Sharon Harvey Davis, Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer, and Voss (front row) with (back row, from left) Gola, Stennis, Lyons, Hanley and Hartman.

“It is my privilege to honor Angela, Marty, Shirley, Kevin and Bill. They all demonstrate excellence in advancing Ameren as a company that values a diverse workforce,” said Thomas R. Voss, chairman, president and CEO, Ameren. “The honorees have each made meaningful contributions to help Ameren improve through strengthening our diversity efforts.”

The post Ameren recognizes 5 employees with Diversity Excellence Awards appeared first on DiversityInc.

It included essential questions in the four areas we measure—CEO Commitment, Human Capital, Corporate and Organizational Communications, and Supplier Diversity. We invited companies in 24 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), mostly in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and New England, to participate. Here are five organizations that stood out, in their ranked order.

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No. 1: KeyCorp, Cleveland
The regional bank, whose CEO, Beth Mooney, is a strong proponent of D&I, has a CEO-led executive diversity council, and 15 percent of executive bonuses are tied to diversity goals. Its cross-cultural mentoring program is particularly effective, with two-thirds of its managers participating.

No. 2: PNC Bank, Pittsburgh
With strong mentoring and resource groups, PNC has made great progress in its efforts to promote women. There are almost 20 percent more women in the second level of management (direct reports to the CEO’s direct reports) than the average of all companies that submitted.

No. 3: Ameren, St. Louis
The utility company has very strong CEO support in Tom Voss and deep community connections. Ameren spends 8 percent of its gross revenue on philanthropy and directs half of that to multicultural nonprofits.

No. 4, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, Newark
The health-insurance company takes advantage of the diversity of its home city, with its new hires of Blacks and Latinos more than double the average percentages of submissions.

No. 5: SSM Health Care, St. Louis
The hospital system has strong mentoring and work/life programs and has increased its women in top management.

The other participants, in alphabetical order, were: American Diabetes Association, Cintas Corporation, Dot Foods, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Huntington National Bank, The Laclede Group, Moffitt Cancer Center, State Street Corporation, and Thompson Hine LLP. We commend them for sharing their data and for their commitment to improving their diversity-management initiatives.

The post 5 Great Regional Companies for Diversity appeared first on DiversityInc.

Generating buy-in from white men is a challenge in some companies, especially for middle management. Even the DiversityInc Top 50 companies are split on strategies, with some choosing to directly focus on white men as a demographic group while others insist they are included in all workplace-diversity efforts.

In Do White Men Really Need Diversity Outreach? DiversityInc’s Barbara Frankel, Senior Vice President and Executive Editor, addresses this issue head-on in a 3,124-word analysis. Frankel interviewed 20 companies to learn how they handle including white men in their workplace-diversity efforts.

Companies include: Sodexo (No. 2 in The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity), PricewaterhouseCoopers (No. 1), The Coca-Cola Company (No. 46), Merck & Co. (16), CSX (No. 23), Aetna (No. 24), Health Care Service Corporation (No. 19), AXA Equitable (one of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies), Harley-Davidson, Ameren, Comerica, Choice Hotels, Staples and the Army & Air Force Exchange.

Readers will also receive need-to-know answers to key questions in workplace diversity including:

• Can white men be diversity leaders in the workplace?
• What aggressive workplace-diversity efforts are companies, such as Coca-Cola and PricewaterhouseCoopers, making?
• Why do you need to keep senior management accountable for diversity efforts in the workplace?
• How can you make a business case for workplace diversity to middle managers?
• How will creating an action plan help make workplace diversity meaningful?
• Should white men have resource groups?

Read Do White Men Really Need Diversity Outreach? at DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

Watch the video below to hear DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti discuss the business case for workplace diversity and why it is important for ALL groups to be included in diversity efforts.

Read DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti’s Ask the White Guy column, Can a White Man Speak With Authority on Diversity?, for more on this subject.

The post Workplace Diversity: Do White Men Really Need Diversity Outreach? appeared first on DiversityInc.

People in the St. Louis region refer to their home as a thriving “city of neighborhoods.” Each of the city’s 79 communities features its own identity with distinctive characteristics and cultural heritage. Nicknamed the Gateway City, the city’s populations trace their heritage back to Africa, Asia, Latin America and many European countries. The largest demographic group is Blacks, who currently make up 49.4 percent of the population.

Despite the racial/ethnic diversity of the city’s nearly 320,000 residents, the neighborhoods formed by immigrant communities in the late 1800s to early 1900s remain very homogenous, says Reena Hajat Carroll, executive director of the Diversity Awareness Partnership.

“There are very specific white restaurants and bars and nonwhite restaurants and bars. You very quickly realize you are of the nonmajority. It makes it very hard to fit in if you are not Black or white,” says Carroll, who is Asian Indian. “Increasing diversity awareness socially and in the professional arena is very important for the region to grow and remain competitive.”

