those issues because of, you know, things being a bit of a gray area for now.

So as we stated before that what’s made Shift stand out in the training space in all these years is that we’ve always been diligently reviewing so that these executive orders and these changes and adjustments are nothing new. And this was really the impetus for Katherin, you and your partner for starting this in the first place.

Yeah, absolutely. And just to pick up some of the things you were saying, so what I’m hearing again and again in employment law circles of other employment lawyers is that regardless of what’s being addressed in this DEI context, employers absolutely still have a responsibility to prohibit harassment and discrimination from occurring in the workplace.

And so what that means is that any policies you have, which I’m sure you all have them related to preventing harassment and discrimination, again, really need to be reviewed and updated because the potential for these harassment and discrimination claims now is greater than it was before. And your training needs to be absolutely compliant and beyond compliant.

To Karen’s point, what I see as an employment lawyer is the organizations with the best workplace culture get sued the least, get challenged the least, have the least amount of problems and issues and employee complaints. So you want to protect your organization by having solid policies and practices and investigative procedures related to preventing harassment, discrimination. And while you’re doing that, you want to build your workplace culture and try to grow the empathy within your employees and the understanding and the insights within your employees so that you can build your culture while you’re decreasing your risk during this tumultuous time.

So, and you know, as Karen pointed out, absolutely, that’s why we started Shift, you know, my founding business partner and I, we said, we looked around to see what training was out there that wasn’t check the box. It actually really looked to create a better culture. And both of the taglines for our businesses are helping business create a better workplace. And that’s really, as HR leaders, that’s probably your goal too. Yes, you have compliance and you have initiatives and all those important goals and tasks, but many of us as HR leaders, we want to build a better workplace because that contributes to your attraction of employees and retention of employees and productivity of employees and morale of employees.

So we looked at it from a training perspective and said, what e-learning can we provide to complement the instructor led training that our law firm was doing that really helps build that culture while protecting employers from so many of these employment law risks. And as I mentioned earlier, there are so many more risks now, which means like, you know, the stakes are higher and we need to, as HR leaders and DEI leaders, we need to put even more effort in to make sure that we’re getting it right because if we get the right training in place, we’re gonna potentially decrease our risk, prevent these big issues and build a better culture, which is, you know, it’s hard to argue with any of those things. It’s what we all want.

Right. And on the other side of it, as you’ve always said, is done incorrectly, training could end up being a liability. So it’s the risk benefit, right?

That’s exactly right. Like we used to, when we were first starting out nine years ago and approaching prospective clients, we would talk to some clients who said, yeah, you know, we have employees in California and New York and New Jersey and these other states and we were told to just give everybody the California training.

And I looked at them and as an employment lawyer, I know that the laws are different in California and New York and New Jersey and I know that if you state one thing, it could, you know, it could create a, you know, contractual right to the employee receiving it. And so we always tried to make sure from the very beginning at shift that our entire team, people like Anne and Paul who are regularly interfacing with our clients and growing our clients training practices, like they had an amazing understanding of what is best practices for what should be included in training, what training should be done.

And, and for us it’s not, it’s not an afterthought. We’re, you know, Ann and Paul are not experts in 15 different areas of cybersecurity and OSHA and this, that and the other thing. They are focused exclusively on, on employment law issues, HR compliance issues, workplace culture issues, DEI, and they’re really deep and broad in terms of their knowledge in that area. And we just believe that really that really serves our clients because that’s what, that’s what we all need. That’s what HR leaders and DEI practitioners need to have that broad and deep understanding to be able to roll out the best training possible.

Absolutely. So I actually wanna turn now to Anne and Paul because although we know that organizations, each of you on here, you know what works best for your individual organizations in the way that you know, to proceed, that is fitting for you. But it is always good to learn from what others in your position are doing. And so as our team continues to have conversations with clients about training and compliance issues, we wanted to share some of what we’re seeing and hearing. ’cause we think that is really important and really valuable for our clients and for those of you joining, so Anne, can you start off and talk about is there a general theme that you’ve been seeing amongst your clients and how they’re responding to these executive orders and all of the new policies over the last couple of months?

