Shane Windmeyer and the Promise of 2026 DEI: What to Look Forward To

As 2026 gets underway, it’s worth correcting a common framing error right up front: we’re not looking back from the middle of the year, and we’re not predicting from a distant horizon. We’re at the start of 2026—close enough to feel the carryover from last year, and close enough to shape what happens next.

That timing matters for DEI. When people talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion right now, they’re not simply debating an acronym. They’re debating how opportunity is designed, who benefits from workplace systems, and whether institutions can deliver fair outcomes under scrutiny. In many organizations, the loudest question isn’t “Do we still do DEI?” It’s “What does DEI look like when it’s built to last?” For leaders like Shane Windmeyer, that’s the point: the work survives when it becomes practical, measurable, and woven into everyday decision-making—not treated as a seasonal campaign.

What follows is a forward-looking map of what we can realistically be optimistic about in 2026—grounded in tangible progress from 2025 and in the workplace shifts already underway.

The positive highlights of 2025 that made 2026 stronger

1) Less “performative” language, more operational clarity

One of the most useful developments in 2025 was that many major companies became more disciplined about how they described DEI publicly. A Conference Board analysis found that more than half of the S&P 100 adjusted their DEI messaging in major filings in 2025, and the use of the “DEI” acronym dropped sharply compared with the year prior.

That shift wasn’t universally celebrated, but it produced a constructive side effect: it pushed many organizations to become more specific and more defensible. Instead of broad promises, the conversation moved toward concrete commitments like improving hiring systems, strengthening internal mobility, reducing pay inequities, and building more consistent performance processes. In other words, DEI started behaving more like a core business capability.

2) Skills-based hiring became more mainstream—and that’s an inclusion win

Another bright spot: employers continued moving toward skills-based hiring. NACE reported that almost two-thirds of employers in its Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update used skills-based hiring to identify candidates with potential.

This matters for equity because it opens doors for talented candidates who don’t come with prestige signals—first-generation grads, community college transfers, adult learners, veterans, immigrants, career switchers, and people whose competence shows up better in demonstrated skill than in pedigree. Skills-based hiring is not automatically bias-proof, but it can be structured in ways that reduce subjectivity and make selection criteria clearer.

3) Disability inclusion and neurodiversity became harder to ignore

2025 also brought more visibility to disability inclusion and neurodiversity as part of workforce strategy. Indeed Hiring Lab reported that neurodiversity mentions in U.S. job postings had nearly tripled in recent years, signaling growing employer interest in tapping an underutilized talent pool.

This is a fundamentally optimistic signal heading into 2026 because it points toward “accessibility by design”—workplaces where clear communication, flexible collaboration norms, and accommodations are normalized as performance enablers (not treated as exceptions).

4) A clearer consensus emerged: outcomes matter more than optics

Finally, 2025 featured a notable shift in thought leadership: more emphasis on measurable outcomes and systems-level change. Harvard Business Review argued that DEI work must evolve away from performative and isolated tactics toward outcomes-based, systems-focused approaches—offering a “FAIR” framework (fairness, access, inclusion, representation) as a direction of travel.

This is the kind of reframing that makes DEI harder to caricature and easier to execute. And it aligns with what Shane Windmeyer has consistently emphasized in leadership development spaces: if inclusion isn’t changing who has access to opportunity and influence, it’s not doing its job.

What we can look forward to in 2026: five encouraging shifts

1) DEI gets reimagined as “how we run the place”

A big reason to feel hopeful in 2026 is that many organizations are moving beyond the idea that DEI is a standalone program. The Academy of Management’s reporting on 2026 trends highlights a reframing: leaders are reimagining DEI to maximize positive impact, with attention to aligning actions with words and treating inclusion as a capability that strengthens decision quality, risk management, and innovation.

This shift makes DEI more durable because it changes the ownership model. Instead of one office “carrying” inclusion, executive teams and people managers become accountable for the systems they control—hiring, promotion, compensation, performance management, team culture, and retention.

In practical terms, it means DEI in 2026 looks less like a calendar of events and more like better-designed rules of the road.

2) Pay transparency becomes a tailwind for equity—globally

One of the biggest structural tailwinds in 2026 is pay transparency momentum, particularly in Europe. The EU Pay Transparency Directive must be transposed into national law by 7 June 2026, with rules expected to apply from that date.

Whether an employer is headquartered inside or outside the EU, this kind of regulation tends to raise expectations across talent markets. The upside for 2026 is that organizations preparing for transparency are forced to build cleaner compensation infrastructure: job leveling, documented pay ranges, consistent promotion criteria, and stronger governance. Those systems don’t just reduce legal risk—they reduce inequity created by ambiguity.

