Your Contact at DiversityWorking.com

Special Offering from DiversityWorking

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:35:00 +0000

Hello, I hope you all are doing great today.

This is a perfect time to inquire into our services at a discounted rate. I wanted to extend a special offer to companies looking to continue to promote their company to diversity communities.

We know that hiring and spending have been slowing down in 2009; therefore we are offering an opportunity for companies to start utilizing our services at a discounted rate. Please contact me for further information. Thanks!

I am back!

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:55:00 +0000

This is a test.

Test!

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:27:00 +0000

Hello, diversity job seekers and Employers looking to diversify your workforce. I am back and will be implementing new information and new content very shortly. Thanks!

Diversity Recruiting is Not the Job of the Recruiter!

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:38:00 +0000

By Eliana M. Hassen

Corporate America finally got the memo - Diversity is a tool that can help build a stronger, more competitive and forward thinking company. So now, with guns blazing, diversity recruiting has become a major business initiative, often left in the lap of HR to figure out. I hate to tell you, but diversity recruiting is not the job of a recruiter; it's the job of every employee!

Diversity recruiting is not a task. It is a process that, if mastered, becomes an art. With the growing demand of talent, finding diverse employees is more difficult than ever. The key to successful diversity recruiting is to build a program that is embedded in the corporate culture. This will quickly make it everyone's job.

So where do you start? How do you build a program? How do you embed diversity recruiting into the overall company culture and make it everyone's job? There are specific steps that an organization can take to jump-start their overall diversity recruitment initiatives.

In recent years, companies have been hiring Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs) that report directly to the CEOs to ensure that aggressive diversity initiatives are met. Having dedicated resources to cultural diversity is a step that should not be missed by any organization. Your company may not need a CDO, but there should be a team that is dedicated to diversity recruiting.

Five steps to build a diversity recruitment process, making it everyone's job!

Step 1 - Build an internal team. This should consist of recruitment or HR professionals and business unit participants. The more people throughout the organization that are involved, the more exposure diversity recruitment gets. There are many advantages to building this team, including a constant line of communication with the business units regarding cultural diversity challenges and initiatives. Senior level managers should also be targeted to join the team. This will help solidify the overall culture and drive the diversity recruiting initiative into their various groups. This not only strengthens diversity in the corporate culture, but it quickly engages different employees on different levels - creating an area of development or interest for many.

Different people on the team can have various roles. Some can serve as a board and drive the initiatives. Others can participate in marketing to candidates and even interact with candidates, relating the corporate diversity goals to potential new employees. The key is getting as many people involved in the process as possible.

Step 2 - Define the corporate goal for diversity recruitment and then brand it. Diversity recruitment - like every major initiative in a company - should have a communication strategy outlining its audience, purpose and desired results. Everyone in the organization should have access to this information.

Educating the organization on cultural diversity is a big part of that. Don't take it for granted that everyone in the organization understands diversity. Diversity is defined to include groups beyond race and gender; now it addresses age, disability, sexual orientation, religion and language as well. Getting everyone educated and in sync with the diversity recruitment goals can be as simple as featuring information in the company newsletter, receiving a memo from an executive, or featuring the message in a section of the intranet.

Step 3 - Talent acquisition marketing is the next step. Diversity recruitment should be strategic, targeted and measured for results. Often, a company doesn't follow basic business principals in recruitment that they would in other business areas. If a campaign were being launched for a new product marketing research, analysis, and development would be required. Then strategic and tactical outlines are created: how to market, define the audience and how to measure the results. This process will yield the best results in diversity recruitment, as well.

I encourage you to define the goals for the various diversity areas and then create a targeted marketing plan to recruit those groups. Then, identify what the audience reads and how it searches for employment. An even bigger part of this is the ability to write compelling ads and optimize technology. Use the Internet and word of mouth to make the path from diverse candidates to your organization clear as the sound of a bell. (This should be a big hint to invite members of your marketing organization to be a part of the diversity recruitment team!)

Step 4 - Employee Referral Programs (ERP) have proven to be invaluable in many organizations around the globe - use them to drive diversity! Create different incentive plans or programs around diversity recruitment in your existing ERPs. This turns every employee into a diversity recruiter for the company. Employees should not only understand the diversity initiatives around recruitment, but also participate in them. Regular information, with goals, metrics and new initiatives should be communicated on a regular basis to every employee.

Step 5 - The final step to creating a concrete diversity recruitment process is to build a diversity employee development program. It may seem like a function outside of recruitment or talent acquisition, but it isn't. The reality is that everything drives recruitment and talent to an organization. What better way to attract top diverse talent than to have a proven track record of your success in developing and retaining them? Creating a development plan to ensure that diverse talent is equally distributed in different business areas and growing within the company creates a buzz. It also stands behind your overall commitment to diversity. Work with your career planning folks, find volunteer mentors, define job stretch and opportunity for the diverse employees you have now - and watch the reaction through word of mouth. It will impact the bottom-line.

In summary and succinctly put, the five building blocks to create a diversity recruitment program for your company:

• Build a team dedicated to diversity recruiting.
• Define your diversity recruitment initiatives and brand them internally.
• Focus talent acquisition marketing.
• Create diversity referral programs.
• Develop and retain the diverse employees you have through a special development plan just for them.

Recruiting diverse candidates is everyone's job and you must give everyone the tools they need to do it.

Source : The Adler Group

Corporate America -- Don’t Preach Diversity, Practice It

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:24:00 +0000

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
New America Media

Editor's Note: Stanley O’Neal, forced out of the top job at Merrill Lynch, is the highest ranking casuality of the sub-prime loan fiasco -- even as diversity in corporate America is still an issue.

With the forced retirement of Merrill Lynch CEO E. Stanley O’Neal, the ranks of African-American top gun Fortune 500 company CEOs was sliced from six to five. O’Neal’s fall had nothing to do with race, but rather questionable investments that caused the company’s stock to plunge, and supposedly being a loner type in a corporate culture that thrives on “good old boy” insider networking. But the demise of O’Neal, for whatever reason, still raises fresh questions about how committed many corporations are to making diversity a reality in their boardrooms and in management.

The answer varies widely from corporation to corporation. Fifty companies appear on Fortune Magazine’s list of corporations with the best track record for cultural diversity. Minorities made up almost 21 percent of their boardrooms in 2003, compared with 11 percent two years earlier. The figures almost certainly have edged up even more since then.

But for every one of the 50 corporations that makes diversity more than a buzz word, there are dozens more that pat themselves on the back for having one Latino, Asian or African American on their board, or for hiring a handful in lower-level management positions.

In recent years, some of America's biggest and best-known corporations that have been widely praised as having a good track record on minority hiring and promotions have been plastered with discrimination lawsuits. Texaco, Coca-Cola, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Toyota have been thrust into the legal hot seat and have made costly settlements or signed consent decrees with the EEOC.

Forty years after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that forbade workplace discrimination and Executive Order 11246, signed by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, that prodded firms to promote management diversity, many companies still practice their own subtle brand of workplace apartheid. Despite the well-publicized rise of O’Neal and other black executives at AOL-Time Warner, American Express and Aetna, black CEOs are still a rarity at most of the Fortune 1000 corporations.

The overwhelming majority of senior managers at these companies are white males, and as is evident from the rash of management discrimination lawsuits, women and minority managers are still paid less on average than their white, male counterparts. They are still just as likely to be pigeonholed in departments such as head of “special markets” or “minority affairs.”

An embarrassing and highly publicized corporate discrimination case may bring the issue onto the public radar, but then it’s back to business as usual. That business, more often than not, is discrimination. It takes place quietly and far out of public view. The worst offending corporations employ a variety of tactics to mask discrimination. They issue glowing press releases, brochures, assorted handouts and annual stockholder reports loaded with pictures of smiling women and minority employees that tout their commitment to diversity. With much public fanfare, they establish minority and women hiring and training programs.

The refusal of many companies to make cultural diversity the watchword in middle and upper management is bad enough, but even worse is the relentlessly hostile environment that many companies create and maintain toward minorities.

Since 1990, the number of complaints of racial disrimination toward employees has climbed. Black and Latino employees have been poked with sticks, called racial slurs, have had pictures of burning crosses and white sheets placed near their lockers, have discovered the initials KKK carved on tables and benches, and even found nooses hanging at or near their desks.

Most CEOs are not hypocrites when they say that they work hard to hire and promote more minorities and women. But the degree of real commitment to cultural diversity hinges on the commitment of a corporation’s top CEO and its board. When CEOs implement an outreach program that includes a diversity task force, aggressive recruiters, and a mentoring program aimed at moving talented female and minority employees up the corporate career ladder, cultural diversity will be readily apparent in the company’s hires and promotions.

O’Neal’s departure was disappointing, given the still relative paucity of minority and women Fortune 500 CEO leaders. But even if O’Neal had stayed in good grace with Merrill, and had a long shelf life there, the challenge to corporate laggards on diversity wouldn’t change. And that is, don’t just preach it – practice it.

About the Author

New America Media Associate Editor Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Latino Challenge to Black America: Towards a Conversation between African-Americans and Hispanics (Middle Passage Press).

Source : New America Media

From Diversity to Inclusion

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:11:00 +0000

By Katharine Esty, PhD

In the last few years, the focus of efforts in companies across the land has shifted from diversity to a focus on inclusion. This sea change has happened without fanfare and almost without notice. In most organizations, the word inclusion has been added to all the company's diversity materials with no explanation. This article is a short account of why this shift has happened and what it means.

Probably the most widely-read article on cultural diversity in organizations was Roosevelt Thomas's "From Affirmative Action to Affirming Diversity," which appeared in the Harvard Business Review in 1990. Diversity, said Thomas, was no longer about complying with a legal mandate but about seeking to create a diverse workforce because it would be beneficial to the organization. Before 1990, most large companies had an Employment Equity and Affirmative Action Officer, usually a lower-level employee who worked in the bowels of the organization compiling statistics about how many employees were in targeted groups, eg, people of color and women.

Diversity - A Numbers Game

Throughout the 1990's, diversity continued to be about the numbers of different kinds of people in the workforce as a whole and at each level. Diversity staffs tried to increase the number of people of color and women in their organizations. They saw this primarily as a hiring task.

During that decade, the definition of diversity expanded. Diversity came to include many dimensions beyond gender and race: age, class, disability, ethnicity, family situation, religion, and sexual orientation. Companies started to pay attention to their representation of all these groups.

It became clear over the years that it was not enough to focus on hiring alone. It became important to retain "diverse" workers, as well. Some organizations were astonished to learn that after years of effort, they had fewer African Americans than they had earlier. Companies became aware that for the most part the upper ranks of their organizations remained heavily white and predominately male. These were the years when companies offered cultural diversity awareness training and diversity skills training to help their newly diverse employees work well together.

It's the Culture

Today, in the 2000's, as organizations try to retain diverse employees in their workforce, companies have started looking at the quality of these employees' experience in the organization. Do employees in all groups and categories feel comfortable and welcomed in the organization? Do they feel included and do they experience the environment as inclusive? To answer these questions, diversity staffs need to assess their environment and identify the barriers to inclusion, whether they are practices, policies, or the informal culture of the organization. Having identified barriers, the job of the diversity staff is to change the company culture and to create an inclusive workplace environment.

