“White men in the diversity and inclusion space are much more focused on product over process … but there is no silver bullet,” explained PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Chris Brassell, Director, National Office of Diversity, at DiversityInc’s White Men & Diversity event.

Brassell detailed how PwC takes a straightforward, top-to-bottom approach toward diversity management that allows its diversity leaders to effectively build support and understanding for diversity management among white, male leaders in each of the 20 markets it serves. “We need people to understand what it is, and what it isn’t,” said Brassell. “We want to make this a conversation about listening. This is not punitive.”

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is No. 1 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50.

The post White Men for Diversity: How PwC Spreads Diversity Messaging appeared first on DiversityInc.

Do you think diversity training is effective? What would make it effective?

Answer:

Most of the “diversity training” I’ve seen is not very sophisticated. Some companies think “compliance” training is diversity training, but that’s incorrect. In my opinion, to build a good diversity-training program, you have to first have a plan. To have a plan you need goals. And to get goals, you need measurement to tell you where you are. Here is a quick sequence:

1. Benchmarking (find out where your company is)

2. Engagement, broken out by race, gender and age (how the people in your company feel)

3. Understanding goals (approved by the CEO)

4. Diversity plan (to take from where you are and how your people feel to where you want to go)

5. Training (to help accomplish the plan)

DiversityInc has the most sophisticated benchmarking available—we use SAS software to crunch the extensive data we’ve collected (for 13 years) in the DiversityInc Top 50 process. We also use our own engagement survey to gain more perspective on the benchmarking data; if you can benchmark and survey by division, you can get very finite in finding where your opportunities are. In the past year, we’ve helped several companies align their diversity programs with the strategic direction of the company. This has the result of pulling in top management to the cause.

One more thing: Training for top management should be considered carefully. I’ve found that a discussion of legacy is motivating for senior executives. The recent presidential election has brought understanding about the business case for diversity in a way I’ve never seen before. There seems to be far more clarity on how effectively relating to people where they are is absolutely necessary to achieve the results you want. I’ve spoken at several meetings where I’ve seen an immediate change in tempo as a result of linking the reality around demographics and diversity-plan results to their roles as senior executives—and whether or not they’re going to leave their organization better, or worse, prepared to meet the immediate future.

Luke Visconti’s Ask the White Guy column is a top draw on DiversityInc.com. Visconti, the founder and CEO of DiversityInc, is a nationally recognized leader in diversity management. In his popular column, readers who ask Visconti tough questions about race/culture, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability and age can expect smart, direct and disarmingly frank answers.

The post Ask the White Guy: Is Diversity Training Effective? What Would Make It Effective? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Senior-leadership (executives reporting to the CEO, and those one and two levels below) participation in resource groups denotes commitment from the top and reinforces the notion that the groups are critical to the success of the company. This, in turn, attracts more employees, grows membership and increases the number of innovative ideas and strategies emanating from the resource groups.

DiversityInc Top 50 data show a strong correlation between senior-leadership involvement with resource groups and employee participation. Companies whose senior leaders are members of resource groups have 18.4 percent of all employees participating in the groups. Seventy percent of the CEOs at these companies meet with the groups on a regular basis. For companies whose senior leaders aren’t members of resource groups, the data show a negative correlation. These companies have just 2.1 percent of all employees participating in resource groups. Just 11 percent of CEOs at these companies meet with the groups on a regular basis. Employee participation for this same group is down from 3 percent four years ago.

Increased participation leads to increased interaction with senior leaders, which leads to increased engagement levels of employees who join the groups. (To read about how membership in resource groups leads to higher engagement, go to www.diversityincbestpractices.com/engagement)

– Shane Nelson

The post Why Should Senior Executives Participate in Resource Groups? appeared first on DiversityInc.

These aspirations, however, were well outside the scope of a typical Black law student at the time. James recalls: “When I was going to school, people always focused on Legal Aid or the public defender’s office. Not knocking that, but why go to Harvard for public-interest work? Why should Blacks settle, limit ourselves to a niche?”

Leveraging Litigation for Diversity

James was named chief diversity officer of MGM in 2009, after having worked in the company’s legal department for seven years and getting footing as counsel to the diversity committee to the board of directors. Now she is responsible for driving MGM’s philanthropy, diversity and community-engagement messages throughout the organization.

