It happened fast. One minute, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) departments were the darlings of the Fortune 500, flush with cash and moral authority. Then the layoffs started hitting. But there is a quieter trend happening beneath the surface of the mass terminations at Google, Meta, and Zoom. A lot of the people who didn't get fired are just... gone. If you look at LinkedIn or internal Slack channels, you’ll see a massive spike in DEI workers on leave, citing everything from burnout to medical necessity.
It's a weird vibe in corporate America right now. Honestly, it’s a mess.
We aren't just talking about a few people taking a long weekend. We are seeing high-level practitioners—people who were hired with massive fanfare in 2020—taking extended mental health breaks or FMLA leave. They’re exhausted. Dealing with systemic change is hard enough when the company is backing you, but when the budget gets slashed and the legal climate turns hostile after the Supreme Court's affirmative action ruling, the job becomes almost impossible.
The Reality of DEI Workers on Leave Today
The data isn't exactly pretty. According to research from Revelio Labs, DEI roles were being shed at a rate nearly double that of non-DEI roles during the 2023 tech layoffs. But that’s only half the story. The people remaining are often "quietly" leaving. They remain on the payroll, but they are physically and mentally checked out.
Why?
Isolation.
Imagine being the only person in a 5,000-employee company responsible for "fixing" culture. It’s a setup for failure. When you’re a DEI worker on leave, it’s usually because the "tax" of the job—the emotional labor of listening to everyone’s trauma—finally became too heavy to carry. Dr. Janice Gassam Asare, a prominent DEI consultant, has frequently pointed out that these roles often lack the structural power to actually change anything. You have the responsibility but no real authority. That is a recipe for a breakdown.
The "Glass Cliff" and Mental Health
A lot of these folks were pushed onto what researchers call the "glass cliff." This happens when women or people of color are put into leadership roles during a crisis when the chance of failure is highest.
When the diversity goals aren't met because the hiring freeze blocked all progress, who gets the blame? The DEI lead.
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The pressure is immense. You've got conservative activists like Robby Starbuck or Stephen Miller’s America First Legal filing lawsuits on one side, and on the other, you have employees who feel the company isn't doing enough. You are stuck in the middle. It’s no wonder people are filing for short-term disability.
What Happens When the Office Goes Dark?
When you have DEI workers on leave, the programs don't just pause. They often rot. Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) lose their executive sponsors. Mentorship programs for underrepresented talent go into limbo.
I spoke with a mid-level manager at a fintech firm who told me their DEI director has been on "indefinite medical leave" since last October. "Nobody knows who to talk to about the pay equity audit," they said. "The files are just sitting in a Google Drive folder that no one else has access to."
This is the "hollow out" effect.
Companies can claim they still have a DEI department on their annual report. But if the actual human beings in those roles are out on stress leave, the department is a ghost ship. It's a way for corporations to save face without doing the work. It’s "DEI theater" in its most tragic form.
Legal and Social Blowback
Let's get real about the Supreme Court. The SFFA v. Harvard decision changed the math. Even though that ruling specifically applied to college admissions, corporate legal teams got spooked. They started "reviewing" DEI programs.
If you are a DEI professional, you spent years building these frameworks. Now, you’re being told by a 26-year-old lawyer that your "Black Founders Grant" is a liability. That hurts. It’s demoralizing. It’s the kind of thing that makes you want to close your laptop and never open it again.
The Burnout is Structural, Not Personal
People like to talk about "resilience." It's a buzzword. But you can't "wellness" your way out of a toxic structural environment.
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A 2022 report by the HR tech firm Workhuman found that DEI professionals had some of the highest burnout rates in the corporate world. They are essentially "professional mourners" for the company's sins. When a tragedy happens in the news, the DEI person is expected to write the memo, host the "healing circle," and keep their own emotions in check.
They are doing the work of HR, PR, and Legal all at once. For many DEI workers on leave, the leave isn't a vacation. It's a recovery period from moral injury.
Misconceptions About the Role
One of the biggest myths is that DEI is just "human resources with a different name."
Nope.
HR is there to protect the company. DEI is—theoretically—there to protect the people and change the system. Those two goals often crash into each other. When a DEI worker realizes they are actually just an HR shield, the cognitive dissonance becomes unbearable.
Navigating the Future of Corporate Culture
If you're a leader seeing your DEI team vanish, you can't just hire a replacement and hope for the best. You'll just burn that person out too.
The shift is moving toward "Integrated DEI." This basically means stop making it one person's job. If the VP of Sales isn't responsible for diversity in their own pipeline, then your DEI lead is just a sacrificial lamb.
Some companies are doing it right. They are moving away from the "Chief Diversity Officer" model and instead embedding those metrics into every manager's performance review. But that’s rare. Most are just letting the positions stay vacant while the original DEI workers remain on leave, eventually transitioning out of the company entirely.
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Real-World Examples of the Shift
- Meta: Cut their DEI team size significantly, leading to a "re-evaluation" of their 2030 goals.
- Tesla: Removed "diversity and inclusion" language from some of its SEC filings.
- Small Orgs: Many nonprofits are seeing their DEI leads move to part-time or consulting roles because the full-time emotional weight is too much.
What to Do Instead of Just Taking Leave
If you are in this space and feeling the walls close in, there are actual steps to take before the total burnout hits.
First, stop being the company's therapist. If you aren't a licensed counselor, don't hold "trauma sessions." Refer employees to the actual Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Your job is policy, not psychology.
Second, demand a budget for external support. If the company wants a DEI strategy, they should pay an outside firm to do the heavy data lifting. This keeps you from being the "face" of every uncomfortable metric.
Third, get a "community of practice." Join groups like the DEI Club or various LinkedIn collectives where you can vent to people who actually get it. Isolation is the killer.
Actionable Steps for Management
The trend of DEI workers on leave is a giant red flag for your organizational health. It means your culture is literally making people sick.
- Audit the Workload: Are you asking your DEI lead to do things that actually belong to HR or Communications? Narrow their scope.
- Provide Legal Cover: Instead of telling your DEI worker "we can't do this anymore because of the Supreme Court," have your legal team work with them to find compliant ways to achieve the same goals.
- Executive Ownership: The CEO needs to be the one talking about DEI. If the DEI lead is the only one mentioning it, they are a target.
- Budget for Mental Health: Provide specific, additional mental health resources for people in high-trauma roles. This isn't a perk; it's a safety requirement.
The era of the "celebrity CDO" is over. We’re entering a period of quiet, gritty, and often frustrating work. If companies don't realize that the humans doing this work are breakable, they won't just lose their DEI programs—they'll lose their best people.
To fix the cycle of DEI workers on leave, start by documenting the specific stressors in the current role. Review the last six months of "ad hoc" requests made to the DEI department and identify which ones can be automated or moved to other departments. Finally, establish a "clearance" process for all internal DEI communications to ensure the burden of corporate "messaging" doesn't fall solely on one individual's shoulders.