The Diversity Awareness Partnership hosts a variety of programs to educate the public on issues surrounding race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity. The nonprofit also works with 14 partner corporations, which include Edward Jones, Ameren, the Cardinals baseball team and the Rams football team, as well as DiversityInc Top 50 companies PricewaterhouseCoopers (No. 1 in the DiversityInc Top 50) and Wells Fargo (No. 33).

In addition to supporting the Diversity Awareness Partnership, local businesses also are taking their own initiatives to increase diversity awareness. In particular, Ameren, MasterCard, Monsanto, Edward Jones, McCarthy Building Companies and Anheuser-Busch have made diversity efforts a key strategy for recruitment, talent development and succession planning. Their goal: to attract diverse talent to the area to increase innovation and, ultimately, the city’s economic success.

Ameren
Leadership Accountability & Diversity Training

The largest electric utility in Missouri, and one of the largest investor-owned utility companies in the nation, the St. Louis–based Ameren Corporation has more than 3 million customers in the surrounding region. To provide them with exceptional service, Ameren has developed a comprehensive diversity-training program that allows its employees to have more awareness of diversity and cultural nuances while out in the field.

It’s one of the things that Ameren, one of DiversityInc’s Top 5 Utility Companies, is most proud of, according to Sharon Harvey Davis, vice president and chief diversity officer—so proud, in fact, that it makes the diversity-training program available to other companies for use in training their own employees. (Go to the Corporate Diversity page at Ameren.com to purchase the DVDs.)

“A large part of our efforts at Ameren are to move diversity ahead so that we can bring employees along to a new area of diversity,” says Steve Parks, manager of diversity. The training program is now in its third year with a focus on creating awareness around people with disabilities. Previous years’ themes included LGBT and sexual-orientation issues, and interracial relationships.

Davis notes that one of the rewarding effects of the training is that it helps employees in the community. “Our resource groups are charged with impacting the community around their respective focus areas. We give them training for community involvement and customer involvement,” she says. “Everyone that lives here is our customer. We have to be good at diversity.”

Recently, Ameren was recognized for its efforts in the community: The Governor’s Council on Disability named Ameren as honorable mention (runner-up) for its annual Inclusion Award. Ameren’s Network for Disabled Employees frequently reaches out to area public schools to engage students with disabilities and teach them the importance of education. The group hosted a Mentoring Day that produced a two-fold benefit: Students met employees and learned about opportunities in the utility industry, while employees interacted with students and developed a new comfort level with this demographic.

Ameren also sponsors Rams Blitz: Youth Working Together to Break Through Boundaries, a sportsmanship program, featuring players from the NFL’s Rams, that is bringing together football teams from Seckman High and Parkway North High for a series of activities during the school year designed to promote understanding and acceptance of differences.

Overall, more than 50 percent of Ameren’s community giving goes to multicultural nonprofits and college-outreach programs. “Ameren is very well known for its diversity efforts. A lot of people come to work here already aware and knowledgeable of what we’ve done through outreach and community giving,” says Davis, who attributes the company’s reputation to CEO Tom Voss’ visible commitment to diversity and inclusion. “He’s helping the city become better for all types of people through his involvement in organizations like the regional chamber of commerce and The Black Rep theater. His effort speaks volumes and it’s impacting his peers and CEOs in the community to get involved.”

Davis notes that Voss often is called on by other organizations to speak, such as during Edward Jones’ Inclusion and Diversity Week in October: “He’s a corporate champion in the community.” She continues, “Tom made it clear that if you’re a leader in this company, you’re involved in diversity. It’s expected of all direct reports and all high-level executives.”

Voss, who spoke at DiversityInc’s event last April, discusses how he holds his executives accountable in his Q&A with DiversityInc at www.DiversityInc.com/tom-voss. Davis’ work with him is highlighted  in 2 Case Studies of CEO Commitment.

MasterCard
Recruiting Tech-Savvy Millennials Is Key to Innovation

MasterCard is technology focused, with a goal of improving security and efficiency for all consumers globally—covering a total of more than 23 billion transactions a year. As such, MasterCard’s strategic plan is closely tied to the innovation of its talent and, therefore, the diversity of its employees. This is especially true in St. Louis, where the company’s office for tech and operations is based.

“We’re focused on bringing in top, diverse technical talent and distributing that talent globally—and that’s not just diversity in ethnicity and gender,” says Rob Reeg, president of the MasterCard Technologies division of MasterCard Worldwide. He notes that students in the technical and operations fields at most colleges and universities predominantly are Asian males. “It’s increasingly difficult to find diverse kids.”

“We need different perspectives; technologies invented here have to work across the world. Having that reach and representation from location, ethnicities and cultures is needed for innovations,” explains Luis Campadelli, group head, Human Resources, MasterCard Technologies. “Millennials are early adopters of technology and willing to try new things, especially emerging mobile and ecommerce solutions.”

A key recruiting strategy for MasterCard, No. 15 in the DiversityInc Top 50, has been to attract Millennial workers via targeted internship programs with colleges that provide access to a diverse talent pool. The MasterCard Technologies unit has found success in hiring from universities across the Midwest over the past three years, with the number of Millennial employees in its workforce increasing from 10 percent to 24 percent.

