It is no longer good enough to say “diversity is an asset”. Leaders are expected to lead the way of inclusion, to live the values and to define the DNA of their organization in more visible ways with their head, heart and hands.
Bongani Nqwababa (joint president and CEO, Sasol Ltd)
They misconstrue or ignore what abundant research has now made clear: Increasing the numbers of traditionally underrepresented people in your workforce does not automatically produce benefits. Taking an “add diversity and stir” approach, while business continues as usual, will not spur leaps in your firm’s effectiveness or financial performance.
Robin J. Ely and David A. Thomas
Introduction and focus of the essay
If employment equity programs and policies by themselves brought about the negation or meaningful reduction of historical inequality, socioeconomic ills and related workplace conflicts, we could end the debate right here, as we have more than enough of these policies to have ensured such a result. But they do not, and at least here in South Africa, they have become actual complex conflict causes in a range of socioeconomic and political conflicts.
I want to approach the questions around affirmative action and the government’s insistence on using race-based quotas in the workplace as the complex conflict that it is. Often, when we reduce these debates to primarily economic, social, political or even moral ones we limit those debates, and we fail to give ourselves access to the tools and solutions that conflict studies and practice make available to us. Our South African business and political landscape seems to always have the macro-debate of affirmative action, in one of its many shapes and forms, somewhere in the midst of our discussions. This should not surprise us, given the spectacular and continued failure of these policies and systems. The debate is an important, complex and urgent one, and it deserves our best attention and input to reach where we deserve to be as a nation.
In my consulting work, and in the various media debates about the topic, I have however noticed a stagnation of the discussion points over the last few years, and given the importance, for all of us, of these concerns, I want to refresh, and upgrade, our understanding of current best practices and the state of the debate, both globally and here in South Africa. It is an important red flag in complex conflicts such as this when important discussion points become clichés, and people simply parrot the same arguments and accusations over and over. Those outdated and simplified views also, more cynically, become tools of manipulation in limiting or shutting down ongoing debate on the topic.
Given some of our political realities the debate is bound to rage on for years to come, and opinions will remain sharply divided on the problems and the solutions. It would be an important step in the right direction if those opinions and decisions could be built on a clearer understanding of the problems, risks and possible solutions available to us.
Clarification of some concepts
The various terms used to describe the concept under discussion, whether in debates, political negotiations or in the various forms that it need to be worked with in practice differ to some extent, with global and legal nuances that may lead to some differences in meaning or focus. In general, however, we find, in theory and in practice, that people use the terms “affirmative action”, “employment equity”, “DEI”, “quotas”, “positive discrimination” or “diversity initiatives” rather indiscriminately and without much academic rigour to refer to some form of policy and / or practice whereby the rights of affected minority group or prejudiced class are sought to be addressed through the manipulation of certain workplace or other dynamics, such as admission policies at universities or employment practices in commerce or state employment institutions.
Here in South Africa reference to the Employment Equity Act or the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act in relation to the above topics often lead to the terms “EE”, “EEAA” or “B-BBEE” being used as placeholders and references to those concepts. Personally, and as a generalisation in a non-technical discussion, I believe that the term “affirmative action” has sufficient explanatory power and accuracy to work with here, and I will be using that term, except where necessary otherwise, in which case I will be more specific. I would like to think that we know what we are talking about. Although the debate takes on several important additional nuances worthy of consideration when we are dealing with university admission policies and various academic practices, I will limit our discussion here to the workplace, as that already requires a rather meaningful limitation of the debate.
Some of the consequences of the failure to resolve this particular conflict
The South African government has been grappling with the successful implementation of these concepts and goals for about thirty years. Other than small isolated glimmers of success (increased management representation, an increase in income for some groups), the implementation of these policies, in all its various attempts and reiterations, has been a spectacular and damning failure. Our national unemployment figures, in all its categories and interpretations, stand as an ongoing national disgrace, and the source of much of our ongoing national crises.
The failure of achieving the redress of past injustices has a few rather self-evident results. Unemployment is a scourge that harms a society in many ways, from socioeconomic to developmental results, from visible influences on crime and political instability, to a range of local and international outcomes. It keeps inequality in place, and it exacerbates a range of urban conflicts that sets in motion a vicious circle of economic and political instability that is sometimes hard to discern as having started with unemployment. Unemployment itself, and its conflict symptoms and adjacent conflicts, harden into societal conflicts, and the sustained failure to resolve these patterns and cycles of conflict leads to increasing despair, polarization, conflict rigidity and the increased acceptability and popularity of other, more radical, deemed solutions.