Karen, thank you so much. So I’m gonna be very topical because I’m going to refer to a conversation that occurred five minutes before the webinar. So the overall sentiment is for everyone to continue this work and as the client said right before the webinar, there culture efforts are actually expanding and they too have rebranded to wellbeing and engagement. And that last statement is really kind of the crux of what is taking the market, and that is the idea about rebranding. Everybody’s focusing on rebranding. So I think we should take a hold of what this headline actually means.

So because I think it’s really misunderstood, it’s not simply a name change, kind of like Catherine said, people are really scrubbing and looking at everything. It’s more of a holistic process. Our clients are reshaping their initiatives more holistically, revising messaging strategies, practices and rebranding. They’re not just rebranding the same old, same old. And what has, uh, ultimately resurfaced is inclusion and belonging have risen to the top. This has been reflected in many companies rebranding that you might have read about. And this includes JP Morgan who was diversity, equity and inclusion and is now diversity opportunity and inclusion. UnitedHealth had highlighted DEI on its website and now focuses on a culture of belonging. Walmart changed its chief diversity officer to chief belonging officer McDonald’s went from the DEI center of Excellence to the global inclusion.

So the, the name changers are all over, but it’s more than just rebranding, but a whole initiative. But what’s really important to point out is even prior to the executive orders, what we were seeing was the training topics shift to ones that were more applicable to the entire workforce. The idea of being an upstander, thriving with a multi-generational workforce, fostering trust, all of these topics apply to all and many of our clients, leaders in their space are ultimately continuing their amazing, amazing work.

Although the content and subject matter may look different to mirror the world at large, some things do remain the same. And across the board, one of the key concepts to any program success, regardless of the name or the content, which should have been way ahead of which Karen you alluded to, is not making any group feel targeted or putting anyone on the defensive. And what’s really amazing is even when we talk about harassment and discrimination, we don’t frame it in a punitive way. We welcome everyone into the conversation for education and it’s a very different approach. You want all your employees to kind of lean into your initiatives for them to be effective. And that remains the constant as well as the desired result, which is ultimately behavior change, which is the reason any learning journey is established in the first place. So I hope that helps Karen.

Yes. Such great. Can I just add something to that? I I thought that was so helpful, Anne. So, so thank you for that. And just to pick up what you were addressing in terms of rebranding the media, sometimes misinterprets or at least misreports it, you know, you, you, you hear about these reports of this big company backing off from DEI and that big company doing so. And, and I can tell you our, you know, our, our law firm represented a few of the big companies that were in the media and we know they weren’t backing off of anything. They were, to your point, they were reexamining, perhaps rebranding to come up with words that were really accepted by all and would be heard by all. And they were just as committed as ever, but they weren’t afraid to go next level and modify things. So I I think you’re, you’re exactly right, like the rebranding so that the words used resonate with even more people, but still effectively achieve the inclusionary and belonging goals. That was a great point. Thank you for making that.

Yeah, and I, I would like to encourage anybody that’s on here, please use the chat if you would like to share anything that you’ve been doing in your organization, if your program changes or if you’ve been rebranding and retitling your DEI group. I mean, please feel free to share it with the group. I’m sure we would all, you know, love to see and learn from what others are doing. So use the chat feature if you wanna to share and add to the conversation.

And then Paul, can you share a little bit about what you’re hearing and, and the clients and discussions that you’ve been having? Yeah, Absolutely. And thank you so much, Karen. Uh, to jump off what we were just talking about in with all my clients, I have not seen anybody stop this work because the focus is to continue this work. It’s just how that’s gonna be done. So some people it is rebranding, but what I’m noticing is a lot of people right now are looking for resources and a lot of teams have been cut. So they’re looking for resources to help with a smaller team and, and help create that new path for the unique needs of their organization. And they’re looking for something that is really proactive and, and a very collaborative partnership.