Systems and Policies

As inclusion becomes the focus of diversity work, the attention switches to the systems, policies and practices of the company. Several systems influence the degree to which the climate is inclusive:

• Communications
• Work assignment
• Training and education
• Performance management
• Mentoring
• Coaching
• Hiring
• Career development
• Flexible work arrangements; and
• Managers' accountability.

Companies that are known for their inclusive climate do not rely on the goodwill of their managers but work hard so that each organizational system is equitable. Once barriers are identified, they take action to address them. Each system is analyzed to determine the degree to which it provides equitable access and benefits to all employees.

Creating an Inclusive Environment: A Case Study

Here is an example of how one company addressed inclusion issues:

A division of an institute in the defense industry had the reputation of not being welcoming to women. For years, they had experienced difficulty in both hiring and retaining female employees at all levels but particularly in the highest ranks of management. For years they clung to the idea that what they needed to do was to hire two or three high-level women. But to their chagrin, as soon as they would hire a new high-level female executive, it seemed one of the other high-level women would resign. At first they explained these recurrent departures in terms of the personalities of the women - "She has family problems," "She is too aggressive," or "She is too timid." Gradually it dawned on them that these resignations were not about the women, they were about the culture and the organizational climate.

This led to a whole new strategy. The director of the division created a Diversity Task Force to suggest and implement changes that would create a more inclusive workplace in order to support the efforts to recruit and retain women. The Task Force was supported with resources and time for its work. Guided by an organizational consultant and working in small action teams, they first conducted a series of focus groups to identify the issues and concerns of women in the division. Then they moved into action, devising a number of changes and short-term projects to address the important issues. As soon as a team implemented a change or completed a project, they took on another.

Here are some of their accomplishments over the first two years:

• They created a buddy system for all new employees
• Senior Managers hosted a series of lunches to meet lower-level women engineers and learn about their projects
• All brochures about the division were revised to include pictures of women
• They created a website where articles about women in the workplace were posted
• They developed a special relationship with a women's engineering college, inviting students from that college to come on-site for field trips and setting up summer internships for women undergraduate engineers
• They instituted networking and professional development events for women
• Senior managers attended two training programs, "Men and Women Working Together" and "Flexibility."

Two of their learnings about creating an inclusive climate were: 1) It doesn't take huge amounts of money to make significant progress; and 2) Changing an organizational culture is about doing many small things, not one or two big things.

In reality, as this story attests, creating an inclusive environment is about a hundred small changes. As you look at your own organization, ask yourself: What are we doing, in ways large or small, to move from yesterday's diversity to today's need for inclusion?

About the Author

Katharine Esty, PhD, is the Founder of Ibis Consulting Group , Inc., a diversity consulting firm based in Waltham, MA. She is a NEHRA member as well as a member of the NEHRA "Ask the HR Expert" panel. She can be reached at esty@ibisconsultinggroup.com.

Source : Boston.com

Minority Hiring: The Do’s, Don’ts, Whys, How To’s and Rewards

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:12:00 +0000

By Jackie Headapohl

Diversity is strength. Financial experts know that a diversified portfolio is the best way to build wealth, and business experts know that a culturally-diverse candidate pool is the best way to build a staff that will provide the maximum performance and results.

“Study after study shows diversity creates a positive impact on businesses,” says Tracey de Morsella, who produces the Multicultural Advantage, a Web site with resources to help employers increase their effectiveness in diversity recruiting. Miami-based Convergence Media Inc., runs the site and publishes multicultural-focused directories.

“Studies show culturally-diverse companies increase productivity, creativity and develop new and more varied products and services,” de Morsella says. “Most new business owners think, ‘I’ll deal with that later.’ Cultural diversity seems out of reach, but there are benefits to doing it right away.”

Just don’t confuse diversity with representation, says Roosevelt Thomas, CEO of Roosevelt Thomas Consulting & Training in Atlanta, Ga., and author of Building on the Promise of Diversity (AMACOM Books, 2005, $27.95).

Plan to Manage Diversity

“Most companies who think they’re talking about diversity are really talking about representation,” Thomas says. He defines “representation” as a workforce that racially and ethnically reflects a company’s customer base.

“The main benefit to a representative workforce is that society expects it,” he says. “Truth be told, it’s difficult to get ‘diversity’ through representation because most employers want to assimilate their candidates to their way of thinking and doing things. Those companies may have a ‘diverse’ workforce, but they also have a sameness of thought.”

For example, Thomas says, if you hire African American, Hispanic and Asian candidates who all have Ivy League educations, you’re not getting diversity at all. Attribute and behavioral diversity don’t always come along with diverse ethnicities, he says. Functional diversity takes time to develop and it comes with its own set of challenges.

“True diversity breeds difficulties, tensions and complexities,” Thomas says, “and that can be difficult to manage.” Companies need to plan for training, building skills, policies and processes to effectively manage diversity.

Even so, Thomas says, companies are more likely to reach truly functional diversity with a representative workforce. “They should take on the challenge right away.”

Managed well, diversity helps companies avoid that innovation-killer called groupthink, which locks employees into one way of thinking and stifles the ability to compete. Study after study has shown that cultural diversity improves customer focus, spurs creativity and innovation, and leads to better decision-making and problem solving, de Morsella says.

Your Workforce Should Look Like Your Customer Base

The population of America is changing. According to the 2004 U.S. Census, Hispanics (14.1 percent) now are the largest minority group, with African Americans (12.8 percent) second. Experts predict that by 2050, people of color will outnumber white Americans.

Women, 51 percent of the marketplace, are also changing the American landscape. Research findings by BusinessWeek and Gallup led to a forecast that by 2010, women are expected to control $1 trillion, or 60 percent of the country’s wealth. They already buy or influence the purchase of 80 percent of all consumer goods.

These are the faces of the marketplace, and if they’re not seen in your company, they’re likely to take their business elsewhere, de Morsella warns.

Make Your Business Attractive to Diverse Candidates

Diversity candidates are like any others - they want to find an employer with whom they’ll feel comfortable, have opportunities to advance and make a decent income. But, de Morsella notes, “If you have 20 people on staff and they’re all white guys, you send a weird message.”

So how do you get a diverse staff? “You don’t go out looking for a black man or a Latino woman,” she says. There are potential legal minefields associated with diversity hiring, such as reserving spots or job openings solely for diverse candidates. It’s reverse discrimination and illegal.

“The biggest mistake that companies [startups or established] make is being afraid - afraid of being called racist, being accused of setting quotas, etc.,” says Damali Ayo, a Portland writer and artist whose book, How to Rent a Negro (Lawrence Hill Books, 2005, $14.95) is intended to encourage open dialogue about race in the workplace. “People are so afraid of ‘doing it wrong’ when it comes to cultural diversity that procrastination and cowardice easily find their way in. Thus some companies who are strong in many areas find themselves weak in cultural diversity.”

As you create your recruiting materials, build in a diversity message that says, “This is a great place to work,” Ayo says. “You just need to broaden your talent pool, and you’ll have no problem finding people from varied backgrounds.”

Does Your Web Site Reflect Diversity?

One easy way to attract a broad talent pool is by adding a diversity page to your Web site, de Morsella says: “This is a very low-cost method and will help your site show up on search engines for diversity.

“If you’re not sure how to do it, go to the sites of major companies with a reputation for good diversity programs – Microsoft and Merrill Lynch, for example - and use them as a model.”

De Morsella also urges including minorities and women on your board. “This puts a diverse face on your company and makes those from diverse backgrounds want to work with you,” she says.

Widen Your Candidate Pool

One of the simplest ways to recruit for diversity is posting your company on minority-focused Web sites that offer various combinations of job listings, recruitment-marketing services and diversity-related news (see related sidebar).

De Morsella suggests that when looking for highly skilled talent and executives, tap into the local chapters of national groups. “It’s much less expensive,” she says. “Working through the national organization could cost up to $20K.”

For entry- to mid-level, she advises looking to such advocacy groups as the Urban League. “I’ve done this to hire sales staff and interns, and it’s worked out great,” she says. “Most large cities have a local chapter and will be happy to send candidates right away.”

It Won’t Pay If You Delay

Begin your efforts to hire a representative staff as soon as possible because cultural diversity can make a huge difference in the bottom line.

Robert Rodriguez is faculty chair in the School of Business & Technology at Capella University online, and chairman for the Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement, a nonprofit that helps companies attract, develop and retain Latino talent. On the Society for Human Resource Management Web site, he recounts how a representative and diverse workforce led to big profits for Frito-Lay.

The Latino Employee Network at Frito-Lay proved invaluable during the development of Doritos Guacamole Flavored Tortilla Chips, Rodriguez writes. Members of the network provided feedback on the taste and packaging to help ensure authenticity, helping launch one of the most successful products in the company’s history. The snack generated more than $100 million in sales in the first year alone.

“A diverse staff is going to give you the best performance and results,” Ayo says. “A diverse staff is only one of the tools you need to build the best business possible. You should treat it with the same immediacy and importance as you would in finding the right tools in every other area.

“Become a leader in creating a diverse staff. Your clients’ confidence, staff morale, press coverage, productivity and, of course, your profits will increase for doing it.”

About the Author

Jackie Headapohl is a freelance writer for StartupNation.

Source : StartupNation

10 Steps to Finding and Hiring Diversity and High-Demand Candidates

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:25:00 +0000

Creating a process out of hiring the best

By Lou Adler

Here are two basic principles of recruiting that you need to apply when targeting passive candidates, diversity candidates, or any type of candidates in high demand:

• The more competition there is for a group of candidates (like nurses, pharmacists, sales reps who always exceed quota, design engineers who were elected to Tau Beta Pi, diversity candidates, etc.), the more recruiting effort is required to attract and hire them.

• Top people want top jobs, regardless of their cultural, ethnic or religious background or gender.

With these principles in mind, here are ten things you must do if you want to hire more top people and diversity candidates. All are essential. Nine out of ten is not good enough.

Here's the 10-step recipe:

1. Create compelling jobs. If a top person is fully employed or has multiple offers, then the quality of the job will be one of the top four factors determining which job the person will ultimately take (the other three: the manager, the company, the comp). If your online job descriptions start with a part number (or the requisition number) followed by the official title, the location, and some list of skills and requirements, you won't hire many good people. The title and the first two lines of the ad determine whether it will be read, so make sure that these first two lines create a buzz. The next paragraph must describe some of the projects and challenges in the job. Focus on the possibilities -- what the person will do, learn, and become -- not the requirements. I refer to this type of job description as a performance profile (here's an article for more on this). Make the person want to click the "apply" button. Referred candidates will always read the online job description before getting too interested. So don't ignore this step if you want to hire more culturally-diverse candidates or any type of person in high demand.

2. Job brand the job. Somewhere in the job description, tie the job to the company vision, its mission, a big project, or some important strategy. This makes the job bigger than itself. "Help us land the next generation of moon walkers," will be Northrup's and Boeing's message for the next shuttle program, even for those people working at the rec center.

3. Culturally brand the job. Do you really have a culture that thrives on diversity, or are you just meeting some corporate objective? How many African-Americans, Hispanics, and women have been promoted this past year as a percent of all promotions? You need to capture cultural diversity directly into the job with more than just a legal-sounding EEO statement.

