August 2025 | By Judith M. Gallman
When new associates join Busey Bank, a large Champaign, Ill.-based financial institution with three branches in Southwest Florida, they take part in a program that emphasizes diversity and other values. Employees gain familiarity with how to foster an inclusive work culture. Select associates participate in a two-year program that explores inclusive leadership.
Hanson Professional Services, an engineering, planning and services provider with six offices in Florida, provides quarterly supervisor training on diversity and inclusion and offers learning modules on belonging. Orlando-based Fairwinds Credit Union has inclusion and leadership training plus self-directed courses on unconscious bias and intercultural awareness. First Florida Credit Union of Jacksonville mandates diversity training during new employee orientation.
At a time when the state and federal governments have abolished programs to advance diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and sought to cast them out of universities and other workplaces, almost half of the companies recognized as Florida’s 2025 “Best Companies to Work For” still offer some version of them. Of the 102 companies on the list, 45 say they offer formal diversity and inclusion training, and 57 do not.
Yet many companies, including those mentioned above, declined Florida Trend’s request to discuss their programs. Even companies without DEI programs weren’t interested in discussing the hot-potato topic.
Diversity, equity and inclusion have become the electric third rail of Florida and national politics, a buzzword and concept that make private and public sector leaders squeamish. That’s in part because of Florida’s Stop WOKE Act of 2022, which regulates teaching and training on race, gender and bias in schools and workplaces, as well as a 2023 law that prohibits spending on DEI programs by the state’s public colleges and universities.
In June, Florida’s Board of Governors blocked the University of Florida from hiring Santa Ono as its next president following a heated debate over his stances on diversity, inclusion and equity. Additionally, one of President Donald Trump’s first executive orders terminated DEI mandates, policies, programs and preferences in the federal government. Trump also signed an executive order encouraging private employers to focus on merit rather than DEI-hiring practices.
The state of corporate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts is all over the map. Some people don’t believe in it. Others don’t want to talk about it. Still others don’t want to call it DEI. Many appear fine with diversity and inclusion but view the idea behind equity as a step too far.
Many Best Companies, however, are soldiering on with diversity and inclusion training, though their practices are far from one-size-fits-all.
For some, diversity and inclusion can be as simple as bringing in guest speakers at regularly catered lunches to discuss topics ranging from cultural differences or stress management to workplace diversity and active shooter responses.
Becky Zook, chief operations officer for Bliss Dermatology + Wellness, a small, full-service dermatology clinic serving Venice and Englewood, doesn’t worry about the federal directives. She says the practice is dedicated to hiring a diverse workforce because of its diverse service area. DEI is “baked into” the core values at Bliss, Zook says.
“We’re not bending to political pressure,” she says. “We’re doing what we think a high-integrity, highly trustworthy practice should do. We do it because it’s the right thing, not because of political pressure. We do it every day.”
For Zook, workplace equity at Bliss is about giving employees what they need to succeed — such as a special computer setup for an employee who needs extra light or unique equipment to see properly because of vision impairment.
Equity, though, means different things to different employers and has some executives wanting to distance themselves.
Demetrios Gianniris, associate principal and head of operations/ technology for Hollywood’s MG Engineering-FL Corp., makes the case that diversity, equity and inclusion boost innovation and buy-in as well as enhance reputation and help attract talent. But he says he has “a problem with the ‘why’ behind it,” suggesting that some companies do it for the PR advantage, not necessarily beause it’s the right thing to do. At the end of the day, “our country needs more engineers, and it needs women to step up,” he says.
Ryan Shea is president of Right Management, a small Fort Lauderdale company that helps businesses recruit, develop and retain employees. He observes that one of the keys to smooth workplace environments is understanding people’s behaviors, personalities and how they work with others. Right Management, says Shea, “wants to give everyone a fair shot at growing with our company, working for our company.”
Shea is comfortable embracing the D and I in DEI. “Diversity, inclusion — that is a good thing, right? You want to have a diverse workforce, you want to have differing views, conflicting views. You want to have different perspectives of where people come from, because all that adds to innovation and understanding how to motivate and develop your workforce.”
But he disapproves of the hiring quotas associated with efforts to ensure equity. “Honestly, that can also be viewed as discriminatory as well,” he says, an opinion shared by other executives interviewed by Florida Trend. “So, it swings one a little too far the wrong way.” Shea is a proponent of an “ideal meritocracy” to find the best person for the job, positing the notion that equity can actually be viewed as discriminatory if it bypasses some people and gives preferential treatment to others.
Most of the executives who spoke with Florida Trend agree that diversity and inclusion are good for business, but many declined to discuss the topic.
He also believes that labeling initiatives with DEI makes them less popular than couching those same practices as leadership development or career assessment plans. “We have to kind of change how we label our leadership development accordingly,” Shea says. “But the actual solutions? We’re still doing the same thing.”
That’s true for other companies, including MG Engineering.
“As a code of conduct, code of ethics, our core values — diversity, equity, inclusion — those are principles for us. They unlock our innovation, deepen trust and empower,” Gianniris says. MG Engineering, he explains, provides training on leadership, fair decision-making and workplace inclusion, reinforced through workshops that encourage meaningful discussions. The company actively encourages women to pursue careers in engineering and construction through mentorship, outreach and networking and has established a Women in Construction team, or WiSTEAM program.
MG Engineering remains committed to its diversity efforts and is unfazed by the current climate of opposition to DEI. “We’re evaluating how we deliver it, but not why we deliver it,” Gianniris says. “So the mission hasn’t changed. We’re just becoming more and more intentional. It’s not whether to do it or not, but how to do it and to do it more effectively. And no disrespect to our governmental leadership, but that’s irrelevant to us: We’re not waiting for the government to tell us to be inclusive.”
Not all firms feel like they can afford to pursue DEI initiatives, even if they believe in some aspects of them.
CTI Resource Management Services, a federal government contractor, specifically discontinued its DEI programs because of the federal directives, says Director of Human Resources Robin S. Norton. The company had no other choice, she says, because not abandoning DEI could have jeopardized its business. Instead, she says CTI has concentrated on bringing in the most qualified person for a job and will reconsider positions as administrations change.
“What the president is saying, we will focus on,” she says. “As a government contractor, that’s what we will focus on.”
The social, political and legal effects of the executive orders, mandates and state laws on DEI are nuanced, in part because of some confusion over what counts as DEI and what constitutes illegal DEI discrimination and practices. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is not defined in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — and given that, many are perplexed as to what exactly constitutes illegal DEI.
“This has thrown such employers into a state of flux, not knowing whether DEI remains alive and well or whether it is dead as a doornail,” says Benjamin H. Yormak, an employment and disability lawyer in Bonita Springs.
York points out that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 remains in place, and there have been court challenges to the Stop WOKE Act — resulting in judges blocking the law’s workplace provisions — and there very well may be higher court opposition to Trump’s executive orders. “So for now, it seems safe to view DEI initiatives as being legal, but employers may be wise to hesitate to allow DEI to influence employment decisions,” Yormak says.