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.

Egea explained during a DiversityInc event how Prudential’s 2011 acquisitions of AIG Star and AIG Edison insurance companies forced Prudential to adopt a global-diversity mindset as “more than 50 percent of employees now speak Japanese.”

He credited the company’s emphasis on cultural competence with its success in forming common goals/connections with its new Japanese businesses and developing internal messaging that stays true to the core corporate culture and company values on an international scale. (Prudential Financial is No. 9 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50.)

The audience of corporate diversity leaders and executives was able to ask Egea questions on global diversity, contribute their best practices for cultural competence and diversity-awareness training and share their real-life success stories.

Executives from Deloitte, Monsanto, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, WellPoint and Kaiser Permanente discussed how a culturally competent workplace can help talent development—and productivity—flourish.

Global Diversity: Best Practices for Cultural Competence

• Build understanding and respect for cultural competence
• Ensure senior leaders are culturally competent
• Leverage resource groups to on-board international hires
• Have a consistent way to assess talent development
• Identify implicit biases, both internally and externally
• Use training and education to increase diversity awareness/sensitivity

Click to read the full Are You Culturally Savvy Enough to Profit in a Global Market? article, available to subscribers at DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

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

The post Are You Culturally Savvy Enough to Profit in a Global Market? appeared first on DiversityInc.

By prioritizing the allocation of resources, diversity leaders can better align diversity-management initiatives—such as talent development, resource groups and mentoring—with business goals, which is crucial for success, according to the diversity leader.

“We diverted our dollars away from heritage celebrations and some external partnerships to focus on leadership training. We provided external coaches and up to six hours of one-on-one time putting together a viable and robust development plan,” said Norman during an interactive session on talent development at a DiversityInc event.

The audience of corporate diversity leaders and executives was able to ask Norman questions, contribute their best practices for talent development and share their real-life success stories firsthand.

Kraft Foods, which is No. 7 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50, was recognized with the 2012 DiversityInc Special Award for Top Company for Executive Development. Mark Clouse, president of the U.S. Snacks Business Unit, acccepted the award on behalf of the company at our October event in New York City.

Companies participating included: Procter & Gamble (No. 5 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50), Prudential Financial (No. 9), American Express (No. 14), Automatic Data Processing (No. 27), Toyota (No. 41) and MassMutual (one of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies).

In What Makes Kraft’s Talent Development So Successful?, the companies detail their top talent-development challenges and provide the solutions that are helping them improve diversity in succession planning. Talent-development best practices include: 

1. Focus development efforts a level below what’s needed
2. Personalize talent-development plans to individuals
3. Determine the importance of global experience to high-ranking positions and tailor the quality of assignments now
4. Use resource groups to identify high-potential talent from traditionally underrepresented groups and nominate candidates for mentoring
5. Utilize metrics to measure the potential success of mentor pairings
6. Mentoring should include cross-cultural, cross-gender and cross-functional components

Click here to read the full article, available to subscribers at DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

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

The post What Makes Kraft’s Talent Development So Successful? appeared first on DiversityInc.

By Denyse Leslie, Senior Vice President of Consulting, DiversityInc

“Put your money where your mouth is.” “Home is where the hearth is.” I grew up with statements like these as guideposts of how to live in a community, how to be authentic and consistent, and a reminder to do what I say I will.

In my review of diversity and inclusion on websites, I found a CEO and diversity statement that both demonstrate these ideals.

GRADE A
Prudential Financial, No. 9 in The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 

John Strangfeld, chairman and chief executive officer of Prudential Financial echoes these sentiments in what he says and does at Prudential and for Newark, N.J., Prudential’s home for 135 years.

From the Prudential homepage, one click takes you to “Our Company,” where the business case for diversity is well presented. Even though Prudential’s website has dual duty and must speak to consumer and institutional markets, the site conveys that it is invested in its people who, in turn, instill confidence and trust among consumer and institutional clients.

The CEO statement begins with “Difference can make all the difference in the world … we succeed through people …” The sentiment continues in the larger The Power of People statement: “Diversity objectives are treated just like anything else in our business cycle.”

Strangfeld’s bio is easily found on the Prudential site, and it reads well. He is what he says he is. He supports higher education and an equal chance. [Watch the video below to hear Strangfeld accept DiversityInc's 2011 Special Award for Top Company for Community Development at DiversityInc's annual event.]

For closed captions via YouTube, click here then press the CC button.

Prudential invests in the communities in which its employees work. Strangfeld has embraced urban economic development and educational access to quality schools—both public schools and charters. He is behind veterans’ re-employment and as suppliers. I’d say Prudential in the person of John Strangfeld is putting its money where its mouth is.

GRADE D
MetLife, No. 50 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50

Snoopy is the beloved, welcoming and familiar mascot that greets consumer and institutional customers at the MetLife homepage.

Click to “About MetLife.” It’s all about the products and services with the central focal picture being one mainly of white people. The link to diversity is from this page. There, MetLife connects its business to its diversity commitments through case stories, resource-group initiatives and diversity champions. I particularly liked how the company positions its resource groups “to listen and serve”; resource groups are current-day listening posts.