Her latest project is Inspiring Our World. The 90-minute musical program showcases MGM’s corporate-responsibility platform through song and dance. Written, produced and performed by MGM employees, the show will go live Dec. 16–18 before audiences of 5,000 frontline MGM employees per show.

While her diversity work rarely crosses over into her litigation responsibilities—most EEO cases and other legal complaints stem from conflicts with management and as such are not directly related to diversity, she says—James says communication and the ability to persuade are two valuable skills that a legal background affords her.

“To be effective as CDO, you have to have the ability to speak to a lot of different types of audiences, be able to converse at the board-of-directors level,” says James, noting that she regularly reports to and has a constant interface with MGM Chairman and CEO James Murren. “I need to be able to advocate the case for diversity, that it is our corporation’s best interest—it’s like making an argument, albeit a friendly argument, to a jury.

There Were Few Like Me

Following her graduation from Harvard Law School in 1977 and a clerkship for Theodore R. Newman Jr. (then Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals), James was hired by San Francisco–based Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where she says “you could count on one hand the number of Black associates who ever worked at my 300-person firm.”

One partner was of American Indian heritage, which was not openly discussed, but the rest were white—and only two were women. In 1985, James would become the third woman, and first Black, partner.

“I was very conscious about the fact that no Black lawyer had been considered for partnership,” says James. “I always wanted to make sure I was excelling. I was a rarity—and wanted to make sure I set a good precedent that opened doors for others.”

Once promoted, James became heavily involved with the San Francisco Bar Association and became active in the American Bar Association’s Conference of Minority Partners in Majority Corporate Law Firms, where she led initiatives to improve the retention of nonwhite lawyers at big firms.

Advocating the Retention of Black Lawyers

All the major elite firms were predominantly white, and all had a problem with retaining Black associates, according to James. “It was a revolving door. Blacks were usually out by year four,” she recalls. “We wanted to help law firms understand what the cultural-isolation issues were.”

One of her key projects was a collaboration with a diversity specialist named Harry Jacob to create a video and accompanying manual that raised awareness of the negative experiences that nonwhite lawyers frequently encountered. The project, which received an award of merit from the ABA, focused on themes such as building an inclusive culture for Blacks, Latinos, Asians and American Indians, and best practices to ensure that all associates, regardless of race, received the same amount and same quality of mentoring from firm partners.

Creating Diversity Through Public Service

When Dennis Archer, a Michigan Supreme Court justice who knew James through the ABA, became mayor of Detroit in 1994, James left her firm to accept a public-service position as corporate general counsel and law director for the city.

“I took a huge pay cut and the work in some ways was harder, but it was a great opportunity. It gave me the opportunity to do work that helped to develop a primarily Black city,” says James.

While working on a casino authorization project in 1997, James met with representatives from MGM Resorts International, one of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies. They recruited her in 2002 to help drive the company’s diversity strategy. “Never in my wildest dreams had I thought I’d wind up working at a gaming and hospitality company,” she says.

The post MGM Resorts International’s Phyllis James Uses Law & Entertainment to Push D&I appeared first on DiversityInc.

Dana Green, national manager, Corporate Diversity & Inclusion, and Nikki Nance, corporate manager administration, discuss at our diversity event how the car manufacturer’s innovative approach to diversity-management and HR enables the entire company to find, recruit, engage and retain the best talent, especially from underrepresented groups. Watch the video below.

Toyota Motor North America, No. 41 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50, is one of eight leading companies that presented at “Managing Relationships Between HR & Diversity Departments” held in New York City.  Visit DiversityInc.com/events for a schedule of our upcoming learning sessions. Also, register today for our  diversity web seminar on diversity councils on Oct. 16, where executives from Kellogg Company and Comcast will provide case study examples to help you  implement a successful diversity council–or better utilize the one you have–to drive measurable results.

For more on Toyota’s innovative recruitment and talent-development strategies, watch this Innovation Fest! presentation–How Recruiting People With Disabilities Solved Toyota’s Costly Problem–where executives detail how the company leveraged its employees with unique talents to speed up its production line, improve public relations and diversify its workforce.

Video Minutes:

0:00:00 How Manufacturing, Sales, Marketing & Finance Collaborate

0:01:15 Senior Execs Lead as Diversity Champions

0:02:14 Building Accountability for Diversity

0:03:30 Recruitment: Launching Mentoring Programs

0:04:25 Diversity Training for Diversity Champions

0:05:00 Diversity Benchmarking & Measuring Data

0:06:33 Executive Diversity Advisory Board

0:07:34 Recruitment: Work/Life Benefits, Messaging & Job Postings

0:10:52 College Recruiting

0:12:20 Talent Development & Measuring Employee Engagement

0:19:29 Toyota’s Two Pillars: Continuous Improvement & Respect for People

The post Working Collaboratively With HR: Recruitment & Talent Development appeared first on DiversityInc.