4. Develop marketing-oriented sourcing programs based on how your future employees look for and apply for jobs. Top people and candidates in high demand don't look for jobs or accept offers using the same job hunting approach as most people. For one thing, they're much more discriminating. The primary decision to take a new job is based on the future opportunity and current challenges. That's why steps 1-3 above are critical starting points. Since these people look for jobs infrequently, the jobs must be easy to find when they do look. We're now doing a big research study on how different diversity candidate groups look for new jobs (send an email to info@adlerconcepts.com if you want to participate or learn more). The results so far indicate that you can't go wrong by making jobs highly visible with compelling titles and great copy wherever your jobs are posted. As part of this, your career site must be easy to find, and it must make a diversity statement tied to the company strategy on the first page. Rather than hyperbole, why not have bios and pictures of real people who represent the opportunities for diversity candidates and women within your company?

5. Reach out and find your candidate. If your target audience won't come to you, you'd better go out to them. This means you must leverage your employee referral program, and creatively use tools like ZoomInfo, Jobster, and LinkedIn, as well as advanced Internet data-mining techniques. For a start, establish an aggressive employee referral program targeted to your current diverse employees. Personally ask these pre-selected employees for the names of the best people they've ever worked with. Then get on the phone to recruit and network with these people, to leverage these names to get more names. You might want to conduct a Jobster campaign in combination with ZoomInfo's ethnic searching capability to jumpstart your efforts here. Regardless, make sure the job descriptions are compelling -- or everything else you do will be wasted.

6. Stay involved. Make your marketing a process, not an event. My old UCLA MBA buddy, Henry Hernandez, now the VP and chief diversity officer at American Express, gave me this sage advice many years ago. The basic theme: Don't just show up for some recruiting event. Instead, you need to promote, sponsor, be involved, and be committed -- every month, every year, and not just a few days here and there. Providing the resources and time is how you convert lip-service into reality.

7. Get hiring managers involved early and often. The recruiting department can't do it alone. Managers must be committed to the process and they must devote extra time and effort to make it work. They must devote even more time upfront to get it started. If you do everything else right but fail on this step, the process will collapse.

8. Conduct a professional and thorough interview. Too many people think the purpose of the interview is to assess candidate competency. Most of these same people don't even do this part too well, either. But the interview can and must be much more than this when hiring top people in any field -- and even more importantly when there is competition for these people. In these cases, the interview must meet these multi-factor criteria:

• Extreme professionalism is exhibited by all interviewers.
• The candidate spends at least an hour with key decision-makers.
• The process respects a top candidate's slower and more thorough decision-making process.
• The candidate is confident the interviewer has conducted a thorough and accurate assessment.
• The candidate has talked four times more than the interviewer.
• The candidate leaves wanting the job.

I've written a lot of articles on these pages on how to do this. Have many of your managers know how to accomplish the above?

9. Recruit and close. You'd better be able to handle every objection in the book, offer competitive compensation packages, and know how to use the interview to create opportunities. You do this by describing compelling challenges and having candidates describe relevant past accomplishments. Dig deep to validate the candidate's true role. Candidates need to earn the job during the interview. If you oversell, under-listen, or give the job away, you won't hire many high-demand candidates.

10. Conduct a great on-boarding experience and get more referrals. Now that you've hired some great high-demand candidates, use the performance profile prepared in step 1 above as the primary on-boarding tool. As you're reviewing it, ask for the names of other top people who might be interested in this type of compelling job. Then start over the 10-step process all over again. This is how you make the process of hiring cultural diversity and other high-demand candidates self-sustaining.

Hiring top people, including diversity candidates or any top person in high demand, is about much more than just finding names. That's the easy part. Having a recruiter call the person and then convince him or her to engage in a conversation takes skill and persistence. Having the recruiter then network with this person to get more names is even harder, but it's also that much more essential. Getting hiring managers and every person on the interviewing team committed to the process is a major challenge just by itself. Now all you need to do is train them on how to do it right.

Ten steps. That's all there is to hiring top passive and diversity candidates. I've seen it done. In every case, it started with someone in HR and recruiting taking the lead. It's not an event or a box being checked. It's a process.

Source : The Multicultural Advantage

Diversity: Beyond a Numbers Game

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:27:00 +0000

Today, this workplace goal is more about inclusion than meeting quotas

By Liz Ryan

"It seems like a lifetime ago that the company put all of us managers through diversity training," said a middle-manager friend. "We were told that diversity is one of our company's core values and the focus was on two things: understanding the laws that managers could inadvertently break and avoiding those pitfalls; and striving to be color-blind, gender-blind, and otherwise 'label'-blind in making employment and promotion decisions….Seemed like a piece of cake."

"What's changed?" I asked.

"It's gotten so much more complicated," he answered. "The other day, we had a little birthday gathering for our bookkeeper. I don't keep track of my team's ages, but I guess Annette turned 50. So we had the usual cake, and someone gave her a bunch of black balloons and sang a dirge about how old she is. Silly stuff, Annette just laughed, and it seemed like everyone was having fun."

"So what's the problem?" I questioned.

"Afterward, one of the supervisors told me that another employee was offended. If we make jokes about someone being old and feeble at 50, then this employee feels that we must be devaluing older people, and that includes her, because she's over 50. So can we never tell a joke again or have a birthday celebration? After all, we do these things to bring people together and help build a team."

This is a lot more complicated than someone getting offended about an office birthday party. Diversity in the workplace is a powerful concept and is one that is still evolving, but now it is much more about inclusion than meeting quotas. Thirty years ago, corporate diversity mostly referred to efforts to hire and promote women and minorities, and it was a numbers game. In the spirit of creating a diverse sales team, a diverse leadership team, or a diverse call center, we hired and promoted people based on quotas rather than skills. We neither added to the competitive heft of our organizations nor created the strong feeling of unity we may have been seeking. Today, most employers are smarter about managing diversity.

Positive Message

There's way more to achieving diversity than recruiting at historically African American universities or running a recruiting ad targeted at Hispanic MBAs. Those are great efforts, but they won't build a diverse, much less a cohesive, workforce. Nowadays, leaders who value a diverse workplace ask: "Do women, minorities, non-U.S.-born employees, people of different ages, and other people feel valued here in our company?" That's the real issue.

We can talk about diversity until we're blue in the face, but until we demonstrate that we mean it we can't expect our employees to believe us. Apart from the visible success stories—the number of managers who are Caucasian males, for instance—we can do more to fly the diversity-and-inclusion banner. We can talk openly with our employees about what working in a global, diverse environment entails. We can discuss frankly generational differences, cultural differences, and gender differences. We can talk about the challenges between working parents and nonparents. We can address these issues head-on as relevant workplace topics.

Let's take the over-50 employee who was put off by the birthday dirge and the black balloons. That woman got a one-time, negative message she took to mean that it's a bad thing to be over 50 in her company. We might scoff and say that she's overreacting, that it was only a joke, and that no one is devalued because of age. But it may be that this woman has never gotten any positive messages about the value of her maturity, life experience, and professional chops. So she has this one, unfortunate snapshot of the black birthday balloons to think about. An inclusion-focused employer would take care to send messages about the value of generational diversity, along with all the other kinds, at every possible juncture.

Communicating a Vision

How can an organization broadcast its inclusive nature? For starters, it can showcase its diversity of talent. It can point to examples of older workers, African American employees, Latino and Latina professionals, physically challenged team members, LGBT employees, and non-U.S.-born colleagues who have had success in the company. It can remind employees—via the company intranet, its newsletter, and its CEO's speeches—how important a diverse team is to the organization's success.

Those speeches and articles—backed by diversity and inclusion strategies ranging from mentoring programs to affinity groups to, yes, management training courses—keep employees focused on the fact that the company values each employee for his or her own talents. There are no magic bullets, but communicating the diversity vision is an important start. When an employee has never heard or seen it demonstrated that a company values people over 50, why should she assume it?

Employers who worry about the coming talent shortage would do well to examine their own cultures by asking the question "Do employees feel valued simply for their skills?" The results of a confidential survey or employee focus group may surprise a leadership team that believes its commitment to diversity should go without saying. If you take this step, prepare yourself for unexpected responses like "The company seems to give everyone a chance, but it helps if you attended Notre Dame." Creating a truly inclusive and merit-based culture is neither simple nor quick. But it starts with the intention to do it. Smart employers focused on long-term competitive advantage will step up their efforts to bring—and keep—talent on board, whatever shape, size, age, color, or gender the package.

About the Author

Liz Ryan writes her "Career Insight" column and answers readers' questions every week at businessweek.com/managing. She is an expert on the new-millennium workplace and a former Fortune 500 HR executive.

Source : Business Week

Redefining Diversity

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:44:00 +0000

As practiced today, diversity is chiefly about improving the ratios of gender and race among applicants and hires. In a recent article, I discussed that while this may appear to be a worthwhile goal, the evidence from multiple studies demonstrates that this limited view of diversity is actually counterproductive. Instead of delivering any significant business benefits, employers experience mostly negative effects, such as higher turnover.

Achieving a net positive from diversity requires a strong emphasis on assimilation. An organization must actively work at ensuring that all candidates come to accept and share its values, mission, and purpose. If diversity recruiting is to be effective, it needs to be done differently.

The Hood Ornament

Diversity programs exist to advance the acceptance of minorities in organizations while providing those organizations with higher productivity, innovation, and a host of other benefits. But we already have affirmative action to cover the former, and there's no evidence that any of the latter actually occurs. This does not mean that diversity is a bad idea, but that there's no proof that it's a good one.

The business case for diversity is very weak. No evidence exists to show that organizations that embrace diversity, as currently defined, perform better than those that don't. The goal of diversity (i.e., hiring more women and "people of color") is worthwhile only if one assumes that not enough are being hired in the first place and that it's needed to counteract the effects of discrimination. But preventing discrimination is why we have laws that explicitly address it.

Some make the case that it's important that an organization's workforce reflects its customer base. But this is rarely relevant. Customers don't make buying decisions based on the composition of the workforce of those providing them with goods and services. Can you imagine patients traveling to the Mayo Clinic because of its diversity instead of its expertise? For that matter, would anyone refuse to be treated at a hospital where the workforce was not representative of them? Customers usually have no way of knowing this. Product labels do not mention the composition of the workforce, and even when people do know, they don't care. A lot of products sold in the United States are produced by workforces that are 100% Chinese, but that doesn't hurt sales.

If this argument had any substance, we wouldn't be seeing the continual increase in outsourcing of services to India. The composition of the sales force may be relevant to the customer base of large retail stores; but, the staff in such stores generally does reflect the customer base because most employees live within a few miles of the workplace, as do the shoppers.

Diversity is like an expensive hood ornament, out there for everyone to admire but serving no practical purpose. This is why so many organizations are not sold on diversity and do little more than pay lip service to its goals. Much of the reason for this is because the diversity movement has promoted it as a cause that should be taken on faith as a good thing, not to be questioned. It's hard to take this seriously when the goals appear to be nothing more than diversity for its own sake. A recent article on a prominent diversity website mentions that companies should keep a watchful eye on managers that don't care about getting diversity awards. Why that will help an organization do better at achieving its objectives is anyone's guess.