I was impressed by the MetLife’s board diversity, with professional and life experiences that span leadership of the NAACP to the New York Stock Exchange. Still in pursuit of the CEO’s statement, I found on the Executive Officers page Chairman, President and CEO Steven A. Kandarian’s considerable business accomplishments and his external board commitments. However, the site lacks the CEO statement. MetLife’s diversity commitment is clear, but when the CEO statement is not prominent, it’s not as personal.

GRADE F
Company X

Another consumer-insurance company, which we will not name, has a prominent CEO statement on diversity and inclusion, but it is two clicks from the homepage. The statement, however, is outdated: “Diversity is about being human and doing the right thing.” Diversity is about these things, but it’s also about the changing workforce, the changing customer, investing in the economic viability of cities, and enjoying the full benefits of diversity at the senior-leadership table—diversity of thought.

Throughout the website, Company X is pragmatic and scrappy and open for business. It clearly has a number of solid diversity best practices in place that are celebrated on the site. The company’s heart is in the right place. What is personal in this CEO’s statement, however, is not connected to today’s diversity business case. The DiversityInc Top 50 companies have moved on.

Recommendations

• Make the CEO statement easily searchable.
• Serve it up early and strong, no more than one click from the homepage.
• Have the faces of your company be diverse in more than the diversity and careers segments of the website.
• The CEO bio is another excellent place to beef up and honestly record the many ways your CEO is engaged and that diversity does matter in his or her personal life.
• Describe senior executives’ multicultural board commitments, how they have invested the company in community development where the company’s people work. Make their diversity personal.

The post We Evaluate CEO Commitment on Corporate Websites appeared first on DiversityInc.

Despite entreaties from GOP leaders, including presumptive vice-presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan, Akin is continuing his run for the Missouri Senate seat. And all this focus on what he said, his alleged sources of information and the backfighting in the party are proving a negative distraction for the Republican national convention in Tampa next week.

The greater organizational issues one can take away from this are both of a preventative and a reactive nature. From a preventative perspective, how can an organization create a culture of inclusion and respect so people do not feel they can make blatant—and erroneous—statements that are harmful to others? And once a statement is made or action taken, what are the legal and ethical ways to respond? How do you prevent negative stereotypes from seriously impacting productivity?

Without proactive efforts to create an inclusive culture, organizations run the risk of permitting inaccurate stereotypes to flourish, which hampers engagement and productivity. Dr. Claude Steele spoke about this to a DiversityInc audience, highlighting stereotype threat and how it impedes talent development for people from underrepresented groups. [Scroll down to watch the video.]

What’s Legal?

DiversityInc legal columnist Bob Gregg, who specializes in discrimination law, says our laws encourage the ability to have different viewpoints. “We recognize that if we have people from so many races and religions, all these differences create frictions. We address our differences with laws as opposed to guns and bullets … Our policies have to be flexible enough to allow difference but not to allow discrimination.”

Many of these statements are voiced as “religious beliefs.” In the private sector, the Title VII Civil Rights Act of 1964 guarantees that employees cannot be discriminated against because of religious beliefs. Employees can believe whatever they choose but cannot take actions that violate a company’s policy. However, the company must be very clear in its communications on the policy.

AT&T, No. 4 in The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list, ran up against this issue in 2004. The company had adopted a diversity policy requiring its employees to “value the differences” in all employees. A Christian employee, who said he believed that being gay is a sin, requested clarification on the policy and did not receive it. He then refused to sign the policy and was fired. He sued for religious discrimination and won because, according to Gregg, “AT&T failed to accommodate his religious beliefs by failing to provide an explanation and ordering him to sign the policy.”

But in another 2004 religious-discrimination lawsuit against Cox Communications, No. 25 in the DiversityInc Top 50, the outcome was quite different, says Gregg. A supervisor was fired for violating the anti-harassment policy (which had been clearly explained) when he told a lesbian employee during an evaluation that being a lesbian was a sin and that he would pray about her sexual orientation. The court found that the behavior violated a reasonable company policy, and the firing was upheld.

“Our policies should not prohibit beliefs; they should focus on behaviors. If it’s not a matter of public concern, a religious belief or something protected by the whistleblower law, a company can say that if a person doesn’t go along with company values, they can work elsewhere,” Gregg says, adding that it also depends on the person’s job. A vice president of HR, for example, would have more at stake for making a comment perceived as biased than a file clerk. It also matters whether the comment was made on company or personal time, he says.

Can You Prevent These Incidents? 

From these cases, it’s obvious that an organization must communicate its values clearly—and that those values must emanate from the top.

DiversityInc Top 50 companies all have consistent diversity and inclusion policies and statements from the CEO on their websites supporting them. In almost all of these companies, the mission statement also includes a diversity component.

Organizationally, it’s important to engage employees “whose thoughts around their personal values may differ from corporate values,” says Dr. Walter McCollum, senior director of Organizational Development at Sodexo, No. 2 in the DiversityInc Top 50. Dr. McCollum, who will be the luncheon speaker at DiversityInc’s Sept. 13 event on “Managing Relationships Between HR & Diversity Departments,” says it’s critical to recognize the interplay between departments, sub-units and identity groups.