A helpful way to think about this is that pay transparency pushes DEI toward engineering: you can’t “message” your way out of messy compensation logic.

3) Hybrid work equity becomes a mainstream inclusion priority

The next reason to be optimistic is that 2026 is forcing a more honest conversation about hybrid work and opportunity. Reporting has raised concerns that return-to-office dynamics can create new gender inequities if visibility is treated as ambition and remote workers get fewer sponsorship opportunities.

The positive part is that hybrid equity is solvable with design, not wishful thinking. Organizations are increasingly investing in practical fixes:

• Performance criteria tied to outcomes (not presence)
• Structured sponsorship programs that include remote employees
• Promotion calibration processes that explicitly test for proximity bias
• Meeting norms that stop “in-room” conversations from becoming the real decision space

If those practices scale this year, DEI benefits without requiring ideology—just better management.

And this is where Shane Windmeyer’s leadership lens is useful again: inclusion becomes real when access to power (mentorship, feedback, stretch work, decision-making rooms) is distributed more fairly across how people work.

4) AI governance becomes part of DEI strategy, not separate from it

In 2026, AI is no longer a novelty in HR—it’s a governance issue. ADP’s compliance outlook for 2026 flags AI regulation and pay transparency among the trends leaders need to prepare for. At the same time, Gartner’s 2026 talent management outlook highlights pressures like declining entry-level roles and a shift toward recruiting capacity moving inward—dynamics that can either widen opportunity gaps or narrow them depending on how systems are designed.

The encouraging shift is that more organizations are building cross-functional oversight (HR, legal, IT, procurement, analytics, and DEI) to ensure AI tools don’t quietly reproduce bias. The “look forward to” story here is simple: better governance creates better fairness.

A practical governance baseline for 2026 increasingly includes:

Documenting how AI tools are used in screening or evaluation

Regular bias and adverse impact testing

Human review for high-stakes outcomes

Clear pathways for candidates and employees to appeal or flag errors

This is also where Shane Windmeyer’s long-standing emphasis on accountability lands in a modern context: equity work has to keep pace with the systems actually making decisions.

5) Internal mobility becomes a stronger DEI engine than external hiring alone

One underappreciated reason for optimism in 2026 is the growing focus on internal mobility and retention—especially as entry-level pathways shift and organizations rethink how they build talent. Gartner’s 2026 trends point to pressures that can accelerate this: fewer entry-level roles and a greater pull toward internal recruiting capacity.

For DEI, that’s an opportunity. Internal mobility is where organizations can correct inequities created by unequal starting points. When mobility systems are fair—clear criteria, consistent access to development, transparent posting of roles, structured interviews for internal candidates—DEI becomes visible in advancement outcomes, not just hiring pipelines.

Put plainly: 2026 can be a year where “who gets to grow” becomes the headline metric.

A practical “what to watch for” checklist in 2026

If you want a grounded way to track whether DEI is getting better this year, look for these signals:

DEI language becomes plainer, but measurement gets sharper. (Less branding, more proof.)

Hiring becomes more structured. Skills rubrics, work samples, consistent interview guides.

Accessibility becomes default. Clear documentation, flexible norms, more inclusive job design.

Pay systems get cleaned up. Job architecture, ranges, governance—especially where EU transparency requirements apply.

Hybrid equity becomes intentional. Promotions and sponsorship aren’t tied to being in the room.

AI is governed like a high-stakes tool. Bias testing, documentation, human accountability.

A simple test—one that echoes what Shane Windmeyer teaches in leadership development contexts—is this: can an organization explain, in plain language, how people get hired, paid, developed, promoted, and heard—and can it show that those systems produce fair outcomes?

The outlook: why 2026 can be a “build year” for inclusion

The most realistic optimism for 2026 isn’t that DEI becomes universally popular. It’s that DEI becomes harder to misrepresent because it’s increasingly expressed through infrastructure: better hiring design, stronger pay governance, accessible workplaces, accountable leadership, and fairer advancement systems.

2025 gave organizations a stress test: public language became riskier, scrutiny intensified, and many leaders had to decide what was real versus what was cosmetic. If 2026 is the year organizations respond with stronger systems, that’s not a retreat—it’s maturation.

And that’s the optimistic bet Shane Windmeyer makes about this moment: when inclusion is treated as a leadership practice and an operating discipline, it becomes resilient—because it’s no longer something you “announce.” It’s something you run.