In this episode of Reimagining Company Culture, we spoke with Dr. Pierce Otlhogile-Gordon, Director of the Equity Innovation Studio at Think Rubix. Dr. Pierce works as a researcher, facilitator, and evaluator, and he has one of the sharpest perspectives on why intersectional DEI strategy so often gets diluted between the theory and the practice.
His argument is grounded. Intersectionality, as originally articulated by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, is a framework for seeing how overlapping identities produce distinct experiences of power, opportunity, and harm. Applied well, it makes DEI programs more precise. Applied poorly, it becomes a slogan that no one in the business knows how to operationalize.
What Intersectional DEI Strategy Actually Requires
Intersectional DEI strategy starts with the recognition that people do not experience a single identity at work. A Black woman's experience is not the sum of being Black plus being a woman. It is something specific that neither a race program nor a gender program will fully address on its own. Programs that treat identities as separate buckets almost always miss the people sitting at the intersections.
Catalyst's workplace intersectionality guidance frames this clearly. HR leaders who want intersectional strategy to mean something in practice have to commit to three things: disaggregated data, identity-aware program design, and a listening model that does not flatten distinct experiences into a single score.
Dr. Pierce also pushes against a common misreading of intersectionality, which treats it as a way to describe individual experience without changing program design. The original framework was created to explain systemic patterns, not to categorize individuals. Used that way, it is a design tool. Used the other way, it becomes a label, which is far less useful.
That distinction is important for HR leaders because it determines what the programs actually do. A labeling approach produces a slightly longer list of employee groups to consider. A systemic approach redesigns processes so that they work better for the people whose experience previously fell through the cracks. The second is harder and also more durable.
How Intersectional Strategy Shows Up in Operations
Why do most DEI programs miss intersectional experience?
Because the data is aggregated at the top level. An engagement score for women of 68 percent tells you very little about the experience of women of color, LGBTQ women, or women with disabilities. Disaggregation is the first step, and most organizations stop there.
How do you design programs with intersectional needs in mind?
By involving the affected groups in the design phase and by running pilots with representative cohorts before scaling. One-size-fits-all benefits, career programs, and coaching models rarely hold up well under an intersectional lens.
What Actually Works for Intersectional DEI
Principle 1: Disaggregate the data with privacy in mind
Small sample sizes are a real constraint, and so is employee privacy. Combine quantitative segmentation with qualitative channels where small groups can speak anonymously. ERGs, focus groups, and well-run pulse programs all help when direct disaggregation is not possible.
Principle 2: Listen across channels, not just in the survey
Survey data will always undercount the experiences of people who feel less safe speaking up. Pair it with ER case patterns, stay interview input, and ERG listening sessions. The fuller picture is almost always different from the survey alone.
Principle 3: Train managers to respond to intersectional signals
Manager coaching on bias is common. Coaching on how identities combine to change the manager's response is rare. The difference shows up in everyday decisions about workload, stretch assignments, and feedback.
Where Employee Relations Fits
Intersectional analysis is especially valuable inside the ER function. Employees who sit at the intersection of multiple identities often experience concerns that do not fit cleanly into one protected class category, and generic case workflows can miss those nuances. Teams using structured HR case management alongside DEI-informed ER operations have the data to see where those gaps show up.
ER drill-down: reading patterns across combined identity segments
The most useful ER intersectional analysis looks at case rate, case type, and resolution time across combined segments rather than single categories. For instance, comparing concerns from LGBTQ employees of color against both the overall LGBTQ population and the overall employees-of-color population often reveals experiences that single-axis analysis hides.
This analysis has to be done carefully for privacy reasons, and the results should feed program decisions rather than individual case handling. Used well, it gives the DEI team a diagnostic that no single-axis DEI report can produce.
One more piece worth flagging: intersectional analysis tends to reveal gaps in benefits design that companies rarely notice otherwise. Parental leave policies, flexible work policies, and wellbeing programs all tend to serve a default employee well and a non-default employee poorly. Intersectional review catches those mismatches in time to fix them.
Frequently Asked Questions About Intersectional DEI
Is intersectional analysis worth doing at smaller companies?
Yes, but with different methods. At smaller scale, qualitative channels carry more weight because the numbers are too small for reliable quantitative analysis. The principle still applies: treat employees as intersecting identities rather than single categories.
How do you protect employee privacy in intersectional reporting?
Use aggregation thresholds, suppress cells with fewer than a set number of employees, and involve privacy or legal partners in the analysis plan. Intersectional work that violates privacy produces short-term insight and long-term trust erosion.
Does intersectional DEI replace affinity-based ERGs?
No. ERGs built around a single identity are still valuable, and most companies also benefit from spaces that are explicitly intersectional. The two coexist, and the best ERG programs allow employees to participate in more than one.
How do you keep intersectional work from becoming performative?Measure outcomes, not declarations. If the organization talks about intersectional work but the data does not move for the people at the intersections, the work is performative, regardless of the language used.Can small DEI teams do intersectional work?Yes. Intersectional practice is more about framing than headcount. A two-person DEI team with strong analytical support can run intersectional analysis effectively, provided they have access to the underlying data.
For HR leaders working in complex compliance environments, intersectional work can also reduce downstream legal exposure. Claims that involve combined protected characteristics are often more costly to defend than single-category claims, because they require more nuanced evidence. A strong intersectional practice makes that evidence easier to assemble and easier to defend.
Parallel findings from the World Economic Forum on intersectional diversity emphasize that program design matters more than program existence. Intersectional rigor in design produces measurably better outcomes for the employees whose experience is most at stake.
The Bottom Line for HR Leaders
Dr. Pierce's point, distilled, is that intersectional strategy is what allows DEI to match the reality of employees' lives. Without it, the programs end up speaking to aggregate categories and missing the people whose experience is most shaped by overlapping identities.
That is not a rhetorical problem. It is a practical one. Retention risk, career stall, and preventable case volume all concentrate among employees whose experience is not well served by generic programs. HR leaders who commit to disaggregated data, listening across channels, and manager coaching on intersectional response get measurably better outcomes.
The organizations that make this investment also tend to have the best overall DEI results, not just at the intersections. The discipline of precision scales upward. The discipline of aggregation rarely scales downward. That is why the most mature DEI programs are also the most intersectional, even when they do not use the word.
Dr. Pierce also reminded us that the evaluation piece is often where intersectional work either lands or fades. Programs that are rigorously evaluated tend to produce more durable change, because the results hold up when leadership changes or budgets tighten. Skipping evaluation is one of the fastest ways to lose ground on intersectional commitments.
See how AllVoices supports intersectional analysis across the ER and DEI operating model.
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