“By paying attention to the impact of actions on different populations, we make sure we account for key aspects of the system, and, therefore, create comprehensive and lasting change. Attending to diversity increases the likelihood that a change process will benefit the system as a whole along with its many parts,” he says.

An essential way to do that is through the use of resource groups, which are a major source of cultural education in an organization and a conduit between mid- and low-level employees and senior executives. All of the DiversityInc Top 50 companies use their resource groups for these purposes, and they make sure the groups are inclusive—so anyone can join, even if they are not of the direct “affinity” of the group. That increases the ability to reach those who have different views, as does mandatory diversity training for the workforce, which 66 percent of the DiversityInc Top 50 has.

Corporations don’t have power over freedom of thought or speech. But companies with clear communications and diversity-management initiatives in place are better equipped for the legal and organizational challenges of dealing with those whose views collide with corporate values.

–Barbara Frankel

The post Can You Prevent a ‘Todd Akin’ Moment at Your Organization? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Photo credit: Northfoto/Shutterstock.com

Augusta National Golf Club announced former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and business executive Darla Moore as its first female members this week. But many media reports and social-media comments question the sincerity and timing of the club’s decision to end its 80-year-old men-only policy.

Some Twitter users said Augusta National’s “motives were questionable at best” and wondered why an LPGA “pro wasn’t first or even at all” offered membership. Some “suspect sponsor pressure had something to do with it.”

IBM’s Female CEO

Augusta National’s men-only policy came under increased scrutiny during the Master’s Tournament this April after Augusta National failed to extend membership to IBM’s CEO Virginia Rometty, the company’s first female CEO. Augusta National traditionally offers membership to CEOs of the tournament’s sponsors—this year, that included IBM, AT&T and Exxon—that contribute about $18 million annually. IBM is No. 17 and AT&T is No. 4 in The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list.

All four of Rometty’s male predecessors received membership. Rex Tillerson of Exxon and Randall Stephenson of AT&T are also members.

Rometty, who does play golf, later attended the Master’s sporting a pink jacket, reports Forbes, creating further criticism of Augusta as well as its corporate sponsors’ decision to endorse its discriminatory practices.

Stephenson applauded Augusta’s addition of Rice and Moore. He said in a statement: “As a sponsor of The Masters, we applaud today’s historic announcement by Augusta National and warmly welcome Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore as members of Augusta National.”

The club’s membership policies have come under attack multiple times in the last couple of decades. Augusta’s first Black member was admitted in 1990 as a response to civil-rights protests at Alabama’s Shoal Creek Country Club.

Similarly, National Council of Women’s Organizations’ Martha Burk organized a protest in 2002 that pressured Augusta National to remove its gender barrier, as DiversityInc reported in “What in the @#!% Is Wrong With Golf?” But then-chairman William “Hootie” Johnson stood firm on the club’s policy, refusing to allow what he termed “social pressure” to be the catalyst for change.

Burk notes to news sources that her protest greatly influenced Augusta, along with continued attention from other women’s groups. “My first reaction was, we won — and we did,” Burk says. “We gave them a pretty big black eye in April … And I think they knew they could not sustain it.”

ESPN journalist Bob Harig writes that Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne was “waiting for the right time, the right place, the right way” to veer away from his predecessor’s decision.  He notes that Payne may have shown his more inclusive sentiments after the 1996 Olympics had to exclude golf because of  Augusta’s men-only policy. Payne said the event was his “biggest personal disappointment.”

Charlie Hanger, executive editor of Golf.com, disagrees. “Payne seemed genuinely flustered with the harsh questioning this year, and I wonder if behind closed doors that led him to push for the change. The issue was clearly not going away, so they really didn’t have much of a choice,” he writes.

Baby Steps to Gender Equality

Is Payne’s decision purely out of good will? Or is it a PR-savvy play? One article on BleacherReport suggests that Augusta’s motives remain gray and highlights that two women among the club’s speculated 300 male members isn’t enough to “all join hands and start singing.” Augusta’s new 0.6-percent representation is well below the total 20 women now serving as Fortune 500 CEOs (a total of 4.0 percent).

Rice is the first Black woman to serve as secretary of state, and Moore, vice president of Rainwater, was the first woman to be featured on a cover of Fortune magazine.

The golf industry has traditionally been a white and male sport. The formation of the LPGA in 1950 and star Black golf players Joe Louis in 1952 and Tiger Woods in 1997 helped the sport gain publicity in the public eye. In 2010, core golfers totaled 18.0 percent women, up 17.8 percent from 2005, according to the National Golf Foundation. Black core golfers total 3.9 percent, Latinos total 7.7 percent and Asians total 8.9 percent of core golfers, says research from the 2009 World Golf Foundation.

Diversity & Inclusion at Your Office

Currently, women account for 50.8 percent (157.2 million) of the total U.S. population and about 49.8 percent of the world population. Our Women’s History Month Facts & Figures show that women increasingly are obtaining educational degrees and assuming management roles.

DiversityInc Top 50 companies, in particular those in The 2012 DiversityInc Top 10 Companies for Executive Women, have made progress in achieving parity in representation. That’s why they have more women in top management and CEO positions (8 percent) than the Fortune 500 and are able to connect to the marketplace better.

