Live from the Shaker Green Room at RecFest USA, Torin Ellis sits down with Chad & Cheese to tackle the evolving landscape of diversity and inclusion (D&I). As some organizations retreat under external pressures, Torin delivers a wake-up call—now is not the time to step back. He challenges leaders to honor their commitments, exposes the political forces shaping DEI strategies, and reminds us that real progress demands intention. With 2025 on the horizon, he highlights the companies still doing the work and calls on individuals—especially those with privilege—to step up.
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Podcast Intro: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast.
[music]
Joel: Who are you and why are you here?
Torin Ellis: I actually don't know why I'm here, but I'm Torin Ellis...
Joel: Say more about that.
Torin Ellis: Torin Ellis, diversity strategist, risk mitigator, analyst. I do all things diversity and inclusion. And I think the reason why I'm here is because you all have some interesting questions to ask of me.
Joel: You came just for us, is that what you're saying?
Torin Ellis: Just for the stars of RecFest.
Chad: Jeez.
Torin Ellis: RecFest...
Joel: Too kind. Too kind.
Torin Ellis: Nashville 2024.
Joel: No pressure. No pressure, Chad.
Torin Ellis: Indeed.
Chad: 2024. Okay, so right out of the gate.
Torin Ellis: That seemed like that was really thoughtful.
Chad: It's because it is.
Joel: You did like that.
Chad: It just, it just popped up.
Joel: Not scripted at all.
Chad: What advice would you have to your peers moving into Q4 and then 2025 to do better about this industry?
Torin Ellis: So, I mean, who are the peers? Are we talking...
Chad: Your peers.
Torin Ellis: Oh, my peers.
Chad: Yeah.
Torin Ellis: Oh, absolutely. So for anyone who's in the DNI space to remain committed in the face of adversity, that we don't allow the smaller voices, these individuals with podcasts and opinions that are suggesting that DNI and that's not taking anything away from podcasts and opinions...
Chad: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Torin Ellis: But individuals that are suggesting that diversity and inclusion is anything other than humanity, is anything other than focus or being focused on building high performing teams. I want you to remain vigilant, to remain fervent in your showing up to chase down diversity and inclusion.
Chad: But what happens...
Torin Ellis: We capitulate. It's just too much retreat.
Chad: Yeah, but what happens when the leaders are actually forcing? I mean, you got guys who are leading organizations telling people to stand down, not to mention taking equity out of the DE&I. I mean there's... I mean it's like, it's like there's this vacuum and everything's getting sucked out.
Torin Ellis: So listen, I mean this is six in one hand, half a dozen in another. Truth of the matter is most people need employment, they need their income. They gotta be able to take care of themselves, their families.
Chad: Right.
Torin Ellis: I absolutely get it. I'm not suggesting that every person gets to be a bull in the china shop. They get to run in screaming as loud as they possibly can, that we must be more committed. But what I am suggesting is that you have to challenge the leaders of your organization to be focused on first your stakeholders and then your shareholders. You don't get dividends or returns or profits or any of those things, if we don't have an organization.
Chad: Right.
Torin Ellis: Focus on my people. There should be no CEO allowing people outside of the organization to sit up here and suggest that DNI is not important and then say, I'm going to retreat. I'm not going to live out my human rights campaign initiatives. I'm going to come back on all of the social imperatives that I said were important. There should be no CEO that is submitting to that. And as an individual, you should have some degree of authority and voice and data to support why you are challenging them on that decision.
Joel: Dumb white guy question. Incoming. Ready?
Torin Ellis: It won't be the first one that I fielded today...
Joel: Because you've interviewed with us before. You're calling it D and I. I'm still calling it DEI. It's been DEIB. Why change? Is that official now?
Torin Ellis: No, it's not a change.
Joel: Is it just preference by you.
Torin Ellis: It's just brevity for the sake of the conversation. Yeah, that's all.
Joel: But we took equity out. Why? Because SHRM did?
Torin Ellis: We didn't... We definitely didn't do it because of SHRM. So you messing around now. You start... You trying to start something. No, I'm just doing it. Brevity for the sake of conversation. It's always going to be DEI.
Joel: But they're all correct.
Torin Ellis: They're all correct and honestly, I'm not... I'm not... I don't lose sleep on even SHRM in their ill-advised decision while I didn't agree with it, while I wouldn't have encouraged them to do it, while I wrote a post talking about why they shouldn't have done it.
Chad: Yeah.
Torin Ellis: The bottom line is as long as a person is committed, I don't care what the letters are. Listen, like I said in the post, LGBTQIA++ they're adding letters to their acronym, while we have organizations that are extrapolating letters from ours. We're all moving in the same direction. We're trying to do better about protecting audiences, communities, geographies, how we're developing products, services, all of the things that matter in building a high performing business.
Chad: So what surprised you most thus far in 2024?
Torin Ellis: The number of organizations that said DNI or DEIB is not important.
Chad: Yeah.
Torin Ellis: That surprised me.
Chad: Yeah.
Torin Ellis: Yeah, simple as that. I like, so much so of a surprise that I'm not reposting them. I don't comment on them because I don't want to amplify what I know is... Now listen, it surprised me by the number that have retreated.
Chad: Yeah.
Torin Ellis: But when you look at the facts and you understand who's doing the work in the business, there's still a lot of people and a lot of activity that's happening in DNI and that's what I'm focused on, not the people that are retreating.
Joel: How much of the abandonment, I guess, in your opinion, is our customers are politically aligned here. They're telling us not to do this. So we are going to abandon it because our buyers are saying it. And what percentage are saying we're going to leave it because we don't want to be political at all. We want to make money for our shareholders and give our employees some level of financial security. In your opinion, is it mostly political or is it mostly like we just don't want to get involved, or is it equal parts?
