We asked Jim Norman of Kraft Foods, No. 7 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50; Raymond Arroyo of Aetna, No. 24; and David Casey of CVS Caremark, one of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies, for their views on the DiversityInc Top 50 process. We came away with the three main areas in diversity management that they cite as having received value from the process.

If you would like to participate in the DiversityInc Top 50 survey for diversity management, click here for more information.

• They use the survey to create an overall diversity blueprint and determine areas of focus for their diversity management  

Jim Norman of Kraft: The survey can be used by a chief diversity officer as a strategic tool to create conversations with partners in the organization that he or she has not had or has been dying to have, and to put some parameters around what “best in class” looks like. It’s work that you’re doing for yourself and the organization to get better and to monitor your progress each and every year. 

Raymond Arroyo of Aetna: We have quarterly reports that mimic the DiversityInc Top 50 methodology so that we know whether we are making progress against the goals. This relates to the methods DiversityInc is going to measure, and the survey tells us that. We get all the data around new hires, retention and promotions.

David Casey of CVS Caremark: When I sent the CEO Commitment section to our head of communications (she’s kind of the CEO’s keeper), she started scratching her head, saying, “Wow, these are really the things we should be having them focus on.” It’s another way for me to get best-practice information out there in front of different parts of the business. 

• The survey captures trends and best practices across various organizations that become the standard for diversity management

David Casey of CVS Caremark: What does the Top 50 really mean? It gives you a data point. It gives you a data set. It’s one thing to go into your board or to your CEO and say, “X percent of our workforce is people of color or women, and we’ve spent this much on supplier diversity,” but unless you give them an anchor and some kind of relative sense of what that means, it doesn’t work, and that’s what DiversityInc provides.

Jim Norman of Kraft: I know there could be criticism around any survey, and people get confused about why they’re doing it or why they would be involved. We have strategic plans. They’re about creating a better organization. The survey, then, is a tool for me to mark progress against a journey I’m already committed to. It holds me accountable. It’s a very usable tool. It asks questions that are critical to driving the kind of deep, sustainable organization change that I need to drive.

• The survey forces companies to track important data and understand how the results affect diversity management

Raymond Arroyo of Aetna: The survey asks the questions in a very, very specific way that every single time requires us to look at the data in a very sophisticated way. I love the stuff about human capital because it’s something that we should be doing ourselves anyway.

David Casey of CVS Caremark: Before the DiversityInc Top 50, there were not a lot of robust, true surveys or measurement tools for diversity management. There was just a lot of affirmative action and EEO recognitions and awards. DiversityInc’s Top 50 is by far the most robust analysis of what a company does in diversity management.

About the DiversityInc Top 50

The survey measures four key areas of diversity management: CEO Commitment, Human Capital, Corporate and Organizational Communications, and Supplier Diversity. Participation is free, and companies that do business with DiversityInc have no advantage. Each company that completes the survey receives a free report card assessing its diversity-management performance overall and in those four areas.

For background on the history of the DiversityInc Top 50, click here. For more information on our upcoming diversity-management event, click here.

Note: Since this article was written, Raymond has taken a new role as the head of Alternative Distribution, Aetna.

The post Diversity Management: Top 3 Reasons to Participate in the DiversityInc Top 50 appeared first on DiversityInc.

André Wyss, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation:

“Now more than ever, our customers and patients we serve are counting on us for innovative breakthrough medications for increasingly complex medical needs. These include cancer, multiple sclerosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease, and many others. The communities in which we work are relying on us. These are our business goals as well as a mission to do good. We also were recognized as a DiversityInc Top 50 company and are committed to doing what’s necessary to attract, retain and motivate the diverse talent we need to succeed now and in the future.”