Here are their best practices for recruiting and promoting women:

Resource groups: Also known as business resource groups or networks, resource groups are particularly helpful for enhancing the talent development of women, providing a peer support system and gaining insight into the key concerns/needs of your female customers.

Mentoring: Our DiversityInc Top 50 data reveals that mentoring is a key way to improve retention, engagement and promotion rates for women. More on mentoring is available in this diversity web seminar.

Work/Life Benefits: Keeping women in line positions so they can reach senior management is one of the top challenges organizations face. Providing telecommuting, flexible work schedules and onsite childcare, among other work/life options, are not just company “perks” anymore but key strategies for approaching the global talent war. Additionally, a DiversityInc networking event on global female talent development revealed that leaders also need to educate managers about the need for flexibility. Watch the video below.

The post Augusta National Found Only 2 Qualified Women Out of 3.3 Billion on the Planet? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Those organizations are most ready for the influx of an estimated 32 million new consumers, most of them lower-income Blacks and Latinos, and the need to care for them on a sustainable basis emphasizing wellness as opposed to constant crisis management. The critical factor in their business strategies, they tell us, is the ability to offer culturally competent healthcare and connect on a large scale to the communities they serve while being more cost effective.

“Our assessment is that the Supreme Court decision on health reform will accelerate existing trends in healthcare and the marketplace,” says Dr. Patricia Simmons, executive medical director for Health Policy at the Mayo Clinic. Those trends include consolidation of facilities, new organizations that combine hospitals and insurance companies, increased accountability for metrics-driven results, and a strong focus on community outreach.

Successful implementation of diversity-management initiatives is giving organizations such as Kaiser Permanente, Eli Lilly and Company, WellPoint, Mayo Clinic, University Hospitals, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Health Care Service Corporation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, Massachusetts General, Cleveland Clinic and the Henry Ford Health System a competitive edge in the new world of expanding affordable healthcare.

“Healthcare reform challenges diversity and inclusion to keep and expand our place at the table,” says Linda Jimenez, chief diversity officer at WellPoint.

Diversity Management Connects to Community

In interviews with DiversityInc, these 11 organizations tell a similar story, with minor variations depending on their business model. All have been long-time diversity leaders, appearing either on The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list or The DiversityInc Top 5 Hospital Systems list (and one company is on The DiversityInc Top 10 Regional Companies list). All anticipate (and are already seeing) an influx of new patients/customers, mostly from lower-income families, predominantly Latino and Black.

They stress the need to offer culturally competent healthcare and to emphasize wellness prevention and disease management instead of frequent, costly trips to emergency rooms and urgent-care sessions. All are looking at ways to serve far more people, operating more efficiently and streamlining costs. Several of the hospital systems are worried that Medicare funding might not cover their increasing treatment costs.

The resounding sentiment from leaders in these organizations is that their long-term commitments to culturally competent care through diversity-management initiatives have left them in a better strategic position to improve market share. They point to the importance of resource groups in reaching the community and promoting health education. They cite diversity training for customer-facing employees and the need for an employee and leadership base that represents the communities they serve.

Here is an industry-by-industry look at their changing business models and how critical diversity management is to their sustainable success. 

The Affordable Care Act emphasizes preventive care, to save costs by helping more low-income Americans take care of themselves before expensive and life-threatening diseases such as diabetes, cancer, AIDS and high blood pressure develop and to minimize the damage of these diseases in those who already have them. The law specifically calls for investments in community health teams, community health centers and expanded initiatives to increase racial and ethnic diversity in healthcare teams.

Cost Containment: Hospitals

The dilemma for hospitals is how to provide more access while lowering costs at the same time.  “It really requires a lot of innovation to reduce costs, and no one’s figured out how to do it,” says Jeff Davis, senior vice president of Human Resources at Massachusetts General, No. 5 in The DiversityInc Top 5 Hospital Systems.

“It’s clear that the new normal in healthcare will involve getting paid less to do more,” says Oliver Henkel, chief external affairs officer at the Cleveland Clinic, No. 3 in The DiversityInc Top 5 Hospital Systems. “There will be more patients with access to healthcare, but private and government insurers will pay hospitals and doctors less and less to care for patients. Therefore, we have to drive efficiencies and cost containment to be able to accommodate the increased demand for healthcare.”

There are healthcare models in place, however, that offer best practices in increasing the prevalence of care to underserved communities without adding employees.

Kaiser Permanente, which has both hospitals and health insurance, has made eliminating healthcare disparities through community outreach a key part of its mission for decades.

“Many in the industry are trying to move toward an accountable care model and there will be more people in the marketplace trying to compete on that basis (alliances between insurance, hospitals and physicians). We’ve been in that business for over 60 years,” says Christine Paige, senior vice president of Marketing and Internet Services at Kaiser Permanente (No. 3 in the DiversityInc Top 50).

The difference now is in volume and the impact of having a substantial number of people entering the market in a short period of time, she says. To that end, Kaiser has been expanding its system capabilities through more bilingual employees, increased communications and more personalized experiences for patient populations through more detailed electronic health records. Kaiser Permanente shared its bilingual program at DiversityInc’s Innovation Fest!

