Healthcare organizations often say they value diversity and inclusion. But creating a truly inclusive workplace requires more than policies, programs, or statements, it requires employees to feel comfortable speaking up and believing their voices will matter.
A recent Forbes article examining millennials and workplace diversity raises an important question: If employees say diversity matters to them, why don’t they always advocate for stronger diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts at work?
The answer may be more complicated than simply assuming employees don’t care.
Research discussed in the Forbes article found that many millennial workers value workplace diversity but may hesitate to push their employers to do more. Concerns about job security, workplace instability, and skepticism about formal DEI programs can all contribute to this disconnect between what employees believe and what they are willing to ask their organizations to do.
For healthcare organizations, this raises an even bigger question: What happens when healthcare workers have concerns about diversity and inclusion, but don’t feel comfortable saying anything?
Silence Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Satisfaction
Healthcare workers have plenty of reasons to speak up: They see problems firsthand. They interact directly with patients and families. They understand where workplace policies succeed, and where they create unintended barriers. Yet healthcare workers may still remain silent.
Research on employee voice in healthcare has found that workers can feel unable to raise concerns, and that even when they do speak up, they may worry that their concerns will be ignored. This matters far beyond DEI.
The same workplace culture that makes an employee hesitant to discuss exclusion or discrimination can also make that employee reluctant to question a process, report a safety concern, challenge a decision, or suggest a better way of caring for patients.
In other words, employee voice is connected to organizational culture, and organizational culture can ultimately affect patient care.
Psychological Safety Matters
One of the most important pieces of this conversation is psychological safety.
Psychological safety means employees feel they can ask questions, offer ideas, admit mistakes, or raise concerns without fear of embarrassment, rejection, criticism, or punishment. In healthcare, that can have very real consequences.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality notes that psychological safety can encourage healthcare workers to raise concerns about patient safety and contribute to learning, teamwork, and improvements in care.
Research involving healthcare professionals has similarly found that psychological safety influences whether employees choose to speak up or remain silent.
That makes psychological safety an important part of an organization’s approach to diversity and inclusion, too.
An organization can have a beautifully written DEI statement, but if employees don’t believe it is safe to challenge the status quo, the statement may have little impact on their day-to-day experience.
Employees May Be Skeptical of “Performative” DEI
Another issue highlighted in the Forbes research is skepticism about formal DEI initiatives.
Some of the millennial workers interviewed questioned whether diversity programs actually produced meaningful change. Some preferred the idea of diversity developing naturally through people from different backgrounds working together rather than through formal policies and programs.
Healthcare organizations should pay attention to this concern.
Employees can tell the difference between an initiative that exists primarily because it looks good and one that is actually changing the workplace.
For example, announcing a commitment to diversity is not the same as examining who gets hired, who gets promoted, whose ideas receive attention, who occupies leadership positions, and whether employees feel respected.
Diversity isn’t just about representation. Inclusion is about what happens after people walk through the door.
Healthcare Is Especially Dependent on Diverse Perspectives
Healthcare serves people from virtually every background imaginable.
Patients differ in race, ethnicity, age, gender, language, socioeconomic status, disability, religion, geography, education, and lived experience.
The workforce caring for those patients is similarly diverse.
That diversity can be a tremendous strength.
Healthcare professionals bring different perspectives to patient care, communication, problem-solving, leadership, and organizational decision-making. When employees feel comfortable sharing those perspectives, organizations have access to information and experiences they might otherwise miss.
But diversity without inclusion has limitations.
A healthcare organization may successfully recruit a diverse workforce while still having employees who don’t feel heard, valued, or represented.
Getting diverse people into the organization is only the beginning.
Don’t Make Employees Responsible for Fixing the Culture
One of the most important lessons healthcare leaders can take from this conversation is that employees shouldn’t have to carry the entire responsibility for creating an inclusive workplace.
If the only way an organization discovers problems is when an employee is brave enough to complain, the organization is already missing opportunities to improve.
Healthcare leaders can take a more proactive approach.
Instead of asking: “Why aren’t our employees speaking up?”
They can ask: “What might be preventing them from speaking up?”
That change in perspective can lead to better conversations about workplace culture.
What Healthcare Organizations Can Do
Creating a workplace where employees feel comfortable speaking up doesn’t necessarily require another large initiative. It starts with building trust and following through.
Healthcare organizations can:
Create multiple ways for employees to provide feedback
Not everyone will feel comfortable raising a concern directly with a supervisor. Anonymous surveys, employee listening sessions, focus groups, suggestion systems, and other feedback mechanisms can give employees different ways to participate.
Close the feedback loop
Asking for feedback and then doing nothing with it can make employees less likely to participate in the future.
When employees identify a concern, organizations should communicate what they heard and, when possible, what they plan to do about it.
Make psychological safety a leadership responsibility
Managers and supervisors have an enormous influence on whether employees feel comfortable speaking up.
Leaders should be trained to respond to difficult feedback without becoming defensive and to recognize that disagreement isn’t necessarily disloyalty.
Look beyond hiring numbers
A diverse workforce is important, but organizations should also examine promotion, retention, leadership representation, compensation, professional development, mentorship, and employee experiences.
Measure the employee experience
Organizations shouldn’t assume that employees feel included simply because a DEI program exists.
Ask them.
Do employees feel respected? Do they believe leadership listens? Do they feel comfortable raising concerns? Do they see opportunities for advancement? Do they believe people from different backgrounds are treated fairly?
The answers can reveal much more than a policy document ever could.
The Goal Is More Than Diversity
The conversation surrounding workplace diversity can sometimes become focused on numbers, programs, and policies.
Those things matter, but they’re not the whole story.
Ultimately, healthcare organizations need workplaces where employees feel that they belong, are respected, have opportunities to grow, and can speak honestly without fear of retaliation.
That benefits employees, leaders, organizations, and patients.
And perhaps the most important question healthcare leaders should be asking isn’t: “Why aren’t our employees asking for more diversity?”
It is: “Have we created a workplace where employees believe their voices will actually make a difference?”
Because when people feel safe enough to speak, organizations have an opportunity to hear what they otherwise might miss.
And in healthcare, listening isn’t just a workplace value.
It can be part of providing better care.
This article was inspired by Adia Harvey Wingfield’s August 12, 2026, Forbes article, “Millennials Want Workplace Diversity. Why Don’t They Ask For It?” and incorporates research on employee voice and psychological safety in healthcare.