Warner Bros. Discovery Renames DEI Group to Focus Solely on Inclusion
Warner Bros. Discovery is joining its competitors in scaling back its emphasis on DEI amid a larger crackdown by the Trump administration.
Going forward, the company's overarching work in this space will now be referred to solely as inclusion, according to a memo to staff from chief inclusion officer Asif Sadiq and chief people & culture officer Jennifer Remling.
'Making this change better aligns our language with our focus throughout our company, in our industry, and across our content,' the pair said. 'We're updating the language we use to ensure the intent and impact of our actions are clear; you will see this new approach being updated on wbd.com as well as on our internal channels.'
Warner also said it would have a 'uniform and consistent application process' across its talent programs, including internships, mentoring, and other development programs. Additionally, it will no longer participate in third party workplace surveys, but will continue to gather internal data to understand how its employee base 'reflects the audience we serve.'
'Telling stories that shape culture and engage people all over the world takes a commitment to diverse voices, perspectives and experiences,' the memo concluded. 'Fully representing our audiences is critical to our business, our content, and our culture. We are now, and always will be, committed to ensuring our values underpin how we operate as a company.'
In addition to WBD, Paramount said it would change several DEI policies, including no longer using 'use aspirational numerical goals related to the race, ethnicity, sex or gender of hires' or collecting race, ethnicity, sex or gender data for U.S. job applicants except in markets legally required to do so.
It also eliminated the DEI metric on its short-term incentive plan, which connected 5% of the program's funding to progress on companywide DEI initiatives. Instead, 10% of the program's fund will be based on its workforce culture and development metric, focused on building a 'high-performing and inclusive culture.'
More to come…
The post Warner Bros. Discovery Renames DEI Group to Focus Solely on Inclusion appeared first on TheWrap.
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