“For us, you have to look from a technology lens, which makes Luis’ job a little harder. We have to focus on campuses that can bring us the right level of diversity,” says Reeg, noting that MasterCard also utilizes its resource groups—which include groups for Black, Latino, Asian, women, LGBT, veteran, older and younger employees—as a way to target and identify prospective candidates.

MasterCard also began collaborating this year with InSight St. Louis, which offers an immersion program for graduates of Historically Black Colleges and Universities who relocate to St. Louis and showcases the city as a great place to build a career, and with Washington University in St. Louis on a new MBA program.

The company plans to further its national recruiting efforts next year by partnering with the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities.

Additionally, MasterCard will continue its partnership with INROADS, a nonprofit that places high-performing Black, Latino and American Indian students in internships at leading corporations. It will also partner with Junior Achievement, which educates children about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy, and the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Programs, which engage students in activities that build science, engineering and technology skills.

Monsanto
Diverse Pipeline Improves Processes, Technology & Innovation

Diversity-and-inclusion efforts at Monsanto, No. 44 in the DiversityInc Top 50, give the global agriculture company “deep roots within the St. Louis community” that support its strong focus of business success through innovation, says Melissa Harper, vice president of Global Talent Acquisition and Diversity.

The world’s rapidly increasing population size and diversity make this particularly relevant today, notes Harper. Agriculture, she explains, is a pivotal intersection point among food, fuel and fiber where success is based on three factors—food/product demand, innovation and execution. With the world population expected to increase by 2.3 billion, to more than 9 billion, by 2050, innovation will be all the more important.

“That’s why we’re continuously looking for ways to improve on agriculture today, to help our farmers and growers be successful through better technology, processes and innovation,” says Harper. “We rely on people from all different backgrounds and viewpoints to develop new, best products continuously.”

Harper recently spoke at DiversityInc’s Innovation Fest! event about how the company’s three-part talent-acquisition process helps overcome recruiting challenges and more fully integrates and engages its employees from various global cultures. Watch the video:

Monsanto’s strategy takes a proactive approach to increasing diversity in the talent pool. St. Louis–based initiatives include outreach to support diversity and local communities through education—such as partnerships with the company’s philanthropic arm, the Monsanto Fund—to help encourage Black, Latino and women students to study STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects.

These efforts include financial contributions; partnering with professional associations, such as Black Data Processing Associates, Future Farmers of America, Women in IT and the National Sales Network; supporting school-based and local urban greenhouses; and allowing employees to volunteer in classrooms to assist with science experiments and provide tutoring services.

Monsanto also participates in the InSight St. Louis program. The nonprofit is dedicated to recruiting top graduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities to the St. Louis region. Monsanto and other participating companies host these students and provide educational development while showing them what it’s like to live and work in the city.

“We want to generate better awareness for long-term technology and engineering careers at Monsanto,” says Harper. This helps the company build a diverse, local set of qualified recruits for the future.

Additionally, Monsanto donated $1 million this year to the St. Louis Chapter of the United Negro College Fund. And members of Monsanto’s nine resource groups—Black, Latino, Asian, women, LGBT, family, veterans, people with disabilities, and young professionals—host and plan United Way’s Inspire Fashion Show each year, with all proceeds going to local charities in Greater St. Louis.

“Our recruitment and talent efforts are very deliberate. Being proactive helps us—we do not wait until we have an exact need to hire. Companies that do that tend to struggle a bit more,” says Harper.

Edward Jones
Improving Diversity in Financial Services—Getting White Men on Board

Although St. Louis has a diverse population, generating diversity awareness and finding diverse talent still proves to be a top challenge for organizations, particularly if you are in the financial-services industry, according to Emily Pitts, principal, Inclusion/Diversity at Edward Jones. The investment firm, which has 5,000 employees at its St. Louis headquarters, has nearly 7 million clients and more than 10,000 branches in the U.S. and Canada.

In a predominantly white- and male-dominated industry, the firm has had to make proactive efforts to attract diverse candidates to the region, she says. These efforts include fostering partnerships with multicultural organizations and professional associations, as well as its own robust recruitment and on-boarding programs for new hires.

“We sponsor events such as the National Urban League and the National Society of Hispanic MBAs. We’re always looking to strategically align ourselves with organizations that can help attract more diverse talent to St. Louis,” explains Pitts.

Like Monsanto’s Harper, Pitts notes the benefits of the InSight St. Louis program. Edward Jones has been a member for the last four years.

The company also has partnered with the Washington University chapter of The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management for the past three years. The program aims to attract diverse, young professionals who are pursuing their MBAs. Returning students have an opportunity to interview with the program’s sponsors.

Edward Jones also has a Rotational Development Program that rotates recent graduates through four or five divisions in the firm before they are assigned a final placement. This allows the graduates to learn about the culture of the firm and observe the intricacies and nuances throughout the business.