And I am so proud that Shift offers this to everyone. Uh, because what I’ve seen right now are people who are so deep in their DEI work full steam ahead, not stopping Shift has the resources for them. We have a deeper dive into unconscious bias training that really focuses on perspectives. I have a large organization who is focused on that work and doesn’t wanna back away from it. They have the buy-in everywhere. They have the foundation that they needed in order to deploy this training in this current climate. So they’re not worried about it. They know that shifts content is, is compliant, is within the law as it always has been.

And then I have other clients who are not quite there yet in their journey. They are looking to build that foundation. And I, I’m working with them on finding, you know, that structure. And what that is is, as Anne said, focusing on unity, focusing on unifying as the dust is up in the air right now, how can we all come together so that those are our courses around civility, trust and respect, multi-generational workforces and cultural competency. So they can really build that foundation while the dust is in the air so that when it settles, they have a platform to continue that work, which is the absolute focus.

Another thing that I’m noticing is I have several clients that are, you know, government contractors. They work, they, they work in that space and there’s a big spotlight on them right now. But they do trust in the work that Shift is doing behind the scenes, anytime that there’s a new executive order, it is being scrutinized, it is being analyzed to see how it would affect our training and, and we’re working for our clients in that respect and really giving them the peace of mind that they can deliver really effective training in this climate, which is so uncertain to make sure that hey, they are going to mitigate risk down the road. So that’s, that’s what I’m seeing right now and it’s, it’s really motivating.

Awesome. Thanks Paul. Anne, do you have anything to add as far as what you’re seeing clients doing and changing as far as a learning journey or, or training that they’re rolling out?

Absolutely. So, you know, leaders mirror the world at large, so your training’s gonna look different if you’re really good at what you do in response to what you’re seeing. So there was a time where learning journeys really focused on, you know, interrupting unconscious biases. And I’m really seeing the move to developing more of a foster fostering trust foundation through civility and respect as a foundation, teaching your employees how to lead with civility and respect. How do you have those difficult conversations that, listen, we can avoid them, they are finding their way into your workplace and how do you have those occur yet create that sense of psychological safety. Those are the two words that you keep hearing psychological safety. You cannot have those without fostering trust and civility and respect and it’s taught. So it’s hard to ignore that. The time for this is not now, but that seems to be a foundation that I’m seeing laid.

And the other thread that I’m seeing as kind of a thread, universally thread journeys is really diving into that empathy where, where you focus more on the shared feelings of someone. And I’ll give you an example. If we talk about something like disability etiquette, physical disabilities, mental neurodiversity in an education, it provides an understanding that I like to say you just don’t know what you just don’t know. So there’s that understanding, but then there’s the empathy of a colleague’s unique experience that maybe you’ve never felt yourself, that you start to really empathize with their experience. And then we teach how do you take action to make everyone feel included and supported? So again, it’s this empathy piece where you really have a different level of learning and understanding, and that ultimately derive behavior change. So again, that trust is more foundational and then everything that you, you roll out really try and lead with that empathy and understanding.

Yeah, that, that was another great point. You just made me think of something when you emphasize that empathy point, Ann, because take for example, the, the guidance which essentially does away with viewing calling somebody an improper pronoun as harassment under the law. Now that that’s gone, you might say, oh, well I can call somebody whatever I want that I don’t have to use their preferred pronoun term. But if you take Ann’s position and you are instead taught about empathy and the fact that you have a colleague who you might otherwise respect and enjoy who’s asking you to refer to them as they, because that’s how they feel most comfortable, even though you’re not legally required to refer to them as they as an empathetic and caring colleague, you might do so because, because that’s their preference and that makes them feel more included and more comfortable. So it’s not because the law is telling you ha you have to, it’s because that’s what a good colleague does. So that’s a great point, Anne.

And, and one last thing I I think that’s so important to point out is it’s one thing to give people examples and say, do you recognize this? Do you see what’s happening in this situation? 9 1 1 says yes, and there’s that recognition, there’s another question to say, how do you think that person felt in this situation? And that that really creates a totally different feeling and understanding. So that’s just really good way to frame it in your mind. Mm-hmm. There’s the recognition and then really putting yourself in those shoes. How does that feel? And that’s where you’re like, hmm, I don’t know if, if that is what you know, feels right to me. So just a little example for everyone.

