To compile the list of the top 500 companies, Forbes partnered with market research firm Statista to survey 45,000 American workers at companies with at least 1,000 employees. Participants were asked to anonymously rate their companies on criteria such as age, gender, ethnicity, disability, LGBT equality, and overall diversity.Additionally, participants in "underrepresented groups" were asked to recommend other companies that they felt matched the criteria, and each business’ diversity-related policies were also reviewed and taken into consideration.
I guess that would expand the "top 500 companies" and maybe push Disney farther down the list.
Given Disney’s recent feud with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, sparked by his "anti-woke" policies relating to children and education, the company’s high placement on the list is unlikely to shock many—but some of the Top 10 businesses might.
On Forbes’ 2023 list of "America’s Best Employers for Diversity," The Walt Disney Co. ranked No. 98, beating out such companies as Nike, Bank of America, and Netflix. Topping the list as the most diverse employer in the nation was the insurance provider Progressive Corp.
You'll recognize most of the other 'top ten'.
But not everyone is on board with the progressive approach to business and hiring, which has drawn the ire of Republicans in particular.
In February, the office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned agencies in his state that hiring based on immutable characteristics like race, sex, or religion is illegal under both Texas and federal law."Rather than increasing diversity in the workplace, these DEI initiatives are having the opposite effect and are being advanced in ways that proactively encourage discrimination in the workplace," Abbott’s Chief of Staff Gardner Pate wrote in a Feb. 4 letter to state agency leaders. "Illegally adding DEI as a condition of employment leads to the exclusion and alienation of individuals from the workplace."
But mostly more experienced (old), cis male identifying, and color deficient individuals, which may have been the plan all along. Just to make up for past injustices, real or imagined, you understand.
Likewise, in addition to his feud with Disney, Florida’s governor has been vocal in his opposition to DEI initiatives in schools and the workplace.
"I think [DEI] has been used in the administrative apparatus of universities to try to impose, not diversity of thought, but to impose uniformity of thought," DeSantis said at a recent roundtable discussion. "And instead of inclusion, the people that dissent from this orthodoxy are actually excluded and marginalized."