Same experience. When the angry women in HR made it impossible for me to hire and promote people in my own department based purely on merit, and I found I wasn’t even allowed to see job applications and resumes from people who didn’t meet their DEI criteria, I knew it was time to make sure my parachute was packed, because sooner or later they’d find an excuse to defenestrate me. Which they did.
The only satisfaction I got out of this was six months later, when they asked me to come back as a consultant to try to fix the resulting mess, I was in a position to tell them to F. O.
You hit on something that can kill a company…instability in staffing.
Some things take years to learn to do correctly. A mold maker, an injection molder, a process development chemist, etc. can take decades to develop skills to a high level.
You can’t just run out there to the job market and find someone who can do the exact same thing as the guy you let go.
For example in Puerto Rico there was a pharmaceutical company that made a particular drug. One man could reach into the reactor with gloved hands and determine if a lot was good or bad. He was right every time but try as he might he couldn’t teach his skill to anyone else.
When he retired they had to shut that production line down.