And I think, and one of the reasons why we, why we do that is because like all of our training is really b based on best practices from a learning and development standpoint. And there is substantial research out there that shows that a person person’s empathy level can absolutely change over time with practice and with education. And so we buy into that 100% at shift and we believe that by including those aspects into our courses, we’re helping move, not, not maybe everybody, but we’re moving the needle for a large spectrum of the employee population and helping them incorporate into their, their behavior and their outlook, a higher degree of empathy to help build the culture. So we believe it’s really important for those learning and development principles.

Yeah, and I’ll just take it one step further in, in how we approach this, which you all know, is that not only do we know it’s important that you can you start to recognize what you didn’t know, you didn’t know then to start to build the empathy to around how that must be making somebody feel that gives you the motivation to wanna act differently. But then we take the next level to actually give you the skills and the strategies to behave differently. Because sometimes people wanna do the right thing and they don’t know what the right thing is to do. Like what, I don’t know what I should have said, or I don’t know how to say something differently.

So we always follow up, but not only providing the information to raise awareness, then to help create a sense of empathy, to motivate a person to wanna change their behavior and then don’t leave them hanging, but give them real strategies, real examples of behaviors that they can take in the workplace to be a more actively empathetic person and to show and help create an environment where their colleagues feel belonging and feel included. So it’s like this three step process and we follow that in all of our courses. So from the courses that focus on culture to, you know, harassment and discrimination prevention where it’s not just about the law and what’s allowed but motivating them to do better. ’cause like you say, Catherine, it’s finding that it’s making sure that people, you know, understand and want to change behavior is so much different than just knowing the law and what’s allowed and what’s not allowed.

But that brings me, so the next point that I wanted to talk about a little bit is, and you mentioned this early on, I thought maybe you can elaborate a little bit, Catherine, is when it comes to compliance training, harassment, discrimination, are you seeing any changes there in what your clients are doing or in what needs to be done? Are clients and organizations still rolling out harassment training? Is it as important as ever? If you can just elaborate a little bit more?

Absolutely. And, and as I alluded to the, the pundits are predicting that there is going to be an increase in employment litigation for a number of reasons. One, the social discourse, I spoke about the fact that these executive orders are being talked about within the workplace. You have people in agreement, you have people in disagreement, you have people saying, finally it’s here, and others saying, I can’t believe it’s here.

On top of that, you’ve got a US Supreme Court decision that is gonna be made any day. Now arguments have already been made that lowers the standard for majority individuals to establish harassment and discrimination claim. So what that means is if somebody who is, for example, white or male under 40, et cetera, in some states there was a higher standard for them to be able to show that there was reverse discrimination going on. Now you have a potential US Supreme Court decision, which is gonna say no, they shouldn’t be held to a higher standard they can sue. And it’s the same standard. So you have potentially more litigation coming from majority people in the majority as well as people who feel like they’re being discriminated now because of the conversations going on in the workplace.

So bottom line is more than ever, as I mentioned earlier, employers need to have their ducks in a row. You need to have really solid, clearly articulated policies pre prohibiting harassment and discrimination. You need to make sure your employees understand them. You need to make sure your managers understand their responsibilities under these policies where they’re required to make sure that they’re prohibiting harassment and discrimination. And so for that reason, the training needs to be that much better than it was in years past. There’s a little bit of confusion now with these orders and the guidance as to what’s protected, what’s not protected, but it’s clear with guidance which categories are protected under each state. And so that’s why you need to make sure you tap into your in-house legal counsel or your outside legal counsel to ensure that your policies address the characteristics like race, sex, age, sometimes transgender, sometimes sexual orientation, et cetera, that are protected under your state’s law in addition to the categories protected under federal law, because nothing has changed there.