University Hospitals, located in the greater Cleveland area, is moving toward an accountable care organization (ACO) to address the changing marketplace. ACOs rely on metrics and cost-care reductions for assigned groups of patients by making hospitals and doctors directly accountable to the patients and the insurance companies for the quality and efficiency of the healthcare delivery. ACOs were piloted with Medicare patients and now, under the Affordable Care Act, will be used for Medicaid patients as well.

“We are facing a doctor shortage in Ohio,” says Dr. Eric Bieber, chief medical officer for University Hospitals, No. 2 in The DiversityInc Top 5 Hospital Systems. “We can handle it but we need to be efficient and do what’s right for the patient. We now have an integrated delivery system that helps us touch more patients with our primary-care physicians—and not in the emergency rooms.”

At the Mayo Clinic, the hospital is working on creative reimbursement models for insurance companies to “control costs and increase value and make care more affordable,” says Dr. Simmons. Mayo Clinic is also working on improving relationships with other hospitals and medical institutions to provide better access. For example, an affiliate-practice network from various medical institutions sends physicians to treat patients at local affiliates and helps patients stay in their communities. Mayo Clinic is No. 4 in The DiversityInc Top 5 Hospital Systems.

The Henry Ford Health System in Detroit last year bought a Medicaid health-maintenance organization (HMO) so it can offer Medicaid patients comprehensive care. “Hospitals need to better provide care. It’s really about how we can survive financially when more people have insurance,” says CEO Nancy Schlichting. But she worries that the act, as it stands now, isn’t giving hospitals enough funding for the addition. “The population is the same; it’s just how we pay for them. We’re advocating very hard for the expansion of Medicaid funding.”

Henry Ford, she says, now receives more than $200 million a year in uncompensated healthcare, but under the act as it stands now, that amount is cut to $30 million. “It’s really how we can survive financially,” she says. “When people have insurance, as they now will, they won’t wait to go to the doctors. We don’t need to change our operations, just our payment system.” Henry Ford Health System is No. 1 in The DiversityInc Top 5 Hospital Systems.

At Massachusetts General, the situation is a little different because the state has had universal healthcare in effect since 2006 and 97 percent of state residents already have health insurance, according to Davis.

“We adjusted to meet access demands but are still trying to increase the number of primary-care physicians, nurses and physicians’ assistants. Nationally, the first few years of the law will be all about access. It will require a lot of innovation to reduce costs,” he says. He believes the increase in ACOs will allow more people community access.

Cost Containment: Insurance Companies

For the health-insurance companies, the Affordable Care Act literally turns the landscape upside down. In addition to providing insurance for millions of low-income Americans, they can no longer deny care to those with pre-existing, and often expensive, conditions.

For these organizations, the urgent business shift is in focusing on consumers rather than business sales. And cost-savings are critical. “Right now we know that we have to do a lot of work to be a viable player in the consumer market,” says Jon Urbanek, senior vice president, Sales and Marketing for Employer Markets, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida (BCBSF), No. 6 in The DiversityInc Top 10 Regional Companies. “Our focus is on significantly improving our consumer capabilities. At the same time, we’re the leader in the group market and we’ve got to maintain a significant presence there.”

BCBSF has addressed this in the long term by investing in retail centers throughout Florida that will put 90 percent of the population within 30 minutes’ drive of a center. In addition to selling health insurance at the centers, there will be free wellness and screening facilities as well as culturally competent health coaching. The organization also is putting much more health information online, as well as having bilingual call centers. “The information has always been out there, but it’s been in 10 different places in language you can’t understand, and there’s nothing like the ability to see it simply and in one place,” says Urbanek.

Like the hospitals, the insurance companies are often combining efforts to be more efficient. WellPoint, Health Care Service Corporation and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan (all part of the Blue Cross Blue Shield network) now have a joint effort to create a private exchange with a defined contribution approach to give employers information on managing their healthcare offerings.

These efficiencies enable them to focus more on healthcare disparities, says Carolyn Clift, chief diversity officer at Health Care Service Corporation (No. 19 in the DiversityInc Top 50). “We can offer the providers training. We can help them help us determine if they have a language capability they have not included before in a directory … these plans were in place before the Affordable Care Act started to take fold. As a result of the ACA, we’re moving more steadily to implementing more of these programs and projects so we can reach the broad diverse audience.”

Kirk Roy, vice president of National Health Reform at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (one of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies), notes that the act has direct regulations requiring insurers to communicate in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner. To meet this requirement, the organization partnered with a translation service and now can communicate in more than 100 languages.

Innovation: Pharmas 

For pharmaceutical companies, the challenge to stay competitive is in new drugs that reach the increasingly diverse population. And that requires innovation, which all of the drug firms say requires diversity of thought, experience and background.

“The firms that are already there understand the benefit of a holistic diversity-management approach that makes them better run, have better leadership, have better creativity, better innovation, better productivity and better bottom-line impact,” says Shaun Hawkins, chief diversity officer of Eli Lilly and Company (No. 29 in the DiversityInc Top 50).