John Bryant, Kellogg Company:

“The Kellogg Foundation gives away $360 million a year to children’s education and healthcare around the world. So we are very honored—and indebted to our founder—but honored to be part of an organization where so much of what we do goes back to kids in the communities in which we serve.  That’s in our past, but it’s also what we want to make very much true today and in our future. As we look at the Kellogg Company, we have a very special bond with our consumers. Every day around the world, millions of people bring our products into their homes and feed our products to their children. That special bond between us and our consumers, we take incredibly seriously. And our goal is to help us understand our consumers so well that every day we’re in even better position to bring our best to those consumers.”

Michelle Lee, Wells Fargo:

“Reinvestment is an integral part of our culture, and it’s one of the things I enjoy most about my job—giving back to our communities, engaging as a volunteer and serving on nonprofit boards. It’s my responsibility at Wells Fargo as a leader. Last year, we invested over $213 million in 19,000 nonprofit organizations, and 165,000 Wells Fargo team members are involved in community-development activities across the country.”

Steve Howe, Ernst & Young:

 “I can tell you that we truly do believe that inclusiveness is critical. It’s critical to us performing at a consistent, exceptional level all around the globe. It makes us better, more insightful; it helps us solve problems, manage risk and seize opportunities that much better. And we believe that driving multicultural teams is an absolute must.”

John Lechleiter, Eli Lilly and Company:

“Now, since I’m among friends this evening, I have a confession: Early in my tenure as CEO, I made a decision, based on a variety of reasons at the time, to cut back on our flexible work programs. And employee engagement suffered. In fact, when I commissioned a small team to find creative ways to strengthen employee engagement, their first recommendation was to bring flexible schedules back. At least I was smart enough to listen. And I did, and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made.

Arne Sorenson, Marriott International:

“Marriott’s approach to diversity and inclusion is deeply rooted in our company’s purpose, which is to open doors to a world of opportunity. This includes the opportunity to build a career, the chance to own one of our hotels, or to provide products and services as one of our suppliers. For 85 years, we’ve said, ‘Take care of our associates, and they’ll take care of our guests.’ This core value of putting people first underpins our commitment to diversity, but we also believe that it drives our profitability. Hospitality is by definition a diverse industry. A couple of recent statistics: Obviously, people come from all over the world to visit New York. Last year, 2 million Mexicans came to the United States; 1.5 million Brazilians; over 1 million Chinese—and those numbers from each of those countries are up about 50 percent year-to-date from last year.”

Steve Price, Dell:

“Our purpose is to bring technology solutions to the world that enable people everywhere to grow and thrive. The one thing we know about growing and thriving: No one grows and thrives alone. We all grow and thrive in relationships. That’s why our employee resource groups are so important because this is where people come in from all walks of life and become part of a community. They get connected and become part of a relational community, irrespective of where you come from or what part of the globe you sit on. You can come to this company and you can be your best and you can do your best work.”

Mark Clouse, Kraft Foods:

“The beauty of splitting a company like Kraft into two is that we have two organizations born of the same value of understanding—the power of diversity. Two organizations that understand that, in a world of global connections, our ability to reflect the consumers we serve—and the people and colleagues that work with us—is paramount to our success.”

The post 8 CEOs Whose Inclusive Styles Change Corporate Cultures appeared first on DiversityInc.

Q: I’ve been giving our current diversity advisory council some thought, and it prompted a question that I’d like to get your perspective on. Have you seen companies utilize their resource-group leaders as diversity advisory-council members?

A: As resource groups have matured, they have literally earned a place at the table. That table, increasingly, is the executive diversity council. [Watch our diversity web seminar on resource groups for insights on the growing importance of these groups.]

We’ve heard from a number of companies that they are creating rotational spots on their executive diversity councils for one to three resource-group leaders. These spots usually last two years (although we’ve seen one- to four-year terms), and in some cases, the resource-group leaders are not voting members of the councils. When executive compensation is directly tied to company-wide diversity goals set by the council, the resource-group leaders usually are excluded from that. For more on resource-group leadership and selection, read DiversityInc’s exclusive resource-group research.