To support its talent development and recruitment efforts from the inside, Edward Jones for the last three years has held an annual Inclusion and Diversity Week for both its associates and leaders. The week provides employees the opportunity to hear national speakers, attend cross-cultural-competence workshops and network.

This year the firm extended the program to the surrounding community through a partnership with the World Diversity Leadership Summit. “Diversity 2012 and Beyond,” a two-day event hosted at the company’s headquarters, was attended by 200 senior global executives from leading corporations, and sponsors included Ameren, Prudential Financial (No. 9 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50), the Diversity Awareness Partnership, United Negro College Fund and Major League Baseball.

Local community-focused organizations also were invited to an exposition to showcase the opportunities for associates to get involved in community outreach. Nonprofits participating included the Disabilities Institute, the Diversity Awareness Partnership, the Urban League and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

“Having an event like this raises awareness and also creates a catalyst to get associates engaged. Diversity at Edward Jones is strong and we have a great culture, but people are always looking for what they can do or reasons for why we’re doing this,” says Pitts. “It creates a vehicle to educate and engage and promote the importance of inclusion and diversity in our firms.”

Additionally, Edward Jones works closely with the Diversity Awareness Partnership through the Give Respect Get Respect program. The five-month program brings together students from 25 middle and high schools, along with teachers and Edward Jones associates, monthly at Edward Jones’ offices to explore the issues of race, religion, disability, and sexual orientation and gender identity. Employees volunteer a total of 15 hours with the program, for which Edward Jones compensates them.

It’s a partnership that’s grown over the past decade, according to DAP’s Carroll. “Give Respect Get Respect provides companies internal diversity training in a nontraditional sense,” she says. “We’re helping students learn to handle conflict situations at school, like bullying and prejudice, but what also happens is students are teaching the adults. A lot of associates have kids as well so they get to hear an [unbiased] student’s perspective.”

Edward Jones was the first company to endorse the program, and Carroll says there will be three more companies—Boeing, the Saint Louis Zoological Park and the Missouri Botanical Garden—in 2013.

McCarthy Building Companies
Employee-Owned Company Builds Engagement Among Students

Finding diverse talent is also a key priority for McCarthy Building Companies, a St. Louis-based national general-contracting company that handles challenging, technical projects. “Talent is a significant issue and a concern for us across all our companies,” says Scott Wittkop, president, McCarthy Central Division. “The construction industry offers a wide variety of high-quality employment opportunities and will need to add 1.5 million workers to successfully install the volume of work expected in 2014 alone.”

Wittkop says his company’s advantage lies in his employees’ diversity and their ability to innovate by bringing different perspectives to the table. That’s why the company both looks to attract talent from across the country and continually develop its employees, as well as develop and engage talented students within local regions.

“We are continually challenging ourselves to accelerate the development of our top talent. Our annual senior talent-review process includes a formal identification of high-potential diverse employees and the creation of personal-development plans to foster their internal growth in our company,” says Wittkop, noting that talent development and retention is a particular concern for this 100 percent employee-owned company. “Developing our future leaders is critical to our long-term success.”

McCarthy Building Companies’ approach to talent management is just one part of its four-arm diversity-management strategy. The company also focuses on increasing educational support, collaborating with diverse clients and partners, and increasing philanthropic efforts.

For example, the company is the founding partner of the Introduction to Construction Careers program, which exposes diverse groups of talented students in St. Louis to high-paying construction careers. “It helps create awareness and excitement around those types of opportunities,” says Adam Knoebel, vice president of operations for McCarthy’s Central Division. “The construction workforce is aging and we’re all sending kids to school. The challenge is: Who’s going to be building our buildings in 10 to 20 years?”

Similarly, the Association for Construction Careers, Education & Support Services (ACCESS) serves to increase exposure to the construction industry among Blacks and Latinos, as well as provide educational support services. “The focus is to provide a clearinghouse for individuals interested in career opportunities in the city and put them in touch with needed educational opportunities,” explains Knoebel.

He adds, “Maintaining dialogue is important. We need to be a part of the conversation, internally and externally, and share best practices in a collaborative manner.”

The benefits of McCarthy Building Company’s diversity programs and outreach efforts are further dispersed throughout the region by its support of diverse suppliers. “Their ability to learn about a project early on and get involved with estimators” is a key driver for their ability to compete and find economic success,” says Monica Bailey, director of diversity, Central Division. “A lot of suppliers are unaware of projects out there, so we host specific events to collect their input, provide networking opportunities and help them with bidding, estimating and cost.” The company also provides formal and informal mentoring to diverse suppliers.

Wittkop and his executive team sit on boards or committees of 10 different nonprofits that are dedicated to improving St. Louis’ diversity within the workforce and among subcontractors. Currently, the company has dedicated approximately 18 percent of its spend to minority- and women-owned businesses, the company says.