Torin Ellis: I think right now, you'd have to attribute it to the political climate.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Yeah.
Torin Ellis: Yeah.
Chad: Just about everything.
Torin Ellis: The whole position of being apolitical, that was probably a position maybe a year and a half, two years ago, or maybe more like two, three years ago. Organizations, I won't call their names, but some of them made statements in public. We're going to be an apolitical organization. I get it. That's what they were doing then. I think now anyone deciding to do it is indirectly aligned to a political decision.
Chad: So going forward now, looking toward 2025, what's your number one priority?
Torin Ellis: I don't think that changes for me. I think it's just... How do I keep the intensity the same? How do I continue to remind people that DNI is about chasing humanity?
Chad: Yeah.
Torin Ellis: It's about having better leaders in the organization that are willing to model what it looks like to be inclusive.
Chad: Right.
Torin Ellis: It's about challenging organizations to develop benefit schedules that really accommodate for the lack of pay and compensation that women have experienced. I mean, we passed legislation that says that we are supposed to compensate women fairly, and we haven't lived that out in 50 years. So it's about intensifying what we know to be right and divorcing ourselves from the hyperbolic statements or positions that categorize DNI as being anything other than it really is. Like I absolutely read something a couple of days ago, and again, I'm not going to quote the organization, but they categorize DNI as a sexual extortion initiative. How do you categorize DNI as a sexual extortion initiative. And people believe that. So...
Chad: I don't even know what the hell that means.
Torin Ellis: Neither do I. But the point is, they put it out.
Chad: Yeah.
Torin Ellis: It'll get a whole bunch of...
Chad: Press.
Torin Ellis: Press and activity on the social feeds. And you got to be willing and capable of suppressing that when it's presented to you as a practitioner.
Joel: So I want to leave on a positive note.
Torin Ellis: Sure.
Joel: The headlines go to the companies that are saying, we're out. We don't practice DNI. But I know that every day you're dealing with companies that are embracing it. And I know that you have a lot of hope for younger generations where this is just how it is. This isn't something that is abnormal. So I want you to take a few minutes to talk about the company's doing it right. Maybe examples of what they're doing and your take on the younger generations and how they view this initiative.
Torin Ellis: Yeah. I mean, again, I just support the young people that have the energy, the desire, the curiosity to chase down what humanity looks like on a broader basis. As far as organizations that are doing it right, they're doing it right because they're either re-categorizing how DNI operates inside of their organization, they're still making hires and classifying the individual as the chief diversity officer, or over the diversity and inclusion programming. Organizations that are doing it right are still celebrating certain activities that are happening inside of their organization, raising awareness around causes that impact people inside of their organization. The organizations that are doing it right are not retreating from their human rights campaign initiative. They're still putting their diversity numbers up on their website. Organizations that are doing it right are still exploring ways to expand their supplier diversity footprint.
Joel: Yeah.
Torin Ellis: So the bottom line is it's happening in a lot of ways. And they don't always have to have the categorization of DNI over them to be celebrated. That's what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for the highlight and the neon light and the celebration. I'm looking for the substantive commitment. I'm looking for the unwavering belief that when you do DNI, you are making not only your organization better, but your people better, your communities where you do business better. That's what I'm looking for.
Chad: What I celebrate time with Torin Ellis...
Joel: I got one more [0:10:34.3] ____ if that's what you're doing.
Chad: Go ahead.
Joel: One. So we sat down at RecFest, five or so years ago...
Torin Ellis: 2019.
Joel: Yeah. And two white guys asked you, what can we do to move this Movement forward. And you said, speak up. I'm just wondering, five years on, is that still your advice to two white guys?
Chad: And do you think we have. I think that's the thing that I care about the most.
Torin Ellis: Got it. Okay, so let me answer the second one first.
Chad: Yeah.
Torin Ellis: Yes. I think you all have added more programming to Chad and Cheese, and not only programming, content and voices. You've covered stories. You've found stories and had discussions. I've listened to some of them. But you've also had more voices on the podcast that have talked about the subject of DNI. Do I believe still that... Absolutely. You still need to lend your voice. Sometimes you need to lend your privilege. There are rooms that you are going to walk in that I'll never be able to walk into. Not because I'm not capable, not because I'm not qualified. I'm just not invited. So I need you while you're in that room, when you hear things or you see signals or engage with signals that suggest that this organization may be a bit wayward, this organization may be curious. This organization may need a resource, a consultant. I need you to be able to say, yeah, I know this person or I know that person or whatever the case may be.
Torin Ellis: So we all... Listen, I'll close it on this. Empowerment, strategic exploration, and tactical execution. The first thing is you have to have voice. We cannot be silent in the face of injustice. So you got to speak up. You got to speak up. I got to speak up. The people behind the camera, they got to speak up. You got to be empowered. You got to have a voice. You got to call a thing a thing. We're working on a bias report right now, reducing bias in HR using AI. And during one of our discussions, one person in the think tank or the focus group said, well, I don't really want reducing assumes that there's already bias. And the person said, I don't really want to assume that there's already bias in the technology. And somebody else in the focus group said, nah, we're humans. We all have bias. So let's stop tiptoeing and playing around like there's no bias there. It's there. What are we going to do to make it better? So I need you to speak up.
Chad: Yeah. So for any company who wants to get you in that room, in their room, how do they get a hold of you?
Torin Ellis: Torrenellis.com. Torrenellis.com. Torinellis...
Chad: .com.
Torin Ellis: .com.
Chad: My man. Thanks for coming, man.
Torin Ellis: You got it.
Joel: Thanks for hanging out, Torin.
Torin Ellis: Absolutely.
Podcast Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.
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