This example is a perfect illustration of the problems that the diversity movement has created. Not embracing diversity is the equivalent of opposing it, with appropriate consequences for those who don't. It would make more sense to find out if those who do collect such awards perform better than those who don't. So, instead of a solid business case for advancing a social cause, we have fearmongering. No wonder that most companies do just enough to stay off the radar of such self-appointed watchdogs.

Improving Diversity Recruitment

If we're serious about diversity, then we need to focus on what will make diversity programs and recruiting more effective. The research evidence shows that for diversity to work, assimilation is critical. That is, the workforce must be aligned with the values of the organization. Writing in "Good to Great," Jim Collins makes the case that companies that do not hire people that share their values are not likely to succeed. Collins also writes that companies need a set of core values in order to achieve the kind of long-term, sustainable success that may lead to greatness. The leap from good to great occurs when employees are equally dedicated to the same set of values.

Recruiting processes should include a values assessment using a standard inventory such as the Lennick Aberman or others. The extent to which alignment with values should influence a hiring decision should depend on the impact the job has on the organization and the likely tenure of the incumbent. A major gap between a candidate's and the employer's values should be a reason to consider if the candidate could realistically achieve the results expected of him in a manner acceptable to the organization. At a minimum, there should be a discussion of values as part of the hiring process.

Metrics should also measure the extent to which candidates and hires share the organization's values. Starting with the recruiting process, employees should be apprised of the organization's values. This is rarely done in a meaningful way, and it is certainly not a component of diversity programs. Assimilation does not mean that individual employees need to lose their identities, but it does mean that they need to accept and support their employer's purpose and values. Obviously, this is easier if an employee's values do not conflict with those of the employer.

Diversity recruiting should be part of an overall program designed to ensure that an employer's core values are supported by the workforce. If diversity recruiting just continues to be about improving the proportion of minorities in the applicant pool instead of selecting those aligned with values, then it's not likely that employers will move beyond paying lip service to the concept.

Conclusion

Whatever happened to not being judged by the color of your skin but by the content of your character? Diversity programs turn that one on its head.

Defining diversity in terms of race and gender trivializes the concept. Diversity certainly has value in an organization in which different points of view and experiences can generate new ideas, challenge old ones, and provide a richer experience for all, but there is no logical reason to limit that to race and gender. If we continue with this, then let's add a category to diversity recruiting for people weighing over 300 pounds (people of weight). That makes about as much sense.

As I mentioned above, since we already have EEO and AA, what value does diversity provide as currently defined? If the laws don't work, then diversity isn't going to do much to help. If they do work, then what is the point of race- and gender-based diversity?

I received a lot of e-mail after my last article, some of it very supportive and some highly critical, including some rather colorful remarks of a personal nature. Apparently, when it comes to diversity, a diversity of viewpoints is not welcome.

Interestingly, none of those that chose to dispute what I wrote provided a shred of evidence in support of their arguments other than to make rhetorical and morally posturing statements while claiming that any studies cited must be biased. I would wager that none of the people who opposed them have read the studies.

I am not opposed to diversity, but I don't see it working as it exists today, which is a huge disservice to all concerned. If this particular emperor has no clothes, then he deserves to be called out. As a recruiting professional, I'd like to see diversity recruiting deliver results that matter. If it's a program that many would like to support, then let's do what it takes to make it genuinely effective.

About the Author

Raghav Singh (rsingh@theA-ListLLC.com) is a partner at The A-List, a Minneapolis based staffing services provider. He has previously been in product management and marketing roles at several HR technology vendors. His career has included work as a consultant on enterprise HR systems and as a recruiting and HRIT leader at several Fortune 500 companies. Raghav will be speaking at the Spring 2008 ERE Expo on the subject of diversity.

Source : ERE.net

False Notions Smear Minority Hiring

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:18:00 +0000

By Anita Bruzzese

Gannett News Service

Ken Arroyo Roldan says that there is a dearth of diversity at the senior levels in American companies today, and executive search firms share much of the blame for that fact.

By the way, Roldan works for an executive recruiting company.

"We are the perpetuators," he says. "We control a lot of the search for the new talent brought on board, and if there are not incentives to do it, it doesn't get done."

Specifically, Roldan says that recruiters often ask employers to pay a 40 percent premium to recruit a minority "because they say it's more difficult," a fact that Roldan disputes.

As diversity practice leader with Battalia Winston Amrop Hever Group, Roldan says that assertion is just one of the myths that compounds the problem of minorities in the workplace. Without minorities at the senior levels, he says, minorities fail to get hired in lower tier positions as well.

"The titans of business really don't care about this issue," he says. "They have this "I gave at the gate' mentality. Many executives have been sensitized to death (about minorities) but at the end of the day, are they exposed to others? No. It's a gated community of white males."

He argues that a multipronged approach is needed to bring true diversity to the workplace, including the education of senior leaders and recruitment of diverse talent of workers at all levels of an organization.

"In corporations, the internal recruiters are not risk takers. They go with the tried and true method and they won't buck the system," he says. "They will go with the usual suspects," and forego searching and actively recruiting minority candidates, Roldan says.

"Companies can no longer sustain the argument that "we grow our talent organically,' because that's just an excuse to exclude minorities," he says.

Roldan says that he's trying to educate more recruiters about minority hiring, and how things can be done differently. He says that while discrimination exists, he believes it is more a matter of "ignorance" on the part of recruiters. To that end, he has come up with a list of myths that he's trying to dispel:

Myth 1: Qualified people of color at high levels are not out there. He says too often only a small group of upper level minority candidates are considered, when there are many more available.

Myth 2: It's hard to recruit minority candidates to some areas of the country. Roldan says that if more recruiters promoted what's attractive and appealing about a community to a minority candidate (good schools, beautiful scenery, etc.) then more minority job seekers would be interested in relocating.

Myth 3: Minority candidates are hard to manage and hard to terminate because they could claim discrimination and sue the company. Not true, he says.

Another problem he says, is "that when companies think of minorities, they only want someone like Tiger Woods. The best of the best. They're not willing to consider someone else, like they would with white males," he says.

According to the latest figures from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, while African Americans make up 14.1 percent of the workforce, they only comprise 7.3 percent of the professional ranks in this country. Hispanics, with nearly 12 percent of the workforce, only have 4.4 percent in the professional ranks. Asian Americans, on the other hand, are only 5 percent of the labor force in the U.S., but comprise 9.7 percent of the professional forces.

"There is a lot of work still to be done," Roldan says. "A lot of education in the recruitment marketplace is still required. We cannot revert to tokenism. There are a lot of kids out there who want to make an impact on the world, and we can't shut them out."

About the Author

Anita Bruzzese is author of "45 Things You Do That Drive Your Boss Crazy," (www.45things.com). Write to her at anita@anitabruzzese.com or c/o: Business Editor, Gannett News Service, 7950 Jones Branch Dr., McLean, Va. 22107.

Source : JobBank USA

Cultural Diversity: A World of Difference

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:38:00 +0000

The European Union has declared 2008 the year of intercultural dialogue, so what better time for companies to turn diversity into a business opportunity?

Written by Dr Atul K Shah

Professional bodies are a magnet for minorities of all kinds they provide a way for them to break the class barrier and maximise their skills and potential. In the UK, the accountancy profession attracts the largest number of ethnic minority applicants compared to any other profession. Look at any list of prize winners, and minorities ethnic Indians, Chinese, Africans and others will often be there.

Although actual statistics of membership are not available, anecdotal evidence suggests that at least 40% of the members are non-white. That is a staggering statistic. China, India, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Germany, France, Brazil, Canada, USA and countries from all over the world have sent their ambassadors to the UK to practice accountancy. Every country in the world is represented in the UK profession and that is a staggering accomplishment.

Either working in the profession or in industry, these members are making a huge contribution to the UK economy. There is diversity in the range of involvement and careers pursued. Many of these people are playing critical roles in the globalisation of British enterprise. British diversity has boosted the bottom line of corporations and professional firms for decades.

Plenty to offer

What exactly is it that immigrants bring to British enterprise? Different languages and cultural sensitivities for a start. International contacts and a flexibility of approach and hospitality gives them a leading edge. Hard work and diligence are a given they have had to work very hard to get where they are and are keen to push the ceilings. Also they came with zero so the only way they can go is up.

For many immigrants, risk, enterprise and commerce is in their DNA. This applies particularly to Indians whose membership of the profession is in the tens of thousands. Their success has been proven by their thriving businesses with many in the British Rich List. Their extensive community ties and networks provide them with huge social capital. The next generation has now been born and raised in Britain and having educated parents has made them even stronger.

At a time when countries like India and China are on the rise, people from these cultures with an accounting qualification provide an added bonus for effective international commerce. In professional practice, there is a disproportionately large number who have set up their own practices which are dynamic and growing. This is partly a result of discrimination and lack of opportunity within mainstream firms. They are a primary engine of small business growth in this country and many an entrepreneur would vouch for that.

The law on diversity in employment and services has changed significantly in recent years. It is illegal for firms to discriminate in their employment practices both at time of recruitment, progression and promotion. The consequences of breaking the law are serious in terms of time, embarrassment and cost. Many large firms have set up diversity units which spearhead employee training and ensure equality of opportunity at all levels.

Special employee networks have been established such as the Ernst & Young South Asian Network and the Price Waterhouse Hindu Network. There are also networks for women, gay people, disabled people and other minorities. However, the research evidence suggests that there is still a glass ceiling for minorities of all kinds. The same applies to industry and here again, if we look at the FTSE 100 companies, colour and gender is virtually absent among the board members.

However, there are positive ways of dealing with difference and turning it into an advantage. Human resource departments in firms hold the key to unlocking diversity and enabling change through recruitment, training and progression. Often problems lie in the very middle of large organisations and the top stays mono-cultural as a result.

For teams to be creative, diversity helps in providing different ways of thinking and approaching a problem. Genuine open-mindedness enables learning and growth and avoids marginalisation of any colleague, irrespective of their background.

Studies have shown the huge losses companies incur through employee turnover, and this can be avoided if the right policies and practices are implemented. Empowerment of team members promotes respect and loyalty rather than fear and repression.

A recent study by Vodafone showed that many employees suffer from ‘identity stress’ they feel they have to switch identities between home and the workplace. I like to encourage companies to embrace difference and see difference as an opportunity for growth and prosperity.

Treating employees ‘holistically’, where they are allowed to be themselves, creates loyalty and trust which are critical to lasting success. Mentoring and role models enable minorities to aim high and have hope and aspiration.

Organisational cultures need to change and this requires serious commitment from the senior staff. No longer can these matters be brushed under the carpet.

Professional bodies have to be careful in ensuring their services are accessible to all and that they take account of the needs of minorities and ensure their full participation in the association. Here again, there is a huge challenge as diversity is in policy statements but not observed in practice.

In reality, diversity in the workforce increases creativity and helps tap into new markets nationally and internationally. Organisations who ignore this are losing out.

How to make the most of it

• Difference is an opportunity, not a threat
• Organisations need to treat their employees ‘holistically’– as wholes and not parts
• Open-mindedness needs to be nurtured and encouraged
• Empowerment rather than territorialism will create loyalty and build trust
• Research has shown many employees suffer from identity stress
• Diversity helps creativity and enable firms to develop new products and access new markets
• A diverse workforce helps with global trade and commerce

About the Author

Dr Atul K Shah is chief executive of Diverse Ethics Ltd.