An unhelpful level of cynicism of people and processes sets in, making an already complex conflict more intractable. We see these spirals of despair and sneering cynicism in much of the current debates. People know that a range of these interventions and policies have been tried, tested and that they have all failed miserably. Why would this time be different? Real and imagined harms and consequences of these policies, clumsily wielded as hammers instead of as scalpels, further cause resentment and distrust. Repeated mismanagement, crude corruption and political partisan manipulation of otherwise laudable systems complete the toxic mix of reasons why the concepts themselves have become hollowed-out placeholders for what promise and potential they once held. Add to that the complex dynamics and influence of identity conflicts (see my work on this elsewhere), and it is apparent to all but the giftedly gullible or politically manipulative that further attempts at doing the same thing over and over will not just be unsuccessful, but that will inevitably create a range of additional serious conflicts, over and above the ones addressed by the original philosophy behind affirmative action.
The case for affirmative action
One of the reasons why I thought this brief summary of my views on the topic has become necessary is the glib, unexamined nature of much of the current arguments used in these debates, as I mentioned earlier. We hear that BBBEE is a good thing, it is fair, it is only right that this must get implemented, diversity is good for companies, to argue against any of this is clearly racist, and so on, as we are told. As soon as any weight is placed on most of these discussion points, much of the initial clarity disappears, and it is a relatively small number of people who can actually argue their positions based on evidence and facts. What would a summarized case for these interventions, these policies then look like?
Unless one then refuses to accept the foundational argument, the point of departure, that some redress is necessary in a given industry or workplace (a rather untenable position in a place like South Africa), the case for the need for that redress is a natural, plausible and ethically correct assumption. The level playing fields were tampered with in the past, this has caused people significant prejudice in that past, leading to present and ongoing injustices and inequalities, and this must be addressed and either limited or negated through a range of legal or other interventions. So far so easy.
But that easy first step is often all that many proponents of these policies care to participate in. This sets the rest of the conflict off on a very confusing trajectory, with people increasingly talking past each other. In my own experience, very few people actually argue against this first step, and it is conceded rather easily. That important strategic advantage is however then squandered by inaccurate and unskillful management of what comes after. What should this redress look like, what do we want to accomplish, who does it affect, why is this necessary, what are the alternatives, for how long should it be in place, and what are the trade-off harms that we can anticipate from these policies when they are implemented, especially over a protracted period of time? What exactly is it that the majority of South Africans must be protected from in the workplace after thirty years of majority rule? While some of the European and South African legislation do try to deal with these questions, those goals and assurances often remain unrealised. A strong argument in favour of these policies should transparently address these questions, have cogent and plausible answers for them, and do so without being defensive. These are reasonable, rational questions, and they deserve convincing answers.
A conflict, especially one as complex, protracted and important as this one, does not disappear because the questions are ignored, or feasible answers are not developed. Case studies and statistics for and against these policies should be approached with some caution. Different cultures, times, statistical protocols and methodologies, and important nuances in the questions measured can have important consequences for the accurate assessments of these studies. One practical way of approaching them is to certainly include them in your assessment and policy design, but to be cautious of isolated findings, while looking for trends and confirmed patterns of behaviour and outcomes.
With that caveat in mind, we can look at, for example, a 2020 McKinsey study that found that companies with diverse leadership are likely to financially outperform competitors not so constituted by 25%. A range of smaller studies have shown a meaningful increase in black employee earnings, improved client relations and more efficient decision-making capabilities. Market reach can be increased in most industries, and more representative workforces created more equitable access to various opportunities. Similar studies (with a few important ones from the UK) have shown various benefits such as increased female board representation and other very real improvements. In a country like South Africa, the argument in favour of these policies would include the evident benefits for a country if more people have better jobs, and how that then affects the economy and the many other unresolved conflicts we are facing. Meaningful employment remains an effective conflict remedy across a range of modern conflicts.
The simple project and achievement of redress and restoration in itself of course carries with it its own moral value, and this in itself would have, in my view, justified such policies if they were to the benefit of the common good. Globally, there are several examples of these policies that are responsibly implemented, and we will assess whether those case studies provide us with any guidance on our own journey.
The case against affirmative action
Stripped of its angry and performative parts, the South African argument against these policies are mostly directed at the application of it in practice, and the harm that it causes in that process. When fully informed, there really is very little objection to a targeted, limited (in time and scope), efficiently run program of employment equity. The harm and resultant cynicism and objections come from the subsequent mismanagement of those policies, and the range of adverse results that are then caused by the poor handling of the conflicts arising from these policies.
