I recently spent five hours listening to more than 70 global human resources leaders discuss the seismic impact the second Trump administration was having on their jobs—from preparing for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement visits to navigating tariffs to balancing polarized workplace tensions between employees.
But one concern came up more than any other by far: After the inauguration, chief human resources officers said they were surprised by how many questions had flooded in about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from their European workforces, and were vexed by how to respond on a global level as international approaches to DEI diverge.
Asked one CHRO: “How do we continue to operate globally with similar messages to employees, consistent messages…without seeming like we’re talking out of two sides of our mouth?”
The concern—raised repeatedly, and by executives in multiple industries—underscores the complex global landscape leaders now face when it comes to their communications and policies about the issue. After years of vocally advocating for programs that pushed more diverse representation, inclusive cultures, and equitable access at a global scale, leaders now must navigate two realities.
In the US, the executive orders regarding DEI have prompted companies to rename programs, eliminate public diversity targets, and delete references to the topic in their earnings reports. Yet across the Atlantic, multiple European countries still have legal requirements for gender quotas on corporate boards or mandate reporting on equal pay.
That’s left a vast communications challenge for many firms. As calls rolled in from European employees, some CHROs said European managers were unintentionally caught without communications guidelines. Several were perplexed about how to communicate changes to DEI metrics in US compensation plans if they aren’t also changing them in Europe. And some were unsettled to hear that European managers assumed all their US counterparts would be upset over the administration’s changes. While many were, others were not. Said one CHRO: “We had people consoling Americans who didn’t want to be consoled.”
To be sure, Europe is not completely immune to the shift on DEI. A Bloomberg analysis of the earnings calls of Stoxx Europe 600 companies showed that references to diversity, equity, and inclusion reached their lowest point in at least five years in the first quarter of 2025. (As of a few weeks ago, according to Bloomberg, there had been no mention of “diversity and inclusion” on the earnings calls of S&P 500 companies this year.)
But whether that trend will continue is unknown, and for now, the global differences have created new challenges. Not handling this well—at a minimum—could hurt morale among employees and, over time, make it harder to retain talent, both in the US and Europe.
Here are four ideas for managing the cross-border communications dilemma the DEI crackdown in the US has created:
Be proactive about global communications guidelines. Elections may be local, but if they’re as consequential to world affairs as the US presidency, their impact is global. Several CHROs said they were doubling down on preparing managers in other countries for political changes in the US. “We didn’t do a lot [to prepare] our European teams and it was a mistake,” one said. Communicate proactively with European managers and rank-and-file workers about changes, even if it doesn’t seem like they’re directly impacted.
Reconnect diversity efforts to business outcomes. When they are talking about DEI—no matter where—CHROs said they were reconnecting it to business outcomes. “As HR professionals we got lazy” over the past few years, one said, with more talk about diversity as “‘this is the right thing to do from a values standpoint’ and not ‘this is the right thing to do from a business standpoint.’”
But be specific, rather than leave it in general terms, says Corinne Post, a professor at Villanova University who studies workplace diversity. For example, share that greater diversity on the product development team led to new product lines for new demographic groups, rather than just “it helped the business.” “It has to be a much more deliberate business case,” Post says. (For more on how to do that, read “Why DEI is a change management issue.”)
Choose incentive metrics carefully. The percentage of companies tying DEI to compensation has been declining. Just before the US inauguration, the global employment law firm Littler fielded a survey finding that fewer than three in 10 companies either evaluated managers on DEI performance, planned to, or considered it. That compared with 51% the year prior.
Companies should be careful about how they tie aspirational DEI targets for the organization to individual managers’ compensation, says Natasha Adom, a UK-based partner who leads client training for Littler. Incentives tied to leadership behaviors, or measures of how inclusive a culture feels to the team, might be an alternative. “If you’re not careful, it can end up driving the wrong behaviors,” she says, such as making employment offers to women or ethnic minority candidates solely on the basis of their protected status. “Even if you’re [talking about] a location where there are quotas, consider what is the most appropriate way to reflect that in comp.” In the US, companies have largely concluded that having quotas for hiring or advancement by race or gender is not legally defensible.
Be transparent about differences—but know what you stand for. If you are taking different approaches in different locales, explain why, Adom says. “One way through it is thinking about transparency, and being transparent about what you are doing,” she says.
But while transparency is important, says Paul Argenti, a professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business who studies corporate communications, companies first have to decide what they stand for. Coming to terms on that will be no easy feat, with polarized US staff either upset that employers have walked back DEI measures or that they’ve followed the administration’s orders—all while navigating a different legal and political landscape in Europe.“You have to have alignment internally first,” Argenti says, and find the shared themes that can be upheld globally, such as belonging or inclusive leadership. “You can only be transparent if you know what you believe in.”
Jena McGregor is editorial director and VP, content strategy, for Modern Executive Solutions, a global talent advisory firm that hosts global gatherings for a community of more than 300 CHROs.