Source : Accountancy Age

Common Ground

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 20:41:00 +0000

Both employees and employers win when minority networking groups succeed

By John K. Borchardt, Ph.D.

Minority employee network groups are flourishing at a growing number of companies. These groups provide leadership in resolving diversity issues and offer opportunities for minority employees to grow professionally. They can also help firms compete in the increasingly diverse American economy as well as in global markets.

Both networking groups and employers have a stake in the success of the employers' diversity processes. Strong networking groups can help employers attract new minority employees and customers. They also offer workers a forum for connecting with others of similar backgrounds, interests and cultures. Edgard Prado, a project manager with Shell Services International and president of the Shell Hispanic Employees Network, says, "Our number one goal is to support Shell's diversity process." However, he also notes that the group "gives us an opportunity to talk about things common to us, to feel included and have a sense of belonging to something greater at Shell."

Removing barriers to build a sense of inclusion also carries multiple benefits. Rick Schroder, a diversity group leader and member of Shell's Diversity Center, comments that minority networks "help create a safe, open work environment where people can contribute to their full potential, increasing productivity."

GETTING STARTED

With regard to forming networking groups, diversity consultant Taylor Cox, author of Cultural Diversity in Organizations: Theory, Research & Practice, says, "A core of similarity among group members is desirable. Members must share some common values and norms to promote coherent actions on organizational goals."

Sometimes the impetus to form employee networks comes from management, but more often it springs from employees—although the company may facilitate the group. For example, at Microsoft, individual employees initiate the formation of networking groups. Aerospace and defense firm Lockheed Martin assists employees in starting "affinity groups" by posting guidelines on how to do so on its company Intranet. At Shell, employees can contact the company's Diversity Center for advice on starting networks.

When initiated by employees, networking groups have a better chance of being accompanied by great enthusiasm. For example, although the first organizational meeting of the Shell Black Networking Group was held at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday, more than 300 interested employees attended.

Equally important, however, is getting management to buy in. Without the support of management, an employee group is likely to find success to be an uphill battle. Luckily for many networks, more and more corporations lend strong support, recognizing the benefits of promoting and encouraging employee organizations. Encouragement can come in forms as simple as the employer's providing access to meeting rooms, photocopying machines and company communications channels to announce meetings. Members of the Shell Black Networking Group use company videoconferencing facilities to communicate between different facilities during working hours. Support can also be given in more personal efforts. Each employee networking group at Texas Instruments is sponsored by a member of senior management. There and at other companies, the accomplishments of the networking group influence the adviser's own performance evaluation. At Xerox Corp., CEO Paul Allaire has appointed senior executives as "champions" of the employee networks and given them the authority to act on concerns raised by their groups. When African-American women at Xerox began to fear that the small numbers of black female engineering graduates would translate into their perpetual underrepresentation at Xerox, they confided their concerns to executive vice president William F. Buehler, their group's designated champion. Buehler acted, establishing a summer internship program for black women engineering students that has aided Xerox in recruiting these students after graduation.

MUTUALLY REWARDING

Many companies have discovered that supporting employee networks pays big dividends, as employee organizations can make direct contributions to business goals. Besides participating in ongoing computing technology discussions, members of Microsoft's Chinese group (whose members are from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and North America) assist in Asian business development by participating in recruitment of employees for U.S. and overseas assignments. Their responsibilities grew when Microsoft announced it would open a research laboratory in the People's Republic of China.

Patsy Randell, Honeywell's vice president of corporate diversity and multicultural business affairs, says that the Asian American Council at that company provided valuable insight into Asian business practices and protocol that aided the firm's expansion in these markets. At computer systems firm Silicon Graphics, the Asian networking group provided similar advice and "was pivotal in helping them gain access to the Pacific Rim," according to Michael Wheeler, author of two diversity studies for The Conference Board, an association of Fortune 500 companies. Wheeler also reports that the Silicon Graphics' African-American networking group played a significant role in exploring expansion into South Africa.

Successfully marketing to minority groups is becoming increasingly necessary to business success. Employee networks play a role in reaching American minority consumers as well. For example, Honeywell's Hispanic Council aids the company in marketing products to people whose first language is not English.

Employee networking groups at many firms also promote minority employee recruitment. For example, at Microsoft, members of the Hispanic, Filipino and Chinese groups participate in employee recruitment of more professionals of these ethnicities. Prado emphasizes that the Shell Hispanic Employees Network wants to be a resource in the recruitment, development and retention of Hispanic employees at Shell. Network members are already working with personnel departments and visiting college campuses on recruiting trips, he notes.

While recruiting a diverse work force is important, employee retention is also a critical issue. "Very often, executives trying to build a diverse work force can find talented minorities and women already on the company payroll. All [these employees] lack is the opportunity to advance," observes Bernard E. Anderson, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor. Firms must promote the development of minority employees, offering suitable advancement opportunities. Some firms view their employee networking groups as valuable tools for encouraging professional development. Charles McCloud, new business development manager at Shell Chemicals, says, "Employee networks provide opportunities for growth for both the members and the company. The more people utilize network groups, the more opportunities there are."At Xerox the desire to retain minority employees has prompted action at the highest level. The Black Managers' Network, working several years ago with then-CEO David T. Kearns, analyzed the resumes of top executives at the company in order to determine the career path that each had taken to the top. Identifying the specific positions once held by these executives, Kearns then delineated similar positions at Xerox for professionals of color and women (in proportion to their numbers in the organization). The effort has not slackened with Kearns' retirement. Allaire has sent a memo to every manager informing them that he holds each of them accountable for promoting minorities and women into management.

The Black Managers' Network also found that African Americans as a group received lower performance appraisals than other groups—even when the same wording was used to describe their performance. In addition, African Americans in the same jobs often received lower pay for the same work. As a result of these findings, Xerox changed its personnel processes to achieve equity. These actions impacted hundreds of employees.

Networking groups at Texas Instruments have played a similar role, helping the firm update its policies against discrimination. For example, members of the company's women's networks participated in developing a training program addressing sexual harassment.

Employee networking groups also help younger employees meet successful co-workers who can become mentors and role models. In the case of engineers and computer scientists, these contacts can be invaluable since they might otherwise have little contact with successful minority co-workers. The latest employment data released by the U.S. Department of Labor show that there are still few African Americans and Hispanics employed in the engineering and information science fields.

LEADERSHIP FORUMS

Networking groups help members in less direct ways as well. Chip Egea, director of human resources at AT&T's corporate headquarters in New York, says that employee networking groups provide an arena in which to develop leadership skills—tools that become increasingly valuable to employees as they progress in their careers. The Texas Instruments Semiconductor Group Black Employee Network sponsors a leadership training program. Gini McCain, director of human resources communications at 3M Corp., notes that networking group activities often help employees develop useful political skills.

Some employee networking groups organize courses in career enhancement subjects such as communications and management skills. Others serve as clearinghouses collecting information on such courses and informing their members about continuing education opportunities. Employee networks can also strengthen other employee groups dedicated to improving personal skills. For example, discussions within the Shell Asian Pacific Employees Networking Group on the importance of oral presentation skills convinced some members to join the Toastmasters Club that meets weekly during lunch hours at Shell's research center in Houston. (Toastmasters International is an independent organization dedicated to improving its members' public speaking skills though an organized program of projects.)

Benefits can also spill over into the surrounding community. Wheeler says, "Community involvement helps the community but also provides developmental opportunities for employees."

The African-American, Hispanic, Native American and other employee networking groups at Microsoft have outreach programs to minority communities, particularly schools. Members of the Shell Hispanic Employees Network recently set up computers at a Houston area school that received a shipment of computers but no instructions on how to install them.

Programs through these and other companies' employee networks encourage minority employees to talk to grade school classes about career opportunities in engineering and other fields. These volunteers provide role models to children, showing that minorities can achieve career success in engineering and computer science.

Honeywell often responds to requests from its employee networking groups for financial support of worthy community and educational causes. The Lockheed Martin Latino Mentoring Network has raised thousands of dollars for the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund and has cooperated with other groups such as the Society of Women Engineers in service projects in the Hispanic community. These projects include going into schools to discuss engineering careers and serving as mentors to science teachers, providing information and materials to help them teach their classes.

CONVERGING POINTS

Even if various employee networks at a company represent different minority groups, they often have common interests. Recognizing this, some networks are banding together, sharing resources and supporting each other's missions. The Texas Instruments Diversity Network is an informal organization of representatives from the various employee networking groups at the firm. The Microsoft Diversity Advisory Council includes representatives of 12 employee networks.

At both firms these groups exchange information, oversee areas of common interest to the various employee resource groups, guide new initiatives and organize leadership conferences. The Texas Instruments network also publishes a periodic diversity newsletter for employees.

Throughout the country, corporations and their employees are clearly realizing the benefits of minority employee networks. When supported and nurtured by employees and management, both groups reap significant profits—not only in terms of the bottom line, but also in career development success.

Dr. John K. Borchardt works for Shell and is an adjunct professor of chemical engineering at the University of Oklahoma. He also consults on career management and work force diversity.

Diversity Expo, New York's EOE hiring event, brought to you by the producers of JOB EXPO and TECHEXPO, respectively the most successful Sales/Management and Information Technology career fairs in the Northeast. Over the years, we have acquired much expertise in the area of recruiting events production, striving to continually improve on past results and bring you great shows. Diversity Expo promises to be an outstanding success. All upcoming events are listed on the web site.

Source : Graduating Engineer Online

Multicultural is New Workplace Model

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:20:00 +0000

By Juana Bordas

Not only is the world getting flatter, it is becoming more colorful.

As globalization becomes a reality, more and more companies will employ people of every race, nationality, religious background, and age group. These people will work side by side in the same office building, others a hemisphere away.

That's why if your company is still leading the "old" — read "white, male, authoritarian" — way, you're making a mistake. It would be great if you could magically fill your leadership ranks with men and women from different cultures, backgrounds and traditions. But if that's unrealistic, you can gain a lot by simply borrowing their techniques.

"Today's leadership models, although they may differ from person to person and method to method, generally have a common bias toward Western- or European-influenced ways of thinking," said Bordas, author of the new book "Salsa, Soul, and Spirit: Leadership for a Multicultural Age."

"We're leading as if our companies are filled with white men and, quite clearly, that's no longer the case. Contemporary leadership theories exclude the enormous contributions, potential learning, and valuable insights that come from leaders in diverse communities."

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2010 one-third of U.S. residents will trace their descents to Africa, Asia, the Hispanic world, the Pacific Islands, or the Middle East. In her book, Bordas explains that the most successful businesses will be those that incorporate the influences, practices, and values of these diverse cultures in a respectful and productive manner. Through implementing multicultural leadership, not only will your company's working environment be a better, more enjoyable place to work, but you will be able to better handle the needs of your multicultural customers.

"Multicultural leadership encourages an inclusive and adaptable style that cultivates the ability to bring out the best in our diverse work force and to fashion a sense of community with people from many parts of the globe," Bordas said. "It enables a wide spectrum of people to actively engage, contribute, and tap their potential. That's why making sure that your workplace has culturally inclusive leadership will be one of the most important transitions you make into the new globalized world."

