When “Speak Your Truth” Meets the NDA: Why Human Capital Disclosures Miss What Matters
- kellyhirsch
- Jan 20
- 2 min read
Speak your truth.
Unless you’ve signed one of our standard non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).
That sentence captures the fundamental contradiction undermining many corporate DEI and “people-first” commitments.
People do not respond to statements. They respond to actions.
A company can say it has zero tolerance for discrimination while requiring employees to sign NDAs that restrict the disclosure of concerns.
It can call employees “family” while requiring them to sign one-sided agreements that restrict what they can say when they leave.
We generally would not impose speech restrictions on family members or require them to sign non-disparagement clauses to preserve harmony — yet those constraints are routinely applied within employment relationships, even as organizations use the language of loyalty and belonging.
Contradictions in words and actions will undermine performance over time. Especially when company leadership says one thing and does another.
Employees do not experience culture through statements — they experience it through decisions made under cost, timing, and performance pressure. They see what is rewarded, what is punished, and adjust their behaviour accordingly.
For investors, the use of NDAs, mandatory arbitration clauses, and similar mechanisms can be an observable signal about how labour is treated in practice.
Recent research from Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research shows how non-disclosure agreements and forced arbitration clauses suppress reporting of harassment and discrimination, shape career outcomes, and reinforce silence — even within organizations with formal DEI and zero-tolerance policies.
This research illustrates how information can be technically true and still deeply misleading. Standard human capital disclosures largely capture what enters formal systems — not what is resolved through exits, settlements, and confidentiality.
The policy exists. The disclosure is made.But the actual issues remain hidden.
For investors, blanket claims that human capital risks are fully managed or that employees are “like family” should prompt a more practical question: how are NDAs and other legal mechanisms structured to manage risk for the company – and its investors – while still allowing issues to surface and be addressed?
First part in a multi-part series on human capital, governance systems, and decision-useful information for investors.
Next post: why employee engagement data and workforce policies often fail to give investors decision-useful insight.
For those interested in the underlying research:
Stanford University, Clayman Institute for Gender Research (2024) —Assessing the Impact of Non-Disclosure Agreements and Forced Arbitration Clauses on Survivors of Workplace Sexual Harassment and Discrimination
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