Their purpose on the council is twofold; they give the council insights into the middle layers of the organization and specific insights from their own affinity groups, which are incredibly valuable in determining business-related strategies to reach more employees, customers, investors and suppliers from these groups. The council experience is also a major talent-development initiative for the resource-group leaders and exposes them to interactions with the senior-most executive in the company. Kathryn Collins, former vice president of associate recruitment and inclusion & diversity, jcpenney, explains more about resource-group structures in the video below.

We started asking the question of what percentage of The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity has resource-group rotational positions on their executive diversity councils in the 2011 survey. The answer was 34 percent. We expect to see that percentage increase this year. The percentage of CEOs of DiversityInc Top 50 companies who meet regularly with resource-group leaders (defined as specific small-group meetings, not speaking engagements to large audiences sponsored by resource groups) is 88 percent, twice what it was five years ago.

So you see specifically where the trend is and why. You can get more information on this from our diversity web seminar on diversity councils, featuring IBM and jcpenney, and our recent roundtable on diversity councils, featuring KPMG, American Express and Aetna.

For more on the benefits of resource groups, read How Kraft Increased Promotions of Women in Sales by 39%. In the roundtable, Kraft’s Vice President of Diversity Jim Norman explains how resource groups not only helped the company increase its retention of Black, Latino, Asian and women employees (as shown in the video below) but also promote more women into its management ranks.

The post What Your Resource Groups Are NOT Telling You appeared first on DiversityInc.

Recognizing Results: Diversity-Management Strategies That Worked

We honored companies in eight areas of diversity management:

• Talent Pipeline
• Global Cultural Competence
• Working Families
• Supplier Diversity
• Community Development
• Resource Groups
• Diversity-Management Progress
• Executive Development

Congratulations to our 2012 Special Awards recipients. Read more about how each company demonstrated measurable results that positively impacted both their business goals and their employee engagement at DiversityInc.com/2012specialawards.

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Talent Pipeline

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation
No. 13 in the DiversityInc Top 50
Accepting Award: André Wyss, President

“I believe [our Disability Mentoring Day, Multi-Cultural Teen Corporate Mentoring Program and Suburban Cultural Educational Enrichment Program] provide an overview of our commitment to participating in and supporting meaningful programs at the intersection of community-based outreach, philanthropy and education. They say it takes a village to raise a child. We believe that NPC has an important role to play in that responsibility.”

Novartis understands the need for a diverse workforce and pipeline to senior management, both for cultural competency in its product development and marketing and for the most innovative workplace solutions. The company has been actively donating and volunteering to help youth from underrepresented groups reach their full potential, including direct involvement from its most senior leaders. >> Read more

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Global Cultural Competence

Ernst & Young
No. 6 in the DiversityInc Top 50
Accepting Award: Steve Howe Jr., Area Managing Partner – Americas

“Global cultural competence—for us, it’s critical. It helps us seize opportunities all that much better, and we believe that driving multicultural teams is a must. Diverse teams need that inclusion ‘glue’ to hold them together. We pride ourselves on true globalization and delivering high-performance teams, as well as exceptional customer service. All three require inclusion. We set a tone at the top. … It’s a business imperative.

As a truly global company, Ernst & Young knows how crucial the understanding and respect of local cultures is, while staying true to the values of inclusion so core to this company. Cultural-competence and harassment/discrimination training are emphasized throughout the organization, as is talent identification and development for underrepresented groups, particularly women, globally. >> Read more

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Working Families

Eli Lilly and Company
No. 29 in the DiversityInc Top 50
Accepting Award: John Lechleiter, Chairman, President & CEO

“Helping employees integrate work and life is more important than ever as we look for ways to continuously improve productivity. … Early in my tenure as CEO, I made a decision to cut back on our flexible work programs, and our employee engagement suffered. [Bringing those programs] back is one of the best decisions I’ve made.”