Anheuser-Busch
More Than $1B in Social-Responsibility Commitments

Executives at Anheuser-Busch say their commitment to diversity management, and to maintaining a diverse employee base and inclusive work environment, is an essential strategy for the beer company’s business success. Creating an inclusive work environment not only helps it stay competitive in an increasingly global market and meet the needs of its consumers, but it also helps Anheuser-Busch stay true to its corporate goal of becoming the “best beer company in a better world” through focused efforts to promote alcohol responsibility, environmental sustainability and community outreach.

“At Anheuser-Busch, in all that we do we recognize our responsibility to improve the world where we do business. We are committed to building a company for the long-term with a legacy to be proud of—for the people who work for us and with us; for future generations and the environment in which we live; and, above all, for our consumers who we hope will always enjoy our products responsibly and be as proud to choose them as we are to create them,” states Anheuser-Busch’s Global Citizenship Report. The company has dedicated $1.3 billion to social responsibility since 1982.

As one of its foundational pillars, community outreach is a shared commitment among employees: More than 4,700 employees volunteered in 2011 with programs to promote alcohol responsibility, make a difference in the environment and help make a positive impact on local communities, including St. Louis.

With donations of $4.5 million in 2011 to United Way, Anheuser-Busch continues to be one of the health-and-human-services agency’s top corporate donors in the region. (The Anheuser-Busch Foundation and company employees have contributed more than $38 million combined to United Way since 1985.) Anheuser-Busch also avidly participates in Habitat for Humanity as a way to facilitate and improve economic development in local regions. Hundreds of employees helped to build homes in St. Louis in 2011, the project’s second year. “We’re proud to partner with Habitat to help our neighbors in need,” said Margarita Flores, vice president of community affairs for Anheuser-Busch. “Our employees look forward to these builds and it’s a real source of pride for them and us as a company.”

Additionally, Anheuser-Busch provides financial support to multicultural college students via national educational scholarship funds. This includes more than $24 million in contributions over the last 30 years to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF), which has provided more than 23,000 scholarships to Latino students, and a donation of $325,000 in 2011 to the UNCF, formerly the United Negro College Fund.

“We are committed to making a difference through our people, integrity of our business conduct, and support of our community. We are proud of the positive and meaningful impact our business has on the communities in which we work,” Flores said.

Anheuser-Busch also supports the National Urban League, St. Louis American Foundation, NAACP, Hispanic Chamber of Metropolitan St. Louis, Casa Salud, the Hispanic Arts Council, St. Louis LGBT Business Guild, Organization of Chinese Americans, American Legion Post, YWCA and numerous other diverse and inclusive organizations both in St. Louis and across the country.

The post Building a Diverse Talent Pipeline in St. Louis appeared first on DiversityInc.

Clockwise from top left: Clay Jones, Joy Fitzgerald, Sharon Harvey Davis, Tom Voss

DiversityInc Top 50 data shows a direct correlation between a CEO’s visible support of diversity—and emphasis on accountability—and results, measured in human-capital demographics and marketplace gains.

To explore successful CEO best practices on diversity management, we asked two chief diversity officers–Joy Fitzgerald, director of Diversity and Workforce Effectiveness at Rockwell Collins, and Sharon Harvey Davis, vice president and chief diversity offer at Ameren–to tell us about their relationships with their CEOs: Clay Jones, CEO of Rockwell Collins (No. 43 in the DiversityInc Top 50), and Thomas Voss, CEO of Ameren (one of  DiversityInc’s Top 5 Regional Utilities).

Synopsis: Why They Are Exemplary Diversity Leaders

Both of these CEOs are very public in their belief that diversity drives business gains. Clay Jones, chairman, president and CEO of defense contractor Rockwell Collins (who was interviewed in our last issue), vowed to earn a spot on the DiversityInc Top 50 two years ago and has succeeded, personally driving initiatives throughout his company. This year, the second in which Rockwell Collins made the list, the company is No. 43. Read our Q&A interview with Rockwell Collins’ Clay Jones and watch the video below to hear Jones speak about his diversity journey.

Tom Voss, chairman, president and CEO of St. Louis–based utility company Ameren (interviewed in our spring issue), has literally changed his organization’s corporate culture to create an inclusive and supportive environment, including LGBT rights. Read our Q&A interview with  Ameren’s Tom Voss and watch the video below to hear Voss speak on diversity and innovation.

You can read an excerpt of the 1,700-word article below. Visit DiversityIncBestPractices.com to read the full ‘Diversity Is a Leadership Expectation’: Case Studies of CEOs of Ameren, Rockwell Collins article, view the charts and watch additional videos from the roundtable.

CEO Best Practice No. 1: Holding Direct Reports Accountable
Both of these CEOs ensure their direct reports are equally supportive of diversity-management initiatives.

Rockwell Collins: It is our CEO’s commitment that diversity is a leadership expectation, not a choice. If you are going to be a leader at Rockwell Collins, you will demonstrate inclusive behaviors.

CEO Best Practice No. 2: Be a Role Model of Visible, Personal Support
These two CEOs, along with the CEOs at the top of the DiversityInc Top 50 list, are public and very personal in their consistent support for diversity as a business driver.