Here are eight ways to help you make the transition to a multicultural leadership model.

1. First, you need a history lesson. You may be thinking: Why can't I simply hire new leaders from varying backgrounds and incorporate their leadership techniques into the entire organization? Here's why. Expanding the leadership at your organization into a multicultural form requires an understanding of how Eurocentric and hierarchical leadership became dominant in the first place. That means beginning with our society's myths concerning the "settling of America," which deny the historical contributions of communities of color.

"For mainstream leaders, understanding the history that gave rise to ethnocentricity is perhaps the most difficult step in transforming leadership to an inclusive, multicultural form," Bordas said. "You can't just go to a seminar for a day and come out understanding why the old Eurocentric leadership models won't work in a globalized world. You need to learn about these cultures in order to develop the clarity that allows you to incorporate multicultural leadership techniques into your organization."

2. Think we, not I. Today's corporate world is an incredibly competitive place where the accepted motto seems to be "Every man for himself." Bringing in multicultural leadership will put an end to this sometimes harmful way of thinking and will create a working environment where the focus is on mutual, not singular advancement.

The Black, Latino, and American Indian leadership techniques that you will integrate into your organization originate from a collectivist culture. These cultures are usually more tightly woven and integrated than Eurocentric cultures, and as a result they cherish welfare, unity and harmony.

"To maintain these elements, people behave politely, act in a socially desirable manner, and respect others," Bordas said. "People work for group success before personal credit or gain. And there isn't a business out there that won't benefit from employees who identify themselves as part of a team and who, as a result, work together to make the entire company a great success."

3. Practice generosity, not greed. In communities of color, being generous is an expected leadership trait that indicates integrity and garners respect.

How does this generosity show itself in the working world? Let's use Latinos as an example.

They have the highest percentage of participation in the U.S. labor market of any subgroup and are viewed as being great contributors at work. This reflects their value of generosity. They view work as an opportunity to share their talents and contribute to the welfare of the organization, Bordas said.

"Just as employees are generous with their hard work, company leaders need to show generosity by paying employees fair wages," she said. "According to a 2002 study, CEOs are making 241 times the average worker's salary. This can't happen in a company that practices multicultural leadership.

"Multicultural leaders are not greedy. They want the best for their employees. As a result, their employees are generous with their time and concern for customers."

4. Flatten your leadership structure. Traditional leadership today, particularly in corporate America, is associated with fat salaries and mega bonuses, the big office, corporate jets, special parking places, and the numerous privileges that come with being in the top echelon. These types of perks create elitism that runs contrary to the principle of equality in the workplace, resulting in economic and social chasms between leaders and employees.

Organizations would benefit from taking a more multicultural approach to leadership structure. Take the American Indians, for example. In their communal set-up, everyone can be a leader because the members of their tribes are valued based on what they contribute to the community.

"Today's high-powered CEOs are known for what they take," Bordas said. "But as the world flattens, successful companies will be those whose CEOs view themselves as just another part of the company and who place value in the expertise and innovation of their employees.

"Flattening the leadership structure will put you a step ahead of your competitors. Why? Because employees will feel more appreciated and will work more easily together instead of getting hung up on a 'You're the boss' mentality."

5. Help people learn to work better together. No two people come from exactly the same background. Despite outward similarities, every employee, manager or CEO is unique.

Successful businesses are those that learn to accept the small differences that make us human and work together for the greater good of the organization. Latinos exemplify how this can work in the real world. They are not a "race," but an ethnic group bound together by the Spanish language, colonization, the Catholic Church, and the common values that stem from both their Spanish and indigenous roots.

"Latino leaders, therefore, are challenged to forge a shared identity, vision and purpose from a conglomerate of people who are joined together like pico de gallo — a Latino condiment that includes bite-size pieces of many spicy ingredients," Bordas pointed out. "They have to be consensus builders and integrate the many critical issues that touch people's lives. Consensus building is a great way to strengthen any company's work environment."

6. Minimize conflict by reminding employees that they truly are "family." Aside from heading up different projects and managing different departments, company leaders are expected to bring together employees who don't get along. Any number of conflicts can arise in an office setting, and by using the right leadership techniques, you can alleviate conflict so that everyone works together (for the most part, at least) as one big, happy family.

"In multicultural leadership, one step toward minimizing conflict is encouraging people to view each other as relatives," Bordas said. "In the same way that viewing other members of society as relatives would reduce the likelihood of war and fighting, encouraging employees to view one another as family encourages them to seek out resolutions to their problems. It makes them feel a responsibility to find a way to coexist in order to benefit the company."

7. Foster a culture that's accepting of spirituality. As a business owner, you might be reluctant to make a connection between spirituality and work, but it is possible to do it without stepping on anyone's toes. As long as no one tries to force his or her faith on anyone else, the entire workplace is free to learn from one another and be inspired by the values that underline many faith traditions — hope, optimism and gratitude — all factors that go hand in hand with a spiritual life.

By encouraging employees to share their spiritual sides rather than compartmentalize them, you create a workplace where people bring their "whole selves" to work. You do this by example: Be open about your own spiritual beliefs and activities and strike up conversations with employees about theirs (in a completely nonjudgmental way, of course). Your employees will quickly see that they are free to be themselves and, as a result, they will be happier people — and happier people are more productive and creative.

"When I was researching my book, LaDonna Harris, a member of the Comanche tribe, pointed out to me that in American society, churches are one place, work is somewhere else, education is over there, and none of them relate to each other," Bordas said. "She explained that for Indian people, spirituality is the integrating force of their lives and the essence of leadership. By encouraging spirituality in your employees, you can create even stronger bonds within the workplace and improve the ways in which your employees work together."

8. Focus employees on a company vision. Almost every organization has a company motto or promise that is meant to inspire employees and assure customers that only the highest quality product or service will be coming their way — and if you don't have one, you should come up with one right away. But does your company's vision really represent the beliefs and attitudes of all of your employees?

"In order to develop a company vision that truly reflects the diverse attitudes of your employees, think of it as a community vision," Bordas said. "Listen to different points of view, communicate in an open, give-and-take fashion, and welcome new ideas.

"The shared vision that results will provide a focal point for people's skills, talents and resources. With that vision assuring them that their efforts will make a difference, people will be willing to assume a higher degree of risk and make greater sacrifices, which will translate to a company with harder working, more dedicated employees."

"Businesses today understand the phenomenal growth in communities of color and want to access these lucrative and growing markets," Bordas said. "Tapping the potential of the changing work force, consumer base and citizenry requires leadership approaches that resonate with and are representative of a much broader population base. Mainstream leaders must be able to use practices and approaches that are effective with the many cultures that make up the U.S. population.

Business leaders without significant experience within diverse cultures needn't worry, Bordas said. People can develop affinities and sensitivities for a number of different cultures. Leaders can acquire multicultural competencies and work effectively with many different populations.

The convergence of the leadership principles of diverse cultures with American business practices can create a socially responsible environment — one that underscores the role of business in supporting the welfare of our communities and our quality of life, she said.

"If we can achieve this, the world will be a better place — to work in, to live in, and to bequeath to our children and to future generations."

About the Author

Juana Bordas is president of Mestiza Leadership International in Denver and vice president of the board of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. She is a founder of Mi Casa Women's Center and founding president/CEO of the National Hispana Leadership Institute and was initiated into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame and honored as a Wise Woman by the National Center for Women's Policy Studies.

Source : Seacoastonline.com

The Value of Diversity

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:42:00 +0000

By Miki Saxon

A Creative Generalist post led me to some excellent answers from Frans Johansson on questions regarding the value and importance of managing diversity. Here is the Q&A, along with additional thoughts.

Q. What does diversity bring to a business, and how can it make money?

A. Diversity brings the possibility to leapfrog competitors. By leveraging different perspectives, a company can create “Medici Effect”, an explosion of groundbreaking ideas. A corporation must first understand the need for diversity and then how to use it. With those two pieces in place, however, it will outperform. This is ultimately reflected in shareholder value. Diversity can make money in several ways. The most fundamental is in how it drives innovation. When Volvo Cars decided to create an all-female engineering team it came up with hundreds of ideas, most of them never suggested before - and many were brilliant. In addition, diversity can help us find unique market opportunities. When the Hispanic networking group at Frito-Lay in the US (part of PepsiCo) suggested the company develop a “Guacamole Chip”, the company went for it and made $100 million in its first year of sales.

Companies must do more than “understand the need;” CEOs often must instigate fundamental cultural changes across the organization’s MAP, starting with their own. Only then can the leaders expect diversity to be accepted as the norm.

Q. Does it [diversity] mean hiring people who are not as well-qualified?

A. Hiring well-qualified people is the baseline. But diversity means we need to question our assumptions about those qualifications. When L’Oreal acquired Maybelline it changed the make-up of the company’s staff by bringing in people of different ethnicities and countries. Many may have been traditionally “not right” for the job, but five years later Maybelline had become the number one cosmetics brand in the world - a result of innovation from diversity.

I’ve written for years on the dangers of hiring only in your comfort zone and the dangers have increased exponentially with the explosion of global workforces and products.

Q. Does it have to mean age, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation?

A. Not necessarily but those attributes increase the chances in bringing together different perspectives. It can also mean different fields, experiences and expertise.

Those attributes also don’t guarantee diversity. For example, Dick Chaney, Clarence Thomas and Alberto Gonzales are ethnically diverse, but think in tandem.

Q. What if my occupation happens to attract a particular type, such as men, women, straight…?

A. If everyone around you is the same, you’ve got some serious problems. Every industry today is under intense pressure to innovate and change, and they should seek diversity anywhere possible. Seek out organisations that try to hire people different from yourself.

If you really believe that it’s the nature of your work that leads you to hire a particular type all the time, then it’s safe to assume that you also believe in the tooth fairy. Rationalizations aside, it’s almost a toss-up as to which is worse, mental or skills homogeny.

Q. How do I make a workplace more attractive to different types of people?

A. The first step is to ensure it is diverse to begin with. If your competitor is further along than you, get moving. To get a diverse workplace to begin with, though, you must breed openness, respect and tolerance. Only then can team members feel comfortable providing, championing and challenging ideas. In addition, you have to ensure people are evaluated more on their ideas than on how well you know them, since diverse teams tend to consist of people who may only have worked together for a short period of time. Things work pretty well when we’re all from the same backgrounds.

Openness, respect and tolerance must be embedded first in your MAP and the MAP of your managers, then in your company culture. The foundation of all three comes from your employees’ fundamental belief that the messenger won’t be killed—no matter the message or how it’s delivered. Because it’s a trust issue, recovering from a violation is more difficult than almost any other cultural stance.

Q. Wouldn’t changing the make-up mean conflict and inefficiency?

A. It’s all about leadership and management. The most important quality for a global leader is understanding how to manage diversity. That bit of extra time dwarfs in comparison to the benefits in revenue, market share or profit margin that results from the team’s composition.

To conflict and inefficiency add mental, psychic and, possibly, even physical discomfort—for you, your group and, if you’re a diversity trailblazer, the entire company. But that’s often the initial result of change, that’s why so many leaders, managers, people, often go through changes kicking and screaming all the way.