While drug manufacturers were relatively untouched by the Affordable Care Act’s specific regulations, they will be strongly affected by expanding rebates for Medicare and Medicaid that will enable more patients to have access to more drugs. That will create a rise in sales volume and patient demand, especially for the influx of new people who are insured.

Because health-insurance companies are looking to cut costs, pharmaceutical companies also will have to demonstrate more cost/benefit of their products. For a company like Eli Lilly, which has had a strong focus on clinical trials aimed at Blacks and Latinos, the emphasis is on developing drugs that effectively prevent and treat the diseases so prevalent in these populations: diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure.

“We are an innovation-based company in an innovation-based industry, focused on breakthroughs for the next round of diseases and how they impact race, ethnicity, gender and age,” Hawkins says.

Solutions: Diversity-Management Resources

For the hospitals, resource groups are an increasingly valuable means of connecting to the increasingly multicultural patient base. A critical part of that is the role they play in community education.

At University Hospitals, for example, the resource groups are working with Black and Latino community leaders to conduct prevention screenings and health-education screenings. They recently partnered with corporate and other Cleveland-area healthcare organizations to support a cultural arts fair called Fairfax, primarily aimed at Blacks. The resource groups helped the hospital bring in a team of nurses and health professionals to conduct screenings and encourage them to interact with primary-care physicians.

“Trust is often an issue in the community. The resource-group employees often live in those communities as well,” says Donnie Perkins, chief diversity officer at University Hospitals.

Increasing the level of cultural-competence training is a high priority for the hospitals as well. While Kaiser Permanente has been a leader in this area for years, other hospitals increasingly recognize the importance of this to the new marketplace.

“We are training clinicians to understand what health means and that preferences vary by culture,” says Dr. Sharonne Hayes, director, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Mayo Clinic. “The idea is that we are treating diverse populations and each individual in them. The tendency is to treat populations as market segments – we are customizing care to the culture and then further to the individual.”

Cultural-competence training is key for healthcare providers, notes Clift. “We have already required all of our internal clinicians to complete cultural-competency courses. Training is around attitudes and how patients actually may have trust issues with providers,” she says.

Jimenez has a good example from WellPoint: Its Latino resource group, SOMOS, has been encouraging healthcare providers to emphasize family care as opposed to individual care. Latino parents, she says, will go out of their way to provide preventive care for their children but are far less inclined to do it for themselves. WellPoint is No. 34 in the DiversityInc Top 50.

The Affordable Care Act also requires hospitals to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals.  Hawkins notes that having a workforce representative of the new marketplace is a big plus for Lilly as it expands its clinical trials. “The patient population we serve is more likely to connect with customers from a sales standpoint,” says Hawkins.

Deep relationships with community organizations developed by companies that are diversity leaders is paying off in efforts to promote wellness and connect with the expanded patient base. Lilly has worked with organizations such as the National Council of La Raza and the Urban League on wellness programs in areas such as depression.

The end result for these companies is the diversity-management strategies that they have put in place are helping them negotiate this brave new world of healthcare accountability and expanded patient populations. Diversity management is critical to their very survival, they all say.

“Everyone is realizing how important diversity and inclusion is in the course of business,” says Health Care Service Corporation’s Clift.

–Barbara Frankel, with Robyn Heller Gerbush and Stacy Straczynski

The post Hospitals, Insurance Companies, Pharmas: Who Benefits From the Affordable Care Act? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Racial Discrimination

Racial names do not justify slapping customer. A white customer suspected of shoplifting was escorted to a security area for questioning. The customer’s white friend then barged into the area, cursing at the store employees, one of whom was Black. She used the N-word toward the Black store employee, who reacted by slapping the verbally abusive customer in the face. The police were called and both customers were arrested. The store then fired the employee for having slapped the customer, in violation of its no-violence policy and no-physical-contact-with-customers policy. The fired employee filed a Title VII race-discrimination case, alleging that Kmart was promoting a racially hostile environment and “ratifying hate speech” by firing the victim of harassment. The court ruled against the employee. The customer’s behavior was clearly harassing and improper. However, the store took prompt action to have the police remove the offender. The company had policies on how to deal with customers for these situations and how to raise complaints without escalating a situation. Slapping a customer was against policy and not warranted by a verbal situation. The employee’s escalation to the physical level was unwarranted and justified discharge. Lee v. Kmart Corp. (D. Minn., 2012).  For more on the discrimination and the N-word, read NBA Star John Amaechi: Hate Speech Goes Beyond N- and F-Words.

Hostile supervisor loses discharge case. A Cuban-born manager filed national-origin and race-discrimination cases under Title VII and 42 U.S. Code §1981 after he was discharged. The evidence showed that the manager’s employees filed complaints about his supervisory behaviors. The evidence was that he yelled and swore at employees, used a “brutal and belittling manner,” demeaned them as they were dealing with customers, and generally “created a fearful environment.” When human resources met with him about these concerns, the manager refused to acknowledge any of the issues and expressed that he would not change his management style. He was fired as a result. The court found valid reason for the discharge and no evidence of any similarly situated non-Latino manager. The only other managers who were cautioned about rough supervisory behaviors had immediately recognized issues, expressed a sincere interest in change and corrected the behaviors, instead of digging in their heels and refusing to acknowledge the concerns. The manager’s case was dismissed. Martinez v. W.W. Granger, Inc. (8th Cir., 2012).