Ameren: Tom Voss is involved in a way that is genuine, sincere and credible. What that looks like at Ameren is that we have four female vice presidents and Tom has personally promoted three of them. We have one African-American CEO in our company, the first one. Tom personally promoted him.

CEO Best Practice No. 3: Uphold Values at All Times
When there is a fear of a backlash, some CEOs back down. These CEOs remain true to the values of inclusivity at their company.

Ameren: We have had some pushback on our support of LGBT rights. Tom not only shows up at a dinner for a local LGBT organization but he chaired the dinner and invited his direct reports to sit at his table.

CEO Best Practice No. 4: Chief Diversity Officer Has Frequent Access
Whether or not the chief diversity officer reports directly to the CEO, he or she must have frequent access and the ability to weigh in on crucial business strategies.

Rockwell Collins: I report to the senior vice president of HR, who reports to Clay Jones. I have access to Clay; he’s actively involved, not through emails or voicemails but face-to-face in his office.

CEO Best Practice No. 5: CEO Leads Executive Diversity Council
The CEO’s personal leadership of the diversity council, as well as holding senior executives accountable for company-wide results, has a direct impact on the success of the council’s goals.

Rockwell Collins: Our executive diversity council is comprised of the leadership team. Clay is very involved in helping set the strategies on a yearly basis. They meet quarterly to assess these strategies.

CEO Best Practice No. 6: Succession Planning and Continuous Support for Diversity
These CEOs know the diversity efforts must be sustainable, even after they leave the organization. They are ensuring that their successors have as deep a commitment.   

Ameren: Tom is in his 60s, and we know he will retire in the relatively near future. He has identified the potential next CEO to lead the diversity council so that if that person succeeds him, he will have a strong diversity footing in place.

Read the complete 1,700-word ‘Diversity Is a Leadership Expectation’: Case Studies of CEOs of Ameren, Rockwell Collins article at DiversityIncBestPractices.com for in-depth best practices, data charts and additional videos from our roundtable. The article is available to subscribers for free.

Not a subscriber? Request subscriber information and pricing for DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

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Voss visibly and proactively has sought to build an inclusive environment where workers are encouraged to share their ideas openly. His efforts at holding executives accountable for diversity and inclusion results have sparked a cultural transformation that’s contributing to increased revenue and an improving stock price.

Voss shares with DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti his viewpoints on the importance of employee input, the need for accountable and proactive leadership to generate buy-in for diversity and inclusion, and why successful succession planning should go beyond if “someone gets hit by a bus.”

For more on CEO commitment and best practices in diversity management, read “CEO Commitment: Why Visibility & Accountability Matter” and “KPMG’s CEO Reveals How to Be a Strong Diversity Leader.”

Luke Visconti: Ameren’s website states: “We believe that the full utilization of all human-resources potential is critical to achieving the highest human potential and to best serve our countries and communities at large.” Why do you feel that way?

Tom Voss: Our most valuable asset is our people. We’re trying to do as every company is—the best job you can with the resources you have. You can’t afford to be dismissing people’s ideas. We found out as we invest in our diversity efforts that it’s been helping our company get better.

We had a long way to go. We had areas in our company that had absolutely no diversity. We had people who weren’t hearing or seeing people who were different than them.

Eight years ago, I recognized this and said this is important for our future success. We had to make that investment.

Visconti: Can you think of a day that you had an epiphany that led you to think more inclusively about people?

Voss: Back when those Clarence Thomas hearings were going on, the idea struck me that there could be people in the workforce feeling mistreated. I didn’t want that to happen to my department at that time.

I made sure that the people working for me feel like they’re treated fairly, that they can progress and openly express their feelings.

There was another event when I was in high school. I was going out to a restaurant after a prom. Some of our friends were African American. They couldn’t go in those restaurants. I thought that was just unbelievably unfair. I couldn’t conceive that there would be an issue like that.

Art & Economics

Visconti: You have in your bio one long paragraph on the different not-for-profits that you have been leader of. One that stood out was Dance St. Louis.

Voss: I have two daughters. They competitively danced. People came and said, “We’re looking for a board member for this group called Dance St. Louis.” This was 15 years ago, long before I was a CEO. It always has something, some nationality thing—either Spanish or Brazilian or something—tied to it besides the traditional things that you would normally see. It’s been truly a community thing, something for everybody.

Visconti: You have been involved with the local St. Louis economic-developmental agency with this perspective of diversity. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Voss: About a year ago, I came on as the chairman of the Regional Chamber & Growth Association. Right after I came on, the executive director announced that he was going to retire.

This year’s been about looking for someone suitable to replace him, a national search. The search committee made sure that we had a first set of candidates to choose from.

The first set of candidates wasn’t diverse. It was just all white males. They interviewed, got down to five and said, “We like this group, but we want to see some non-traditional candidates—some female and minority candidates.”

We regrouped and got about a group of 10, and then they interviewed back down again. It’s been a process that’s ensured we get a diverse candidate pool.