Globally, even if we take the relatively best-run comparable systems (here I would use India, Malaysia and Brazil as the best examples), we find an improvement in certain of the parameters, but an enduring harm in social cohesion and polarization, making the sustained implementation of these policies debatable even in its best guises. The same trends can be seen here in South Africa, with an increase in certain categories of income and management representation that can be found in the credit column, but many negative outcomes such as the ones we will look at in this article. With the same caution necessary for comparative case studies and research here as in the case for employment equity policies, we note a wide range of such examples of adverse results. A 2023 US industry-specific study, for example, found that such policies can reduce hiring standards, which in turn led to a 5% drop in productivity when race-based policies are prioritised over qualifications. Instances exist of sections of a workforce becoming demoralized because of real or perceived promotion injustices occurring, or reporting feelings of not being able to advance in a corporation or state department. This leads to a lack of professional enthusiasm and ambition, and significantly decreased work enjoyment. Merit and continued education or qualification in the groups limited by such policies become workplace casualties, at the very least in the perceptions of such affected groups, with affected people not seeing the sense in continuing their education and further training.
These events, even if they are perceptions, inevitably lead to workplace tensions, feelings of unfair treatment, bias and favouritism, tribalism, a marked decrease in team performance, leadership failures and increased risks in productivity, business growth and compliance or liability legal categories. An increase in destructive workplace conflict and internal disciplinary processes have also been reported. High compliance costs and skills shortages in certain departments have been reported, which leads to further business challenges, resentment and a range of unresolved workplace conflicts, often undetected, misunderstood or mismanaged. Blatant non-compliance, due to reasons of costs, availability of suitable candidates and other motivations become a corrosive company reality, which in itself causes or exacerbates other workplace conflicts.
A serious, and often under-reported adverse consequence of these policies is the phenomenon of tokenism, where beneficiaries of these policies are either viewed as token and undeserved occupants of a position, or where they themselves report feelings of guilt or inadequacy, or in sharing these perspectives of not having earned these positions. Again, in line with conflict management dynamics, the perceptions here fuel these conflicts, whether they can be objectively established or not. People respond rather strongly, sometimes to their own prejudice, if they believe that they have been procedurally or otherwise unfairly treated, and this is supported by a variety of global case studies. Needless to say, this creates a very strong but often imperceptible source of serious workplace conflicts. The accusation that equity programs do, or can, lead to an erosion of merit in the workplace is not widely supported by evidence, but from a conflict management perspective the perception is an important one.
This can trigger many of the adverse workplace conditions we looked at earlier, and it creates complex conflict causes, triggers and symptoms in high-performance team work. In addition to actual costs, these policies are also notoriously, and maybe necessarily so, very heavy on compliance requirements, which bring about further expenditure in time and costs, especially for the relatively smaller employer. These are just a few of the arguments, of various stages of persuasiveness, against employment equity policies, and even this cursory glance displays the workplace conflict potential of these policies, even where they are well-managed and implemented.
Case law and policy developments
Understandably, many employers approach this debate as a matter of legal necessity, as a requirement where they have little or no say, and simply a range of boxes to tick, in other words, simply a compliance issue. There is of course a level of compliance necessary, but employers retain a large measure of control over their businesses even within the parameters of these policies. That is a specialised and complex question best reserved for another discussion, with us simply noting some of the legal compliance and policy developments that can have a bearing on this debate. Case law examples like the 2007 Labour Court example of Win-Cool Industrial Enterprises are often used as examples of the severe punishments that can follow on an employer’s non-compliance. The abuse of internal equity policies can be studied in the 2010 Labour Appeal Court case of Unisa v Reynhardt, and cases further developing these policies and ideas can be found in our law reports on a monthly basis.
Our courts are of course bound by the legislation involved, but as these examples show, they also serve a valuable role in interpreting these goals in practical terms. As we will address later on, global legislative, policy and case law developments have clearly moved on from the perceived benefits of racial quotas in the workplace. Employers should be aware of general trends and industry-specific legal requirements and developments, but also be alert to the specifics of their own businesses and the increased options and solutions that this may bring about. T
he 2025 South African racial quotas development
The 2025 additions to what is in essence a racial quota system to be applied in the workplace should concern everyone who understands the possible outcomes involved. Popular narratives would have it that any objection or resistance to these policies are examples of racial bias or self-interest, and nothing else. It should be emphasized here that even those, especially those, who are in favour of reaching the goals of the original policies, ie the reduction or eradication of the various socioeconomic harms caused by the apartheid policies of the past, should be deeply concerned about the direction and content of these latest versions of the quota strategy. The published targets are crude and clear evidence of leadership that either does not understand the mechanics and requirements of modern business and national economic principles, or does not care about those possibilities.