Religious Discrimination

Proselytizing judge loses case. A Michigan State Court administrator filed a complaint about the chief district judge’s use of the courtroom to proselytize. She alleged that he used his judicial position and authority to promote his particular religious beliefs, in violation of the Constitution. The judge then fired the administrator. She sued. The federal court jury awarded $734,000 in economic, compensatory and punitive damages. The appellate court confirmed the verdict, plus attorney fees. It found that the administrator’s complaint was clearly constitutionally protected; it addressed a matter of serious public concern. The chief district judge’s actions were clearly retaliatory against a citizen’s right to freely speak out against a government official’s alleged violations of the Constitution. Pucci v. Somers (E.D. Mich., 2012).

Disability Discrimination

Essential function can depend on number of other employees to bear the burden. A nurse suffered a stroke. She rehabilitated enough to return to work, but not full time. She could work limited hours with no on-call duties. This meant the other nurses had to put in extra duty hours and pull more frequent on-call nights, weekends and holidays. The nurse could not provide a return-to-full-time estimate and was ultimately terminated for inability to meet the essential scheduling requirements. She filed an ADA case and lost. There was no duty to convert a full-time job to part time. The court ruled that “A job function may be considered essential by virtue of the limited number of employees available to perform the work.” The ADA does not require accommodation by shifting essential functions and extra burden onto others. Azzam v. Baptist Healthcare Affiliates, Inc. (W.D. KY, 2012).

TSA immune from most employment suits. A diabetic Transportation Security Administration employee had a foot infection, took leave and returned with a fitness-for-all-duties doctor’s certification. His TSA supervisor refused to let him return because he “was too much of a liability.” He then, with EEOC support, sued under the Rehabilitation Act. The court dismissed the case. It ruled that the legislation creating TSA exempted the agency from liability under the Rehabilitation Act, FLSA, ADEA and several other employment laws. The court made a broad interpretation of the general clause in the Act giving TSA the power to set and enforce its employment standards “notwithstanding any other provision of law.” National security overrides all other interests. Field v. Napolitano (1st Cir., 2011).

Family and Medical Leave Act

Double damages for failure to give proper notice of change in FMLA policy. A company had an FMLA policy, providing 12 weeks per calendar year. So each January 1, there was a fresh 12 weeks available. It then changed to a “rolling” method, giving 12 weeks’ leave in a 12-month period measured back from the current usage. It did not send notice to employees about this change. In April, a 36-year employee requested and was granted FMLA. He had taken FMLA the prior calendar year as well. The company terminated the employment a month prior to his expected return because it now counted the prior year’s FMLA (pre-January 1) as part of the use in the past rolling 12 months. The effect was not only loss of a job; it also cut him off from retirement benefits he would have had in just two more years. In the FMLA suit, the court found bad faith on the part of the employer. It could not hold employees to a new policy that had not been communicated to them. (The FMLA generally requires a 60-day written notice of policy changes before they become effective.) The company’s actions were like springing a trap door without warning. The bad-faith interference with FMLA rights warranted double damages, an adjustment of the discharge date by two years to create eligibility for retirement benefits, and attorney fees, for a total of over $400,000. Thom v. American Standard, Inc. (6th Cir., 2012).

Click here to read more court cases on diversity legal issues.

Bob Gregg, a partner in Boardman & Clark LLP, shares his roundup of diversity-related legal issues. He can be reached at rgregg@boardmanlawfirm.com.

The post Racial Discrimination: Black Employee Fired After Being Called the N-Word appeared first on DiversityInc.

Q. Why should my company care about whether the board of directors is diverse? And how do I, as a diversity practitioner, help make that happen?

A. Board diversity has several benefits. It gives organizations new ideas and innovative solutions at the strategic level; it helps attain and retain the best talent; and it helps organizations market and protect the brand.

Most companies have a great deal of difficulty getting gender and racial/ethnic diversity on their boards, even though the talent pipeline from those groups is growing. While 60.4 percent of master’s degrees went to women two years ago, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, and more than 15 percent went to Blacks and Latinos, the Fortune 500 is very low in board diversity.

According to the Alliance for Board Diversity, 15.6 percent of the Fortune 500’s boards are women. The DiversityInc Top 50, in comparison, averages 23 percent and the DiversityInc Top 10 averages 30 percent. Only 12.7 percent of the Fortune 500’s boards are Black, Latino and Asian. The DiversityInc Top 10 and Top 50 are close to 30 percent.

SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar echoes the connection between board diversity and business results in an interview with DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti. Aguilar states that “companies with better performance seem to have more diverse boards.” A new report by the Committee for Economic Development (CED) contends that giving women a seat at the table and providing adequate talent development not only can deliver measurable business gains but is the key differentiator in future global success.

Jim Turley, global chairman and CEO of Ernst & Young, No. 6 in the DiversityInc Top 50, acknowledged the link between board diversity and company performance, stating: “We have focused on diversifying our board because we know it enables our firm to perform better.”