Proactive Innovation

Visconti: Ameren’s mission is a secure energy future. How do you see diversity and inclusion fitting in with that?

Voss: “Secure” has a lot of different ways you can look at it. We think our job is not to just react to things but be proactive—like getting ahead of electric cars and getting ahead of energy conservation.

To figure out those things that require an innovative workforce, you need a diverse workforce that is operating at a very high level. Diversity plays such a key role in that. We really can’t afford to have people holding back good ideas or for good ideas to be dismissed.

Visconti: Can you give me some examples of where you’ve seen that in action within the company?

Voss: At amerensolar.com, you’ll see a very sophisticated analysis of various solar technologies. I didn’t come up with that idea. That was our people who figured out how to make that very attractive, easy to learn.

We just signed a contract with the local supplier, Peabody, with ultra-low sulfur coal that did not require us to install very sophisticated environmental controls for at least five years. It saves our customers 30 percent rate increases in the future.

Visconti: What do you see coming up in the future?

Voss: We have been a very traditional organization and done things the way they’ve always been done. With the challenging environment—rules, deregulation and everything that’s going on in the market now—we just can’t be our father’s utility company anymore. We have to be better.

We went through this exercise with our senior managers, asking how much time they were being proactive/reactive. They were spending about 80 percent of their time being reactive. I said, “Where do you think that should be?” They said “80 percent should be proactive.” We have to consciously set aside time to be thinking about how to make this business better.

A New Culture of Accountability

Visconti: You have a very robust diversity-management structure. You have a diversity council, resource groups, mentoring. Do you see that as being integral to this general movement of being more proactive, innovative?

Voss: We didn’t push our employees into doing things they didn’t want to do. We gave general diversity training and gradually introduced forums. They were pushing their management: “Get on board with this.”

I was surprised at how well our employees embraced this concept of diversity through the organization. We just had to feed it. Every year incrementally we keep making it a little better—keep ratcheting it up.

Our managers have done a good job of putting accountability in performance appraisals and putting in pools of applicants and hiring standards. I think we’re really getting it.

Visconti: We were talking about accountability for achieving representative results with your recruiting. I pointed to the vice president of human resources and said, “You can’t expect him to solve everything. You have to be responsible.” The heads of your divisions nodded together as if it had been rehearsed. How did you build that understanding?

Voss: Just a few years ago, we didn’t have enough minorities in our entry-level jobs and we were blaming our HR department. We said, “Why don’t we take accountability and get it fixed?”

What you’re seeing now is an organization that’s been really transformed from a cultural initiative. That’s really what’s held us back from being a truly great company. We’re fixing that now.

In 2006, we had a bunch of storms that came through: We had a deregulation in Illinois and near-bankruptcy issues there; we had the governor and attorney general fighting for one thing or another.

We were sitting back saying that none of this was our fault. We were in that situation until our culture was at rock bottom and we really didn’t know how to get out of it.

We got on to this idea to bring in this training to look at our culture of accountability, and it changed the way we do business. It fundamentally changed our company.

The diversity stuff started a few years before that. There were a few of us who were proponents for this. When we started working on our culture, there were a few of us who saw how this fit in and that if we embraced this, it would make us even better. The two just meshed together and got us in a good spot.

Once we accomplished it, we saw all these other things. Safety and diversity were so important that we embraced them, and we could do something about those.

We measure how we interact with our customers and have gotten dramatic improvement in those scores, both in the phone center and one-on-one contact in the field. We’ve been trying to tie this all together, not only improving the company’s bottom line but the way we serve our community.

There was hesitation and there were things like “Is this political correctness?” When they saw it starting to take off, we started seeing that the community was noticing what we were doing nationally and thought, “This is working. If I don’t get on board, I’m going to be left behind.” They started embracing it more and more.

When we opened our employee-resource groups, all of our senior leaders took responsibility of being a sponsor for one of those groups, seeing that this is going to help us be better.

Visconti: Sharon Harvey Davis is your chief diversity officer. Why did you put a strong woman like her in that position?

Voss: Sharon now works for me directly and she doesn’t make it easy at times. She pushes the organization sometimes into uncomfortable areas for a very conservative company. That’s what we need. That’s one of the contributors to making us successful in this area.

We’re looking for those leaders who are pushing us to say good enough isn’t going to do it. We’ve got to get to excellence in our operations, excellence in our culture.

We’re just getting started. We got a long way to go. The ultimate is that maybe we won’t need a diversity manager someday, that it’s just so much into our culture that it’s our way of doing business.

Visconti: Do you see it being integral to your ability to innovate?

Voss: Absolutely. You want people to feel free to express themselves, that it’s safe to throw out ideas. We’ve pretty much hit a culture where you’ve got to be 100 percent sure this is going to work before you said anything about it. That just stifles creativity, innovation and growth.

Visconti: You grew up in that culture and you evolved it. What inspired you to do that?

Voss: I just didn’t see it working long term. The world changed. It’s gotten so much more about communications. You could not operate the way we were. We had to turn around a fundamental culture, and that takes a while.