The targets and the process designed in support thereof simply fail to heed any of the past proven operational difficulties, and these racial categories are again simply asserted without any nuance or understanding of different industries and its specific challenges. One-size-fits-all remains the sledgehammer of choice, despite past errors and lessons clearly not learned. The shocking fines and penalties, the cumbersome processes and administrative burdens are as outdated and harmful as the policies themselves. From our perspective of discussing these issues as conflict management events, this insistence on manifestly outdated and harmful policies will create further polarization, a deterioration of social cohesion and litigation.
Alternative strategies
There are case studies and specific instances of these race-based quota systems achieving some of their goals. I set out in this article the limited parameters where they can, and should, be applied. To that extent it is difficult to support any opposition to the implementation of such policies. Even the other national examples where these policies are implemented, in their best form, however show how limited the benefits of these policies are, and the enduring harm that they bring about.
These outdated strategies of race-based quotas are the more frustrating and harmful because of the clear evidence of other less polarizing and more successful alternatives being available to us. Had this not been the case, a stronger argument in favour of such policies could be created. As it is, the economic solutions, such as we will discuss here, are vastly superior options, directly addressing the sources of these conflicts by creating prosperity, increasing educational access across the spectrum, and drastically reducing unemployment. These alternatives, if they are to be worthy replacements of the reliance on race based quota systems, should increase representation in targeted areas, enhance economic outcomes such as income and mobility, be sustainable, and enhance social cohesion, with the reduction or removal of symptoms such as tokenism, polarization, complaints about unfairness, a collapse of merit and so on.
The key to achieving these goals lie in a robust, growing and structurally healthy economy, not a tinkering with quotas in a stagnant pool of limited employment opportunities. As far as more micro-managed solutions are concerned, the solutions and alternatives of a drive to create and support merit-based employment, greatly expanded educational and training access, and effective mentorship programs, to name a few, remain as valuable as always, but they remain largely untested at the effective level that is required. Box-ticking minimum compliance cultures, created and maintained by these quota policies, have hollowed out the power and potential of these remedies, leaving us criticizing the failures of these solutions without them really having been implemented properly.
The answer to these problems can never lie in simply dividing the available few jobs differently. The solution lies in a more creative, wider economic approach that requires a sense of urgency, skill and sustained application.
Assessment and conclusion, with a specific focus on the South African situation
We cannot just wish away the awful, enduring harm caused by the systems and processes of apartheid. We can also not pretend that the failure of the last thirty years in reaching the goals of these policies of redress has not immensely complicated the situation. There are significant trends globally that show a turning away from these race-based quota policies on their own. In June 2023 the US Supreme Court (in the Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard case) decided that race-based policies in university admissions are unconstitutional, and a 2023 PEW survey found that 73% of Americans oppose such policies. Sweden’s Supreme Court consistently rejects such policies in favour of increased and improved education and training, outreach programs and other remedies, a trend that is mirrored in several similar decisions against racial quotas from Norway and Denmark.
The UK can also serve as a productive case study for South Africa, with a few very creative strategies, such as tie-breaker appointments and targeted training showing much potential for the types of result we are looking for. The UK has never really supported such race-based quota systems, with an even sharper focus on class-based redress becoming normative. Employers like the BBC and several government departments have started implementing a creative “diversity without quotas” approach, and Australia’s 2024 Workplace Gender Equality Agency report emphasizes “inclusion metrics” over racial quotas. These trends are nowhere to be seen in South Africa, with a redoubling of efforts in enshrining these quota systems as we can see from the 2025 developments.
South Africa continues to find itself in a relatively unique position where the past harm done by the minority, through the policies and practices of apartheid, now means that affirmative action policies are still directed at that nominal minority. In most of the more traditional countries used as case studies, say the US or the UK, these affirmative action policies serve to protect the minority group, and seek to balance the proverbial playing grounds in their favour so as to achieve equity. In South Africa, such policies must aim to protect the majority, an argument that may sound anomalous at first. I suggest that any reflection on the nature of that apartheid past, and the fact that these harms were in fact done to the majority of the population throughout the course of that system, removes that apparent anomaly.
In theory, if policies have to be designed and implemented to address past harm, then the numbers at which such policies are directed must correlate with the numbers of people that were harmed. It also does not take the argument much further to suggest that those sheer numbers in itself should have levelled those playing fields thirty years later. Structural systems, past inequalities and the effects of a system designed to keep people in an inferior place in society do not simply go away because people try harder. Something is necessary to redress those imbalances. The real question is what that something is.