Employers still have an obligation to prevent harassment and discrimination from going on with respect to a protected category, whether it’s because somebody is black or white, whether it’s because somebody is male or female, whether it’s because somebody’s over 40 or under 40, those obligations still exist, nothing has altered there. And so that prevention of harassment, discrimination training is definitely more essential than ever before. And then of course all the other trainings that Paul and Anne mentioned really just help build culture during this tumultuous time and and really help employees start to feel safer and better about their work environments. Because again, when they feel safer and when they feel better, one, they’re gonna stay with you. Two, they’re gonna be more productive, and three, they’re gonna be less likely to make internal or external complaints against the company or its leadership.

So true. So thank you, thank you. Before we finish up a couple, if we have a couple of good questions that came in that I’d like to address if we, if we have the time, but for everyone attending, we’d like to know for the future what is keeping you up at night and in all the things that we’ve discussed here and other issues that you have going on within your organizations, what would you find valuable to have as a discussion for a webinar in the future? Is there anything that you would like to share with this community about what you would like to see? And if you want, while we still have the chat open, if there is anything else that you would like to share about what’s been working well for you or issues that you’ve been struggling to navigate, this is always great for us at shift to learn what’s on your minds and what we can do to help you navigate the issues that you have concerns about and you may learn from, from your colleagues here who are adding.

So Catherine, a couple of questions that came in, and one is that they’re asking about the DEI related executive orders and can they be applied retroactively?

I’m not sure I understand that question. Can the person who wrote that give me a little bit more information about what you’re referring to? Unless, Karen, do you understand what that, I’m guessing they’re wondering if they had trainings in place before the executive orders. Could they, could they be, you know, have an investigation come in and held them responsible for having illegal DEI if they rolled that training out before the executive orders came out?

Okay. So say for example, an employer separated black employees into a room and white employees into a room, something that we would never recommend you do because that it could look potentially problematic under, you know, past DEI law and current DEI law. If an investigation occurred and they found that that was the training that was most recently done, they would likely indicate that that was a violation of legal DEI and you’d have to assure that that was not going to happen again. Let’s see, can imply is, so I don’t know if this is clarification now, can an employee file a claim about something that happened 12 months ago based on the Thank you, based on the recent executive orders.

So file a claim, can you give an example of like what, what, what kind of claim, what kind of conduct that happened 12 months ago?

All right, as they’re writing, I have one other question. This may be as much for Ann and Paul. So we have somebody that’s looking to rebrand and they wanna now call themselves inclusion, equity, and belonging. And they’re gonna communicate this out, but they have some of their ERGs that feel that removing the D for diversity means that they don’t care about the work. So any suggestions on communication for this rebrand? So I guess the question is are are you hearing this from other clients where there’s been some backlash or any concern about taking the d you know, or the e out of their, you know, DEI programming from their, you know, from their own employees?

I’ve seen, I’ll go first Paul, and I’ll let you go. I’ve actually seen companies keeping the D about changing the order. So it used to lead with the D, but the D now, if they’re not gonna remove it, comes more at the end than the beginning. So I’ve seen that as more of a shift. Like we’re not leading with diversity, but it’s part of our belief system. So I have seen that and I have seen equity being replaced with opportunity almost universally across the board. So those are the two things that I’ve seen with that. And I, I really do think it’s kind of your culture. And you know what, when you go across your whole strategy, what’s going to mirror what that strategy looks like? Paul, you

Yeah, it, it’s about what is gonna get the work done. You know, sometimes buy-in from the top, they might need to see that, you know, something is adjusted and that’s all they need in order to keep you doing the work. So it really is, you know, as long as you’re focused on really making that change and, and supporting everyone in your organization and your work culture, then there’s no harm in doing anything right now.