This company has become a model of workplace flexibility for its employees. Globally, Lilly offers a number of programs, varying by location, to assist employees in maintaining work/life flexibility. These include flexible work arrangements, personal leaves, onsite health services/fitness centers, onsite childcare, campus credit unions and dry cleaners, and family-support programs. >> Read more

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Supplier Diversity

Marriott International
No. 21 in the DiversityInc Top 50
Accepting Award: Arne Sorenson, President & CEO

“Diversity and inclusion is deeply rooted in our company’s purpose. It includes opportunities to build a career, own one of our hotels or do business with us as a supplier. … We are very proud of our partnerships. They have made us successful and, in turn, we enjoy watching these businesses grow and investing in their communities. In 2011, these suppliers totaled 17 percent of our total spend, and we will continue to reach higher.”

Marriott has a long and rich history of creating community wealth by using local minority- and women-owned business enterprises (MBEs and WBEs) to build and service its hotels, especially in urban areas. Marriott’s Tier I (direct contractor) third-party certified spend is 7.8 percent with MBEs and 9.5 percent with WBEs, more than 25 percent higher than the DiversityInc Top 50 average for MBEs and more than double the DiversityInc Top 50 average for WBEs. Marriott also spends 1 percent of its Tier I procurement with vendors owned by LGBT people, one of the highest percentages we’ve seen. >> Read more

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Community Development

Wells Fargo
No. 33 in the DiversityInc Top 50 
Accepting Award: Michelle Lee, Executive Vice President, Northeast Regional President

“Reinvestment is an integral part of our culture, and it’s one of the things I enjoy most about my job—giving back to our communities, engaging as a volunteer and serving on nonprofit boards. It’s my responsibility at Wells Fargo as a leader. Last year, we invested over $213 million in 19,000 nonprofit organizations, and 165,000 Wells Fargo team members are involved in community-development activities across the country.”

The company’s commitment to the Black, Latino, Asian, American Indian and LGBT communities is remarkable for the depth of its efforts to reach suppliers, youth and low-income people. Sixty-five percent of the executives in the top two levels of the company sit on the board of a multicultural nonprofit. >> Read more

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Resource Groups

Dell
No. 26 in the DiversityInc Top 50
Accepting Award: Steven Price, Senior Vice President, Human Resources

“I’m really proud of the work our company has been doing around diversity and inclusion because it’s authentic. It’s core to who we are as a company. Our purpose is to bring technology solutions around the world that help everyone. No one grows and thrives alone; we all need relationships. That’s why our resource groups are so important … to develop a sense of community.”

In the past two years, Dell has placed a major emphasis on increasing employee participation in its resource groups, creating and expanding global groups, and using these groups to further its business. Dell has seven global resource groups. Three have chapters outside of the United States: WISE (Women in Search of Excellence) in the Asian Pacific Japan region and Europe, the Middle East and Africa; PRIDE (for the LGBT population) in Brazil, and True Ability (Employees or Family Members of Employees with Special Needs/Disabilities) in Brazil. >> Read more

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Diversity-Management Progress

Kellogg Company
No. 49 in the DiversityInc Top 50
Accepting Award: John Bryant, President & CEO

“As we look at the Kellogg Company we have a very special bond with our consumers: Every day people bring our products into their homes and feed their children. Our goal is to help us understand our consumers so well that every day we’re in an even better position to bring our best to those consumers. And to do that, we need not just a diverse organization, but an environment which is inclusive, where the ideas of that organization can come into our products, so we can create even better products for our consumers.”

Kellogg’s progress in all four areas of diversity management that we measure has been considerable in the past year and shows every indication of being sustainable. This progress put Kellogg on the DiversityInc Top 50 list this year. >> Read more

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Executive Development
Kraft Foods
No. 7 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50
Accepting Award: Mark Clouse, President of U.S. Snacks Business Unit

“One of the hallmarks of Kraft is a belief in healthy dissatisfaction. The world in which we live changes on a daily basis: If you stop moving forward, you’ll find yourself behind. … Any program of diversity that’s built into a company needs to understand that it starts from day one and travels with those individuals throughout their career. The representation of the collegues working with us will reflect all of the countries working with us.”