Elena Richards, talent management leader, Office of Diversity, PricewaterhouseCoopers, presents at DiversityInc’s Innovation Fest! how her firm improves hiring, engagement and promotion of Blacks by providing new hires a year-long leadership/talent-development program as part of its on-boarding efforts. The company is No. 1 in The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity. Watch the video below to learn about this innovative program.

The full Innovation Fest! presentations with PowerPoint slides are available on DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

Watch the other Innovation Fest! videos: How 9 Companies Capitalize on Innovation: Resource Groups, Engagement & Talent Development.

The post Increasing Engagement, Retention & Talent Development of New Black Hires appeared first on DiversityInc.

If you can monetize the benefits of what diversity and inclusion brings to the organization, you’ll see that change.

For example, say your firm has 75,000 employees, 50 percent of whom are women and/or non-white people, and a 3 percent average turnover rate but a 3.6 percent turnover rate for women and/or non-white people. If it costs $10,000 to replace an employee, then closing that turnover gap will save $2,250,000.

What hasn’t been possible—until now—is to strongly connect the results of diversity management and inclusion to areas we can measure, such as turnover or failure for some groups to thrive equally in talent development.

I think the key is “engagement,” which is a measurement of a person’s feeling of inclusion in an organization and which drives the quality of overall human-capital output. Further, engagement can go beyond human-capital factors to business subjects on a range as wide as accidents on factory floors to quality of innovation.

We’ve invested in SAS software this year and now have the computing power to correlate our engagement survey to our benchmarking survey, which allows us to then make exacting, precise recommendations for best practices going forward. Our engagement survey carefully introduces questions about race, orientation, age and gender to avoid decreased performance, as described by Dr. Claude Steele as “stereotype threat.” This is especially important for majority inclusion and for companies that may not enjoy a great diversity reputation internally.

Moreover, using our shortened 50-field benchmarking survey, we can benchmark several divisions within your company and give each an individual assessment on their relationships with people, as well as individual suggested next steps for diversity-management implementation. This can tie back to accountability for results to the local leader and give that person the exact tools they need to close gaps and move everyone forward in their engagement and feeling of inclusion.

DiversityInc is unique in its ability to do this; we have data on diversity management and outcome from hundreds of companies, and with our computing abilities, we can make specific suggestions tied to actual performance as correlated to other companies. We can project your potential return and we can help you put an actual dollar value on what success will look like.

Take these scenarios, for example:

• Your women employees are disengaged to the point of filing a lawsuit, which can mean a loss of real money and damage to the company’s reputation. Our engagement survey will identify that problem and the benchmarking survey will provide correlations to the best-practice solutions other companies have used.
• After investing heavily in recruiting and training Black, Latino and Asian execs, the percentage of retention among these groups remains low. Our engagement survey will uncover the cause and degree of their disengagement, and the benchmarking survey will show you what proven best practices and goals will stop that regrettable loss.

When the benefits of diversity management can specifically be tied back to bottom-line benefits, in the absence of emotion and in the sunlight of comparisons with other companies’ accomplishments, the benefits of a strong diversity-and-inclusion program become quite clear—and it can be monetized. I’ve staffed up on our consulting practice, and we are ready to put a detailed analysis together for you. Please contact me directly for more information.

–Luke Visconti

The post Monetizing Diversity Efforts: How Inclusion Can Be Quantified appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question:
What’s your opinion on employee networks/affinity groups?

Answer:
Employee-resource groups (AKA network or affinity groups) are the foundation of effective bi-directional communications in an organization. All companies in The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity use them.

I prefer “resource” group because most white people don’t perceive the need for a network or affinity, but everyone needs a resource.

Aside from the tremendous psychological benefit of facilitating minority groups to aggregate (see Beverly Tatum’s book “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”), savvy companies task their resource groups with coming up with business-development ideas.

This links the marketplace to the company by utilizing employees as an internal resource. Other benefits to employee-resource groups include increased engagement, recruitment (referrals), increased retention and talent development.

The post What Are the Benefits of Employee-Resource Groups? appeared first on DiversityInc.