It is ethically dubious, and politically unsustainable, to ask a section of the population, whether they are a minority or not, to continue to make sacrifices real and imagined, for the general good and for redress of past injustice, if those policies remain poorly managed and observably inefficient in reaching its goals, especially over a period of decades. It also detracts from the clear moral case why those policies are so necessary in the first place.
For me, the latest reiteration of this tired and failed system of economic engineering is further proof of a government that has run out of creative and effective ideas, a government that persists in using outdated and, by now, proven ineffective ideas. This is a consistent and manifest leadership failure that makes a bad situation so much worse. The fact that other, more effective solutions are available elevates this from an economic leadership failure to a moral failure, given the consequences of this sustained series of errors.
Given these considerations, a summary of my own position on employment equity policies such as the ones we have discussed would be:
(i) The effects of apartheid cannot be wished away, and time and numbers are no guarantees of automatic redress and repair;
(ii) In the South African context, state intervention is necessary to some extent to aid and ensure a rebalancing of past systemic injustices. Such state intervention should be of a twofold nature;
(iii) Most importantly, the state has a legal and moral responsibility to actively grow the economy in such a manner that these past injustices are addressed competently and organically, with a healthy and growing economy being the main engine delivering prosperity, education and meaningful employment. Secondly, there are specific, targeted industries and economic areas where selective, tailor-made interventions such as quotas, education / training or any of the other benefits we considered earlier could be applied, even where this is to the prejudice of minority or previously advantaged groups. In this category, such state interventions must be of extremely limited duration, with responsible, transparent and efficient processes, clear goals and consequences for various outcomes;
(iv) The general philosophy of earlier legislative interventions, such as the EE, EEAA and BBBEE examples, were commendable impulses, but failed dismally in execution and outcomes, causing significant problems for all concerned. These programs may have been necessary, and successful if they had been implemented as set out in (iii) above. They were not; (v) With the 2025 regulations and practical applications of these ideas, the government has now simply entrenched a manifestly harmful strategy that will not achieve its stated and lofty goals, and it will at the same time create further polarization and complex workplace conflicts.
This is poor economic stewardship and poor conflict management on display by the government. The focus on these quotas also means that other, more effective solutions are not put into place, or even commenced with. This takes the original problem and exacerbates it across a wide spectrum of local and national issues. This ineffective tinkering with the complex problem will not only fail to resolve the problems at hand, it will make it worse.
The situation viewed from a conflict management perspective
Apartheid has created a complex, enduring level of inequality that requires redress and skillful intervention at state and organizational level in order to rebalance past injustices and resultant inequality. This has created a spectrum of divergent interests in South Africa, spanning race, gender and class considerations, among others. Just as with our other unresolved and unreconciled conflicts, this requires skilful national and local conflict management in order to achieve our national goals.
Three decades of unimaginative and remarkably inept conflict management and poor leadership have resulted in most of the original conflict causes remaining unresolved, which evidently has caused a range of new complex conflicts and secondary conflict symptoms. Additionally, these failures over such a period of time, have led to a marked level of cynicism, conflict rigidity and an increased attractiveness of radical (and equally unworkable) perceived solutions. Successive local and national governments and leaders have insisted on perpetuating the errors of dealing with the symptoms of these conflicts, as opposed to grappling with the causes thereof, as we have discussed earlier on.
The attempts at legislating the country into positive results, of which this latest effort is a depressing example, simply lock us all into further spirals of inefficiency, desperation, polarization and we are receding further and further away from the work that needs to be done in order to achieve the results that, remarkably, seem to be largely common cause. In addition to being out of synch with economic principles and global trends, race-based quota systems are in breach of a long list of modern conflict best practices, from accurate assessment of causes to perceptions of fairness, from the various crucial dynamics of identity conflicts to the correct application of power, and many other concepts that are either not known or mismanaged by the involved leadership.
South Africa finds itself out of time, without a feasible plan to address and resolve these escalating conflicts. Past history and the lessons provided by time, exciting new solutions and alternatives, problem solving as opposed to factional selfishness, all remain available to us. We do not need new and effective tools to finally reach the goals that we strive for, we do not need quotas that will now magically repair the injustices of the past, we need new leadership.
Summary of main sources, references and suggested reading
1. Dangerous Magic: essays on conflict resolution in South Africa, by Andre Vlok, Paradigm Media (2022), especially Chapters 3, 4 and 16.
2. Relevant articles for your general negotiation and conflict work, and their source material, can be found at www.conflict-conversations.co.za
(Andre Vlok can be contacted at andre@conflict1.co.za for any further information.)
(c) Andre Vlok April 2025