With the best available talent, boards are more likely to identify and select diverse senior leadership. DiversityInc Top 50 data also shows a positive correlation between diverse boards and diverse executive-management teams. According to the EEOC, national senior leadership in private industry is 11 percent Black, Latino and Asian and 28.2 percent women. In comparison, the DiversityInc Top 50’s senior leadership is 17.7 percent Black, Latino and Asian and 24.1 percent women. The DiversityInc Top 10’s executive management is even more diverse.

Diverse boards can ensure that contributions align with company and shareholder values related to diversity and inclusion. In “Are Political Donations That Conflict With Your Diversity Policy a Shareholder Issue?” NorthStar Asset Management’s Julie Goodridge and Christine Jantz show how corporate political contributions that violate company values risk the company’s good name and shareholder value.

Best Strategies to Diversify Your Board

Based on our data and sustainable results, we recommend the following approaches:

1. Mandate diverse slates for every board opening.
2. Do not look at the “usual suspects,” those same women, Blacks, Latinos and Asians you see on so many corporate boards. Look down a level or two to people with great ideas who may be younger or have not yet achieved your “qualifications.”
3. Maintain clear communications between the board and your chief diversity officer so everyone understands diversity strategies and priorities. At 96 percent of DiversityInc Top 50 companies, the chief diversity officer presents directly to the board, up from 92 percent five years ago.

For more on board diversity and diversity in recruitment, view our Diversity Web Seminar on Recruitment: 5 Workforce-Diversity Strategies to Find, Engage & Retain Talent.

—Shane Nelson

The post Why Should My Company Care If Our Board Is Diverse? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Today, Brown is the director of diversity and inclusion for Forest City Enterprises (FCE), a national real-estate company. She is responsible for leading diversity management throughout the entire organization. The company is focusing on improving diversity accountability across the enterprise.

From Occupational Therapy to Diversity Management: Brown graduated from Michigan State University and planned to attend grad school for occupational therapy. But she realized her affinity for business over healthcare when she took a job as a client liaison for a therapy company in Cleveland that managed several nursing homes.

“I found excitement in making sales calls and working with processes,” says Brown, who then tried her hand at selling staffing opportunities for Kelly Services. “It was the first job I got fired from—and it was the best thing to happen to me,” she recalls. She says her firing was because she was inexperienced and was asked to supervise a region, which lost significant market share. The lesson she learned in mentoring younger people has helped her—and those she now helps—to succeed.

Brown found her niche at the Urban League of Greater Cleveland, placing Black and Latino business professionals with local banks, which she says “marked my entry into diversity and human resources.”

Eight months later, Brown went to work as a recruiter for Charter One, eventually becoming its manager of Diversity & Inclusion. “I have always had affinity toward diversity management,” she says. “I always built diversity into my recruitment efforts, even at a time when the company wasn’t really focused on it.”

Improving Diversity in Recruitment: Brown accepted her current position at FCE and has continued “helping people achieve the best that they can possibly achieve” through local community outreach. She also sits on a number of boards, including the Northern Ohio Minority Supplier Development Council and Family Connections and Milestones Autism.

“I’m extremely passionate about these organizations. [Being involved] has helped me to slow down and think about how to leverage my knowledge and expertise to really make an impact,” explains Brown. “It’s about building relationships with people from all walks of life and getting value from that.”

It’s a message she’s carrying over to Forest City as the company launches its new strategic diversity-management initiative this year to improve accountability for diversity goals throughout the organization. The plan features a talent-management component to integrate diversity into the company’s succession planning.

She is proud of the community partnerships that help Blacks and Latinos gain experience and jobs in the Cleveland area. For example, Brown is leading the launch of Cleveland’s Real Estate Associate Program (REAP) this June. The 13-week program, sponsored by Forest City and Cleveland-based real-estate company DDR, educated the city’s first class of Black, Latino and Asian professionals in commercial real estate and provided networking opportunities.

Brown relates her efforts back to a key lesson from her childhood. “My mom always said, ‘You need to be someone [not because you are Black] but because you are Charmaine. If you do that, you will empower your race,” recalls Brown.

Brown actively participates on behalf of Forest City in several organizations for economic inclusion, including the Commission on Economic Inclusion and the Northern Ohio Minority Supplier Development Council. The organization certifies MBEs and helps provide them with networking and resources.

Building Workplace Diversity in Real Estate: Diversity management overall remains a challenge for the real-estate industry, Brown notes. A report from the National Association of Realtors found that 89 percent of commercial Realtors are white and 76 percent are male.

“Many companies grew out of family businesses; they operated with similar family-owned businesses,” Brown explains. “Over the years, it evolved into the unintentional exclusion of people of color and women.”

As such, Brown’s goal is to work with President and CEO David LaRue to “position the company as a leader in an industry that has been predominantly white, male and heterosexual.”

“What I want most is for this organization to start feeling really good about its progress by executing on the strategies that everyone in the organization can own in some way,” Brown explains, emphasizing the role of accountability in achieving results.

The post Forest City’s Chief Diversity Officer Builds Community Support appeared first on DiversityInc.