If you looked at our past performance, some of it leveled off and could have started going into decline if we hadn’t turned it around.

Getting Ahead With Succession Planning

Visconti: When you see the future of your diversity and inclusion efforts applied to the footprint of your generational community customers, is there something that you intend to help lead the region?

Voss: I’d like to see us put some more emphasis on talent development—getting higher graduation rates out of high schools and colleges. That’ll bring in employment because people know we have a highly educated workforce that’s ready to go.

The whole idea of supplier diversity, innovative minority-owned businesses and nurturing them along, helping them out—I think that only makes the whole area prosper more.

I lived here. I want to make this a better place for everyone. Diversity efforts are going to be key.

Visconti: You have an interesting succession: You have who’s going to be the next CEO.

Voss: If you look at our company history, I don’t think we’ve done succession planning very well. We’ve done “If somebody gets hit by a bus, who’s going to fill that spot?” That’s not what you want to do. What you want is leadership development, a plan where you look at the leaders of your company, figure out who key people are and start investing in them through special or rotational assignments. We didn’t do that before. Each group kind of had its own leaders who kind of kept them to themselves.

Now we’re sharing them. We’re sitting down every year and looking at all of our talent and saying, “We can put them anywhere in this company. Let’s start doing it.”

We just did an organizational change where we put one of our leaders of corporate planning into a field-operations job. The idea is that it’ll help further his development. He’ll bring great strategic planning to that organization.

When we have an opportunity, we’re going to look for our best talent and then help them develop.

Visconti: You’re factoring diversity into succession planning. How are you assessing that?

Voss: When you get down to this pool of candidates that you think are your high fliers, one thing you want to make sure of is that it’s a diverse group. And if it isn’t, then we’ve got to do something more dramatic to make sure it is.

Part of our values now is diversity. It is so well embraced by our employees. If someone was in that position who hadn’t embraced the work we’re doing, or isn’t belonging to one of these ERG groups, or isn’t sponsoring one of them, or isn’t doing anything in the community in this area, I think that would take him off the list.

For more on succession planning strategies, read “Increasing Diversity in Talent Development.”

Creating Experiences, Making Changes

Visconti: Can you give an example of lives that have been changed because of these experiences?

Voss: As our leadership team has gotten involved in these ERG groups, I can tell you a number of them have come to me and told me they see things a lot differently. Last year, my wife and I hosted a gala for Doorways, which helps people with AIDS. At the gala, there’s a large number of same-sex couples. Our company’s culture hasn’t been used to dealing with that. I encouraged a bunch of my vice presidents to come—strong encouragement. When they came, they enjoyed it. In fact, they told me it was a very warm experience.

I thoroughly admit that the upper management has not been overly diverse, although we do now have a woman president who runs one of our segments. I do believe that those people truly believe in the concepts of diversity and know that we have to continue to work on those areas.

I think Sharon did a great job of laying it incrementally, nudging us a little further each day and each year. We had people at one point in time taking a personal commitment at one of our leadership meetings to the concept of diversity as we did to safety.

She’s been very straightforward—never went overboard, though. She pushed at a pace that people could accept and just incrementally kept doing things. In the beginning, awards, celebrations and non-threatening things, and then she gradually moved into performance appraisals, training and setting goals and measures for us in promotions and hiring.

Visconti: How did you manage this so that the push-back from middle management didn’t overwhelm the effort?

Voss: We trained all employees from the bottom and actually got them engaged, then kept them engaged through our forums. They were pushing their management too. The very visible support that I had always given to it helped people as well.

They kept the thing under control so people couldn’t push back very hard because they knew that that was unacceptable to the way I was moving this organization. They knew if they did not want to be a part of it, I often told people, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person; it just that you don’t belong here.

Visconti: You do have some areas and some generating plants that are not very homogenous-looking. How did it work there?

Voss: We have rural linemen who are out in areas where all you do is hunt and fish and put up wire. There is this diversity of thought even among a group of same people.

Little towns, they have some of the biggest prejudices. They might not be Black and white but they might be this side and that side of town. You have to get those people saying, “It doesn’t matter. When we come to work, we’re going to do the best we can do.” There are always those prejudices. If you break them down, you’ll be a higher-performing group.

It all comes down to performance. It’s not just the right thing to do—it’s also good business. It’s really about making the company better.

Visconti: Going back to the website, the words are essential. To describe diversity and inclusion on the homepage sends a very clear message.

Voss: We feel that way. I thoroughly believe that. Our performance has improved the last couple years. We’ve performed financially better; operationally, we’re performing extremely well. It’s starting to show on the stock market. I think it’s on its way up, and I’m committed to it.

It isn’t just about doing it for diversity’s sake. This is all about making our business better. I think employees feel better with this effort going on. I think they’re proud of the company.

Many times, people have come up and told me that they are glad the company has this kind of attitude about diversity that is accepting people’s differences. You can’t do a lot about things that happen off the job, but we can make this a better atmosphere here.

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