Talent development and the use of diversity training, resource groups and mentoring to maximize potential have been priorities for Kraft Foods in recent years—and the results are impressive. Following a recent split into two separate entities, the resource groups and talent-development initiatives will be even more critical to the companies’ ability to connect with its increasingly multicultural consumer base. >> Read more

The post 2012 Special Awards: What Makes These 8 Companies Best at Diversity Management? appeared first on DiversityInc.

We honoring companies in six areas we have noted in the past three years—Community Development, Talent Pipeline, Working Families, Global Cultural Competence, Resource Groups and Diversity-Management Progress—plus one new area: Supplier Diversity. View previous DiversityInc Special Award winners.

These companies demonstrate through their data and their documented achievements measurable results that positively impact both their business goals and their employee/community populations.

Additionally, Dr. Cornel West spoke at the Special Awards dinner. Dr. West is the author of Race Matters and Democracy Matters and is a professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Global Cultural Competence

Ernst & Young
No. 6 on the DiversityInc Top 50 list
Accepting Award: Steve Howe Jr., Area Managing Partner – Americas

As a truly global company, Ernst & Young understands how crucial the understanding and respect of local cultures is, while staying true to the values of inclusion so core to this company. Cultural-competence and harassment/discrimination training are emphasized throughout the organization, as is talent identification and development for underrepresented groups, particularly women globally.

James Turley, chairman and CEO, told DiversityInc last year that it’s best to tailor a company’s initiatives by geography so diversity strategies remain central to local customs and beliefs. Once established, diversity leaders can then look to incrementally push the boundaries.

Ernst & Young has global resource groups for professional women, LGBT employees and Black professionals in several countries. The groups have executive sponsors and meet during the workday.

Ernst & Young is a founding member of WEConnect International, a corporate-led nonprofit that helps to empower women business owners to succeed in global markets. The firm is working with WEConnect on development of a national certification process for women-owned businesses in India, while its employees in Canada and the United Kingdom are actively involved with WEConnect.

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Community Development

Wells Fargo
No. 33 on the DiversityInc Top 50 list 
Accepted Award: Michelle Lee, Executive Vice President, Northeast Regional President

“Wells Fargo is only as strong as the communities we serve,” the financial-services company states. The company’s commitment to the Black, Latino, Asian, American Indian and LGBT communities is remarkable for the depth of its efforts to reach suppliers, youth and low-income people. Sixty-five percent of the executives in the top two levels of the company sit on the board of a multicultural nonprofit. Some examples of its philanthropy:

• In 2008, Wells Fargo achieved its goal to lend $1 billion to Black-owned small businesses and extended the goal to $2 billion by 2018.
• In 2010, Wells Fargo provided $61.1 million in grants to nonprofits focused on community development in distressed communities, including affordable housing, homeownership counseling, financial education, workforce development and job creation.
• The company has an online financial-literacy program in English and Spanish and teams with local Latino organizations to host free, bilingual programs on money management.
• Wells Fargo is a founding sponsor of the Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund. Since 2004, the bank has given $500,000 for scholarships for college-bound students from underrepresented Asian and Pacific Islander communities interested in pursuing careers in banking and financial services.
• In 2010, Wells Fargo invested $219 million in 19,000 nonprofits nationwide.

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Working Families

Eli Lilly and Company
No. 29 on the DiversityInc Top 50 list
Accepted Award: John Lechleiter, Chairman, President & CEO

This company has become a model of workplace flexibility for its employees. As Lechleiter stated: “Lilly recognizes the critical importance of work-life integration tools to address the diverse needs, expectations, lifestyles and work styles of employees allowing them to be the most effective.” Globally, Lilly offers a number of programs, varying by location, to assist employees in maintaining work/life flexibility. These include flexible work arrangements, personal leaves, onsite health services/fitness centers, onsite childcare, campus credit unions and dry cleaners, and family-support programs.

