#DearHolistic: Should you have term limits for DEI committees?

Dear Holistic,

Recently, we’ve been having a conversation about establishing term limits for our DEI committee. We’re stuck. Is it better to keep those who are most passionate about the cause involved or are we putting too much pressure on them? Will it create an influx of new ideas or will it cause instability? Please write back with your suggestions!

Sincerely,

Making Room for Improvement

* * * *

Dear Making Room for Improvement,

Thanks for writing in. A lot of folks have asked us if they should have term limits for DEI committees. The answer is unequivocally yes. Here’s why:

Term limits reduce a lot of pressure

It’s always difficult to know when you’re going to start something, but it’s even more difficult to know when you’re going to end something. Oftentimes people who sign up for diversity committees feel like they’re making a lifelong commitment. They don’t need to. By putting a finite time on it, they know how long their commitment is and how long they have to get things done.

Term limits foster equity

If you have term limits, you reduce this idea of people feeling the need to be on the committee forever on a volunteer basis because they care most about what’s going on. In other words, one of the biggest problems that we’ve seen with DEI committees is that the people who choose to be on the committees are the people who are going to be most directly positively affected by the organization being more diverse and more inclusive. As a result, we end up in this vortex where people are basically volunteering to do the hard work of diversity, equity and inclusion because they're afraid that if they don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it for them. By putting in place term limits we create an environment where they don’t need to take on this additional burden.

Term limits demonstrate organizational commitment

If the organization commits to filling these positions and finding new folks to join the committee, and they are showing that they care about the committee and they care about creating the committee in a sustainable fashion, no longer is it “let’s get a bunch of people together who care a lot about diversity equity and inclusion and see what they can do.” Instead it’s “how can we put together a committee that can last forever and as a clear demonstration of our commitment, we will take on the responsibility of finding great people to be on this committee and make sure that it persists well in the future.”

Term limits foster fresh thinking

All of these different organizations are bringing on all these interesting people. We’re aggressively hiring for diversity and in some cases, having quite a bit of success, why would you wait for a year or two years to hear those peoples voices on the DEI committee? Why should they have to fight their way in? If your organization has term limits, you will constantly be looking for new people to be on these committees, by definition you’re going to start to look at some of the newest people within the organization, and that is going to foster a lot of fresh, innovative, and exciting ideas.

Term limits offer grade development opportunities.

The person whose term is expiring has an opportunity to do something else for the organization and continue their professional growth. The person who is joining the team is getting the exciting opportunity of being on the DEI committee and being able to make some sort of positive contribution. By putting a limit on the amount of time, you’re forcing some level of cycling, some level of churn, some level of growth. This is a good thing.

Term limits reduce the trauma of somebody leaving

Often, when we see a person who meets an inclusion standard or a person who is otherwise heavily involved with an organization's DEI leave an organization, it’s traumatic for a number of reasons, including that they were carrying a lot of water on the DEI committee. By having term limits, you reduce the potential impact of somebody leaving creating a hole within the DEI committee. By not just accepting people for life and then expecting that they’re going to continue to serve on the committee until they leave, we’re more likely to have a plan in place for the continuity of these committees then you would be if you just randomly and continuously added to the committee.

So, do it. Put in place a very basic policy that you can use to ensure that term limits will be something that can support you with your DEI committee as well as with your employee resource groups. Your organization will be better for it and it would improve your DEI mission considerably.

Yours truly,

Holistic

RELATED BLOG POSTS