Why meritocracy will never work

Dr Melissa Carr, Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the World of Work Institute, discusses the myth of meritocracy in response to recent DEI policy rollbacks.

The future of DEI programmes as we know them hangs in the balance. Accelerated by President Trump’s actions, we have seen the discourse change, with meritocracy coming to the fore.

I have been watching the daily updates from organisations across the globe with great interest, largely for the language used and the implication that meritocracy will prevail. Indeed, despite the thwarted attempt to quash DEI initiatives at Apple this week, Stefan Padfield of the organisation's Free Enterprise Project, who presented the proposal to scrap DEI, said: "The vibe shift is clear," ... "DEI is out and merit is in."

While the term might sound benign, for meritocracy to exist we would have always had full diversity and equal representation. A flawed concept, it doesn’t take into account that some people have a head start and others will always have systemic societal biases to overcome and a much harder route to the top.

In an email to all staff renouncing its diversity goals, Accenture CEO, Julie Sweet, stated that “we are and have always been a meritocracy”. But for an organisation to claim it is a meritocracy is blind to people’s lived experiences.

If meritocracy does exist, then those in leadership positions would reflect the demographics of society. However, statistics and research suggests otherwise. For example, the annual Female FTSE report found that the number of women holding executive positions across the FTSE 250 fell from 47 in 2022 to 42 in 2024 – a decline of 11%. Is this meritocracy in action?

The truth is, people start from different positions of advantage, the hurdles to overcome are extensive for some, and when they do enter organisations, these places are not unbiased. Meritocracy recurs to an idea that certain traits are worthy of merit, but merit is a value laden term complete with assumptions about working practices, productivity and whether you ‘belong’.

Constructing DEI as being in opposition to meritocracy works to discredit marginalised groups even further. It is a discourse that is pervasive and pernicious. The assumption that the best will always rise to the top is simply not achievable. There is no level playing field and I would call for organisations to engage a little more critically with the term before they declare themselves a meritocracy.