And I’ve also seen, with respect to the word diversity, that employers have communicated in a way that we believe in all types of diversity, diversity of thought, diversity of thought process, diversity of backgrounds, diversity of, you know, of of, of many different things. Not just diversity of race, sex, religion, et cetera. So companies are broadening what they value so that it’s not just certain protected characteristics, but that it’s so many different ways of thinking, many of which are, are not protected under the law. Think so another, and I think,

Yeah, ahead, A big piece to this too is, and you know, the person’s talking about that, they’re going to communicate this out. So if you were to just change, you know, your branding or what you’re calling your formally known as DEI leadership or team and without communicating to everyone, I think that is really starts to raise question and concerns and fear. But if you communicate it out saying, we’re changing our name and this is why, and this is what our mission still is and these are our goals, then at least you are, you know, following through with an explanation to kind of take back, you know, the fear that you’re gonna drop the work and that diversity is no longer important. You can emphasize that in the communication you do to your employees.

Mm-hmm. One quick, one quick thing. I know we have two minutes is I know Karen and we’ve been together in some of these meetings, but the other trend that I’ve seen that’s very important is it’s less, for a lack of a better word, prescriptive and a deeper dive. So I’ve seen a trend to really building things out for discussion and understanding and really diving deep into the work in a different way than I’ve seen before in the past. So I think it is the beauty of perhaps what has happened is the deep dive and the intentionality on every level of this work. So I have seen people really asking for more tools to go deep in discussion and really get people engaged in talking about the subject matter. So that’s a another big trend I’ve seen.

I agree. And just to circle back to this question about what if something happened a year ago that wasn’t viol wasn’t a violation, clearly under the EOCs guidance, but now is, so we now know the EOCs memo says that ERG groups cannot be limited to membership of that particular category. Say somebody complained in an organization about being excluded from an ERGA year ago. Well, we know that the EEOC’s agenda now includes making sure that ERGs do not allow this type of thing to happen. So it would really be up to the EEOC whether or not they want to pursue the complaint that is made with them. They have a lot of discretion in deciding what to go after and they may actually decide, look, we’re, we’re gonna, we’re gonna look into it, we’re gonna investigate it and see if it’s still going on now, and, and then determine what to do.

Like for example, there were a number of pending actions related to transgender harassment and discrimination complaints that the EEOC decided to take on in years past that they dropped cold Turkey within the past few months because they said we don’t really believe in pursuing those claims right now. Conversely, if they really do pursue agree that they should be pursuing claims that are violating their guidance with respect to ERGs, they may take a complaint, they may investigate, who knows what the outcome will be if it happened before and it isn’t going on anymore, but anybody can file a complaint with the EEOC. It’s basically free and then it’s up to the EEOC to decide whether to look into it further.

So if you did have a policy that violates the guidance now, just make sure it’s clearly articulated that the policy has changed and what the policy is going forward so that if for example, the EEOC decided to pursue something, you can make it very clear that your DEI programs are legally compliant. You’ve had them reviewed, you’re doing the right thing now.

Good. And Paul, Catherine, thank you so much for all the information, all the insights you shared. It was really valuable conversation I think for all of us attending. I just wanna let everyone know that if you alling this are gonna receive a short survey, two questions. It really is important to us and we really appreciate your feedback. If you could take the time just to answer those two quick questions, we always wanna know what you have to say and we also wanna invite you to reach out to us if there is any way in which we could answer your questions that we didn’t get to today. If we could provide you more information about how to set up a learning journey that fits your organization. If you want more details or a demo of any of our courses, we are more than happy to walk you through No obligation free demo of our courses. Anna Paul and the rest of the team are, are experts at helping you navigate these complicated times and showing you what we can do to be of help. So thank you all. Catherine, did you have last, yeah, I

Just wanted to say one, thank you to, to you, Karen, for always doing such an amazing job. But two, to piggyback off of what you were saying, one of my partners at my law firm just presented on psychological safety and bullying issues and how employers can handle that. So in response to Karen’s question, if you could weigh in, if that’s of any interest to you, we would be happy to have a webinar on that topic as a future idea if we get enough response with respect to that. So thank you, Karen. Thank you Anne. Thank you Paul, and thank you to great questions from a great audience.

Thanks everyone. Thanks everyone. Have a great day. Bye bye.