Q. Surely we’re going to have to spend more time on training?

A. We have developed a workshop which trains executives and managers to use existing diversity in their company to generate new innovations in products, services, supply chain, marketing, hiring… everywhere. With these skills, a corporation not only understands the value of diversity - it accomplishs breakthroughs because of it.

Another way to look at it is that any increased spending on diversity development is an investment and will be more than offset by the increases in innovation, productivity and revenues. If spending $100 results in a bottom line increase of $1000, did you really spend the $100, or did you gain $900? $900 that wouldn’t be there if you hadn’t invested the initial $100.

Source : b5media

Bridging the Gap: Diverse Job Seekers, Employers and The Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:50:00 +0000

Recruiting, managing and retaining a diverse workplace is a key issue facing today’s executives and HR professionals. The market drivers are clear: the global economy and advancements in technology have spurred increased interaction among people from diverse ethnicities, cultures, and backgrounds, and have caused major demographic shifts in the ethnic make-up of the U.S. population. Despite all of this, HR professionals remain challenged with finding, recruiting and retaining diverse employees.

Key Features

While almost all organizations recognize the importance and benefits of workplace diversity, not as many have fully committed the resources necessary for the policies and programs to support it.

• Two-thirds of organizations have a documented diversity policy (a written document that contains a mission or vision for diversity within an organization).
• Half of organizations have a formal diversity program (initiatives such as diversity training, diversity recruitment, diversity advisory councils, employee forums, and mentoring programs), yet
• Only 37% of organizations have specific diversity recruitment targets or goals.

Diverse online job seekers care about diversity. They recognize that it is important, and this affects the way they conduct their job search. However, many are not convinced of the benefit to highlighting their ethnicity during the application process.

• 92% of online job seekers agree that “Diversity improves creativity and innovation in companies.”
• 85% agree it’s important that the company they work for actively tries to recruit and retain a diverse workforce.
• 73% agree that when considering a job it’s very important that a company already has a diverse workforce.
• 43% of diverse job seekers say it is disadvantageous to indicate their ethnicity when applying for a job.
• 56% say they sometimes wonder if they will be hired more for their ethnicity than their abilities.

Nearly all HR professionals and diverse job seekers agreed that the Internet is a powerful tool for connecting diverse job candidates with employers.

• 78% of HR professionals who have posted jobs stated that the Internet helped their companies reach the widest and most diverse pool of candidates.
• 80% of HR professionals have posted jobs on national Internet recruitment or job sites.
• 87% of ethnic job seekers reported that the Internet helped them find out about jobs they would not have known about otherwise.
• Three of the top four resources used by job seekers in the past year involve the Internet.
• Overall, 39% of ethnically diverse job seekers said they used a national Internet recruitment job site during the last year.

Please click here to view the report.

Source : Monster

Diving into Diversity

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 22:35:00 +0000

By Beverly Smith

Diversity is a strange little word. When people start looking at it, and add the word "training," things start to get interesting. Now there is not only variety, but also training to go with that variety. How do you train a person in variety? People start getting a little worried. "Did I hear you correctly?" they ask. "You're saying both my company and our employees will benefit? Who says so? And, why pick on me? I do my job, and get along with my coworkers."

Here's why: It wasn't always like this, and in some workplaces, it still isn't.

When our grandparents were growing up, people chose to assimilate rather than tout their diversity. They feared if they didn't fit in, they wouldn't be accepted—and if they weren't accepted, they wouldn't be able to find a job. They had blacklists in those days, and if you were on someone's "black" list, you weren't hirable.

People fear what they don't know or understand, which is where formal, corporate learning programs about diversity can be helpful. Why do we need diversity in the workplace? The answer is simple: because it is the right thing to do. But more than that, businesses make more money when they support a diverse workforce. More companies are doing business internationally, which means their customer bases also are changing. To serve these new customer bases, companies need employees who respect the differences of others, and, in turn, provide more revenue for stakeholders.

Companies are using diversity training to educate everyone from the CEO to frontline workers. When it starts at the top, and cascades down to the rest of the organization, frontline employees know their company considers diversity a key strategy.

There's a reason you're now hearing so much about diverse workforces. Interest in diversity has gone global. Initiatives to make organizations more diverse in the UK have launched, with nearly 70 percent of British firms reporting the presence of diversity policies. But some critics say these UK companies have no intention of doing anything about their diversity initiatives—they just want credit for having them. The latest UK population statistics show it is worthwhile for these organizations to follow through. Forty percent of students in UK public schools are ethnic minorities. Companies that want to continue doing business, and attracting customers, realize they need to understand diversity from the inside to prosper long term.

Diversity gained a foothold in the United States in the 1980s. Anti-discrimination laws were passed, and more women entered the workforce, along with other minorities. Companies were required to make appropriate accommodations for the new hires, and not all of them resisted doing the right thing. Many wanted to provide a safe, healthy, and friendly work environment, regardless of their legal obligations.

As in the UK, the U.S. companies that launch diversity initiatives are reflecting growing changes in their country’s population. The U.S. minority population is 98 million, representing one-third of the country's people. Hispanics are the largest minority with 42.7 million, according to the Spokesman Review.

Despite the gains made in accommodating employee diversity, Workplace Safety reports there are numerous Hispanic fatalities each year because too many Spanish-speaking workers didn't understand the training material provided. Tests should be administered so the trainer has proof all employees understand the learning content. This is especially critical in a dangerous work environment.

The National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI) recommends diversity be approached from the perspective of "training the trainers." They believe people are less resistant to being a team trainer than taking a class that presumes to teach them how to respect others.

Diversity issues sometimes arise in surprising places—such as the medical profession. Diversity training was never mentioned once during my 10 years as an employee at The Methodist Hospital in Houston, TX. Hospital policy stated that sexual harassment would not be tolerated; four safety classes had to be attended each year; immunizations had to be updated, but not a word about diversity. Maybe it was assumed that since there is every type of person on Earth in a hospital (at one time or another), diversity awareness wasn't a problem.

But in actuality, that awareness often is only achieved following legal action. Lawsuits—or the fear of them—are a huge contributing factor in many companies' push to institute diversity training. The problem is, organizations frequently spend millions of dollars on diversity training without scrutinizing the instructors or learning material.

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. did just that. It hired a company to deliver training designed to "make white employees confront their alleged racism." The training was court ordered after previous lawsuits. They had questionnaires asking if black people had a distinctly different body odor, and if Puerto Ricans were more sexually loose than other nationalities. Every employee had to sit through movies that showed the Ku Klux Klan during lynchings. One worker had to sit through the movie four times. The company eventually was sued for racial discrimination, according to Forbes. The suit was settled in 2004 with an additional $15 million against the now-closed plant.

This brings up the type of trainer companies need. You want a person who's passionate about making employees aware of diversity, but not one disposed to raging at the podium. NCBI recommends asking questions about how they would handle hypothetical racially/ethnically charged situations, so you can evaluate their competence. In addition, ask how they plan to put the program together. The more questions you come up with, and the better their answers, the better your program will run.

As you would before launching any training program, conduct a needs-assessment of your company to isolate knowledge gaps in diversity awareness. Meanwhile, top executives in your company must support the training. A statement should be made indicating the value of diversity training to the company. Don't state it is required because people will start thinking negatively before they even arrive. Whenever possible, have someone within the firm deliver your instruction, since training that comes from within is accepted more easily than training delivered by outsiders.

Pfizer is one company that has made great strides in diversity. Jeff Kindler, previously president, partner brands at McDonald's, joined the Pfizer legal team in 2001. His top priority upon arrival was diversity. Kindler, who says he enjoys a diverse culture, values the different perspectives diversity adds to a discussion. "We don't have the luxury of overlooking the most talented people," Carol Casazza Herman, assistant general counsel, Pfizer Inc., told the Corporate Legal Times. "If we don't create a culture where different types of people can thrive, we’re going to lose out." Pfizer's legal department developed diversity programs for five different areas, including recruiting and hiring, development, retention, supplier diversity and communications. The company also created scholarships for minorities, as well as a summer internship program specifically for minority law students.

A diverse workplace does not happen by accident. OK, so maybe it might happen in a very small company, but not in a large one. Someone must make a conscious decision the workplace will become diverse. Not only do they need to make the decision; they also have to make sure everyone plays nicely with each other. If they don't learn to play together, then someone will take all their diversity marbles, and those of their friends, and go home. Bottom line: Companies need to teach workers to respect and communicate effectively with one another. Without proper respect and communication, you are not working with a strong foundation, and your diverse house will come tumbling down.

About the Author

Beverly Smith lived in nine countries on five continents for 18 years. She was exposed to a wide variety of cultures, and currently is an MBA student at Sam Houston State University.

Source : ManageSmarter

Job-Seeking Strategy for Differently-abled Candidates: Address Employers' Fears Head-On

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:55:00 +0000

by Maureen Crawford Hentz

The single biggest barrier to full employment for the differently abled is the "fear of the unknown" of hiring/working with someone different. Employers know and generally comply with the law, but little is being done to educate co-workers in effective strategies for coping with their apprehension. I believe that hiring committees composed of co-workers/superiors/subordinates may often be the derailing factor in a differently-abled person's job search process. Peer committees may simply not know how working with a differently-abled individual will work. I've often heard comments from potential co-workers that range from "well, how can she talk to us if she's deaf?" to "well, there's not enough room in here for a wheelchair.”

As differently-abled job searchers go through the process of interviewing, a good strategy may be to address potential concerns directly. This strategy is not required on the searcher's part, but in my professional opinion, it is a technique to counterbalance the prejudice that people may feel -- whether or not they express it. Remember, technically, employers are limited by law to asking if the candidate can accomplish the job (and in some cases, ask the candidate for an illustration of how). What I would argue, however, is that the real questions are the ones that a coworker would be afraid to ask. I think that the best defense, if you will, is an effective offense -- putting people at ease.

For example, I recently had a deaf person as a client. She was concerned that the company where she was interviewing would be afraid she could not communicate with co-workers. As an excellent lip reader who also is verbally articulate, this client brought this issue up at the interview in the following way: "I want to let you know that I'm able to read lips, so understanding what is being said should not be a problem as long as I can see everyone's face. If you need to get my attention, just wave or give me a tap on the arm. Likewise, if you don't understand something I say, please ask me to repeat myself -- no need to be embarrassed -- communication is the key."

An additional strategy for this client was to ask her references to specifically address the communication issue when giving the reference. She asked her former supervisors to bring up the communication issue with the reference-checker. This strategy also proved extremely effective, as the former employer was able to verify the ease of communication.

For this client, these strategies worked exceptionally well. She was subsequently hired for the job. With her coworkers, she has continued to work out day-to-day details, such as telephone calls and messages.

Each job-seeker needs to evaluate his/her feelings about this issue. Many job-seekers don't want to have to educate everyone with whom they come in contact. That's okay. Many job-seekers don't want to directly address their disability. That's okay. Many job-seekers feel that it is incumbent upon coworkers to initiate their own learning process. All of these feelings and beliefs are valid. Ultimately, each job-seeker must decide if, when and in what manner similar strategies should be employed.

Is it ok to say "Did you hear that...." to a deaf co-worker? Should I offer to push my supervisor's wheelchair? Should I open a door for a person with leg braces? Do I offer to spell check my dyslexic co-worker's memo before it goes out? Is it appropriate to ask how my HIV positive coworker is feeling? How do I shake hands with a visually impaired client?

Coworkers and others in the workplace have questions like these, but don't know if, where and how they should be asked. In the millennial workplace, all members of a team must be sensitized to working with diverse people. Too often, however, diversity training is limited in sphere to racial/ethnic and gender issues. There are many diversity educators available who present workshops on issues specifically related to disability in the workplace. In my professional opinion, every company should include these kinds of programs routinely. By hosting diversity training sessions focusing on the issue of people with disabilities, co-workers can become not only sensitized to certain issues, but also more adept in using appropriate behaviors.

Similarly, a personnel/human-resources office should initiate educating potential coworkers about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the practicalities of reasonable accommodation. In this way, what I call the "Hidden Trap for Differently-Abled Job Seekers" can be effectively counterbalanced.

About the Author

QuintZine regular contributor Maureen Crawford Hentz, an independent career and HR consultant, has been working with career seekers for nine years, and has master’s degree in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University. A popular conference lecturer, she specializes in large and small specially designed workshops for professional organizations, students and environmental groups. Her most popular career workshops address topics including: Non-Verbal Techniques To Use During An Interview; Powerful Resumes; and Interviewing Etiquette You've Never Even Thought About. She has a particular interest in job searching techniques for differently-abled candidates, new grads and career changers. Proving that you never have to settle for just one career, in addition to her consulting work, Maureen is also the director of volunteer programs and Internships at the New England Aquarium, Boston and an instructor of American culture at Showa Boston Institute for Language and Culture.

Source : Quintessential Careers

Researching a Company's Diversity Policies

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:31:00 +0000

By Therese Droste

The interview's set. Now you want to know if the potential employer does more than talk about diversity. Follow these tips to find out if the company has a proven commitment to hiring a wide range of people.

Making the Grade

Many business and special interest publications compile regular lists of employers that back up their diversity efforts with proven results. Forbes magazine publishes an annual list of businesses noted for their diversity policies. Niche publications such as Working Mother and The Advocate do the same for their communities. "Such publicity gives you some clue into the company," says diversity expert Joyce Moy, director of the Center for Workforce Strategies in Long Island City, New York.

What's the Buzz?

"Listen to what your community is saying about an employer," advises Moy. Don't underestimate the power of these grapevines. They are valuable tools to learn about potential employers from people with unique perspectives.

Look the Company in the Face

"The biggest and best indication is a company's public face," says Luke Visconti, president of Allegiant Media of New Brunswick, New Jersey, which publishes DiversityInc.com. "Look at its Web site and closely evaluate the diversity areas on it," he says. "Also view the company's advertising to see if it reflects the values you'd want to represent."

Kim Mills, education director at the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national lesbian and gay political organization, advises job seekers to "look at how a company gives back to the community." One way to do this is to check out diversity-related events sponsored by the company you're interested in working for.

Internal Affinity Groups

Does the company foster an environment that encourages employee groups to form around certain issues of common interest, such as ethnicity? "If a company has an affinity group, it's a good sign," says Moy. Call a company or check its Web site for such groups. Better yet, ask your potential employer for a person to contact within the affinity organization and ask questions about the company's atmosphere and policies.

On Campus?

Does the employer have a presence on college campuses where minority groups are well represented? If so, it's a good indication they're serious about recruiting minorities.

Check the Bottom Line

Investigate whether a company ties diversity to its bottom line. "If they don't, it doesn't necessarily indicate they are a bad company, but one that perhaps isn't publicly embracing the concept of diversity as a business issue," advises Visconti.

That concept requires more than just sponsoring events to support social issues. It means a company views serving diverse communities as a comprehensive business advantage. Feel free to ask what a company is doing to contribute to the field of diversity.

"Overall, you want to work for a company that understands the needs of various groups," says Visconti.

Copyright 2002 - TMP Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article first appeared on Monster, the leading online global network for careers. To see other career-related articles, visit http://content.monster.com.

Source : The Multicultural Advantage

Seeking Diversity in the Workplace

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 22:19:00 +0000

By Dakotta Alex

Have any of the employees within your company ever asked you why diversity is not a priority? Do you find yourself interviewing the same type of candidate on a regular basis? Do you think you are hiring innovative employees or just those who will only do what is asked of them? If so, you should consider changing your hiring practices to include interviewing and hiring those who come from differing educational, social, religious, cultural, and industrial backgrounds.

Since the mid-1990’s, the business world has become much more global. Companies are opening offices and manufacturing plants in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. Hiring employees who come from these areas that understand the culture can only benefit company profits. But many are still anxious about hiring those who are from other countries or whose background may differ from their own.

While changing your entire hiring process will take time, there are small changes you can make in order to bring in talented people with diverse cultural backgrounds so they may become an integral part of the sales a company will earn from year to year.

Changes in recruitment

How you recruit candidates determines the types you will end up interviewing and hiring. Old stand-bys include college job fairs, ads in newspapers, and receiving referrals from other employees or recruiters. While you should still practice these methods, have you ever considered putting an ad in a foreign newspaper? How about attending a job fair in Turkey? One strategy that may prove fruitful is building your network outside the U.S.

If you employ travelling to another country in search of candidates as a recruitment strategy, research which countries have the best candidates for your company. This will help narrow your search a little. Talk to current management and other employees to see if they can recommend possible candidates. Companies that conduct a lot of international business have many contacts.

Building a recruitment network outside the United States will cost more money, but if you are looking for new talent, those who are ready to work, and those who can reach a different segment of the consumer population, the money you spend today will be returned many times over.

The Internet has provided people with the means to communicate with people all over the world, yet many companies are reluctant to use the Internet as a recruiting tool. Advertise online, review resumes online, and get the candidates your company needs.

Diversity in your own backyard

If your company cannot afford the costs associated with overseas recruitment, relocation packages, and other expenses, there are other ways to drive diversity into your company’s culture. Hiring candidates that have travelled, worked overseas, or who have faced challenges in their lives that are different from other candidates can give companies insight into other cultures and the consumers who live there.

Below are a few examples of the groups you should take a closer look at:

* As more and more people complete their service in the military, they will need jobs. These candidates have travelled, have trained with different types of people, and can learn easily. Military job boards are very good places to advertise and recruit.

* Stay-at-home parents who want to go back to work after taking a few years off are also great candidates because of their role as consumers. Your company will benefit from this perspective. Parents who want to go back to work are eager to prove themselves and have a strong work ethic.

* Hiring internally will not only help you fill positions, it will also boost morale and encourage people that work for the company to stay for a longer period of time. If you have offices in different countries, send a memo or email asking other HR managers if there are any internal candidates that are interested in relocating.

* Hiring consultants to work for your company may help in recruiting those who are older and who have more experience than someone who is fresh out of college. Often, consultants have travelled and are aware of the complexities of other cultures.

Downside of diverse workplaces

Hiring those who come from different social, educational, industrial, and cultural backgrounds may make some employees fearful of their job security. Since outsourcing has become a growing trend in business over the past six years, employees, particularly those who work in IT departments, worry that their jobs might be taken away from them. While you should hire the most qualified candidates, you should ask yourself if your company is ready to accept those from other countries, religious backgrounds, and cultures to help them become members of teams and departments within the company.

Understanding diversity

Diversity does not have to be a quota of people you hire, it does not have to be extreme, and it should not interfere with hiring the very best candidates. As your company grows, you will start receiving more resumes from those who have different backgrounds, education levels, and talents. Using the tips mentioned above are ways for you to see what is out there and how you can help create a diverse working environment from which everyone benefits.

Source : Recruiting Trends

Why Diversity Could Be Your Job-Search Edge

noreply@blogger.com (Your Diversity Career Consultant) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:20:00 +0000

By Luke Visconti

If you've clicked on this article, you have an interest in diversity -- and building on that interest may be a great way for you to stand out from the crowd, regardless of your race or ethnicity.

Strong relationships are based on a concurrence of ideals, interests and ethics. Employers are looking for employees who will fit in with their interests and direction. You're most likely to get a job in a company that mirrors your style and how you think.

When executives catch on to an effective new management trend, they become passionate about it. There's a good reason -- significant new disciplines can become competitive factors that make or break a company. Within the past five years, diversity has generated the same type of enthusiasm companies had when supply-chain management and total-quality management were first introduced. Employers who have recognized the bottom-line results have made diversity a top-down imperative with aggressive measurement and goals.

Why? For people of color, household income, education and their share of the total population have increased dramatically in the past 10 years. The growth rate of multiethnic households also is increasing. Instead of being easy to ignore, these markets are becoming key consumer segments, driving growth and sales in many industries.

As with any new strategic direction, not all companies are going to catch on. There always will be those that come late to changes in the marketplace -- that's why less than half of the companies that were included in the Fortune 500 in 1980 exist today.

So how does this help you? If you're seeking a job in a company that values diversity, you can become a diversity champion. Regardless of your race or ethnicity, it will show that you are on board with the strategic direction the company has taken.

First, you'll need to know whether diversity is a priority for the employer. It's easy to learn about a company's values through its Web site. Questions to ask include:

1. Is there a link to diversity or diversity-related information on the home page (or at least within one click of the home page)?
2. Does a simple search for the keyword "diversity" yield relevant results?
3. Is the diversity information up-to-date?
4. Does the site use multicultural images?
5. Does the site offer diversity information in its career area?
6. Does the site offer information for diverse suppliers?
7. Does the site highlight company activities that assist diverse communities?

If your research yields no diversity interest, you may want to consider walking away -- especially if you're a diversity enthusiast. Diversity is like a canary in a coal-mine -- if a company is oblivious to the substantial and dramatic changes in the U.S. marketplace, what else is it ignoring? This isn't a good sign.

When you're job hunting, your cover letter, resume or interview responses should emphasize factors that correspond to the employer's diversity interests and involvement. For instance, you might:

* Reveal association membership, committee or charity work that identifies you as a diversity champion.
* Share diversity experiences, such as training sessions or workshops you attended for previous employers.
* Discuss volunteer work that demonstrates community involvement or good citizenship.
* Link these to your profession and help the company understand that in addition to being, for example, a great accountant, you also are a team player, an asset to cross-company projects and a positive role model.
* Help your interviewers understand how your "cultural competence" will help you play a role in connecting with today's consumers, co-workers, suppliers and investors.

If you like the concept of diversity, but don't have any experience in the area, get involved by reading books, volunteering or taking a course. Remember that most companies and people also are at the beginning of their journey to understanding and using diversity as a business opportunity.

Please note that I'm stressing experience and insights, regardless of your race. All races and ethnicities have members who are culturally incompetent. Employers know that they have to continue to hire and promote white employees. If you put yourself in an employer's shoes, however, you can see that it's more efficient to hire people who already "get it." As an analogy, would you hire someone who wasn't using e-mail?

Keep in mind that diversity will be a competitive edge for you -- but it won't win the battle on its own. Even companies known for promoting diversity value competency over everything else. But if you bring up the subject at the appropriate moment, at the right company, championing diversity can give you a competitive edge.

About the Author

Mr. Visconti is a partner and co-founder of DiversityInc Media LLC, a publishing company based in New Brunswick, N.J.

Source : CareerJournal.com