Flexibility is a productivity tool that allows for adaptation of how, when and where work is completed. Supervisors discuss with their employees the needs of the individual and the work group, as well as the types of flexible work arrangements that are appropriate for a particular position. For employees, flexible work schedules are about lower stress levels, better health, a stronger focus on work while working and greater trust—all leading to loyalty, inspiration and innovation. For Lilly, flexibility is about being able to recruit and retain the best talent in a competitive marketplace, preparing for the changing environment and reducing the cost structure related to absenteeism, and healthcare—all leading to improved levels of engagement, which drives productivity.

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Diversity-Management Progress

Kellogg Company
No. 49 on the DiversityInc Top 50 list
Accepted Award: John Bryant, President & CEO

Kellogg’s progress in all four areas we measure in diversity management has been considerable in the past year and shows every indication of sustainable forward motion. This progress put Kellogg on the DiversityInc Top 50 list this year, in the highly competitive consumer-packaged-goods industry.

The effort starts at the top. President and CEO John Bryant chairs the Executive Diversity & Inclusion Council and has instituted the first linking of diversity-management goals, both quantitative and qualitative, to executive compensation. The council reviews on a quarterly basis the company’s hiring, promotion and turnover activity reports and addresses trends with recommendations and actions.

Bryant and four of his direct reports serve as the executive sponsors of Kellogg’s six resource groups. The company’s resource groups are available to all U.S. employees and are utilized for recruitment, mentoring, talent development, retention, diversity training, marketing and community outreach.

The company’s supplier-diversity program, in existence for more than two decades, has experienced an almost six-fold increase in spending in the last 10 years and now supports more than 200 vendors owned by Blacks, Latinos, Asians, American Indians, women and veterans with disabilities. The company recently added businesses owned by LGBT people to its supplier database and will begin tracking them this year.

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Talent Pipeline

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation
No. 13 on the DiversityInc Top 50 list
Accepted Award: Andre Wyss, President 

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation understands the need for a diverse workforce and pipeline to senior management, both for cultural competency in its product development and marketing and for the most innovative workplace solutions. The company has been actively donating and volunteering to help youth from underrepresented groups reach their full potential, including direct involvement from its most senior leaders. A few examples:

• Each fall, areas of the business and members of the Diversity & Inclusion Councils and resource groups participate in its Disability Mentoring Day. In 2011, more than 100 employees volunteered to participate in the event focused on disability awareness and career opportunities for more than 50 high-school students and 10 college students/veterans who attended. The keynote address was by Rohan Murphy, a double amputee who became a Division 1 wrestler at Penn State University.
• In April 2011, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation brought nearly 150 students from 32 junior and senior New Jersey high schools to its East Hanover campus for its Annual Multicultural Teen Corporate Mentoring Program. Structured activities included a welcome from André Wyss; panel discussions with eight senior leaders; and a mock product-marketing challenge.

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Supplier Diversity

Marriott International
No. 21 on the DiversityInc Top 50 list
Accepted Award: Arne Sorenson, President & CEO

Marriott has a long and rich history of creating community wealth by using local minority- and women-owned business enterprises (MBEs and WBEs) to build and service its hotels, especially in urban areas.

Marriott’s Tier I (direct contractor) third-party certified spend is 7.8 percent with MBEs and 9.5 percent with WBEs, more than 25 percent higher than the DiversityInc Top 50 average for MBEs and more than double the DiversityInc Top 50 average for WBEs. Marriott also spends 1 percent of its Tier I procurement with vendors owned by LGBT people, one of the highest percentages we’ve seen.

Supplier diversity is included in RFPs (requests for proposals), procurement-management compensation is tied to supplier-diversity results, and Marriott provides mentoring, financial education and financial assistance in the form of more favorable payment terms to its suppliers from underrepresented groups.

As an example, Marriott partnered with a U.S.-based woman-owned business to help grow her capacity and distribution channels to provide the design, production and fulfillment of training materials for its managed hotels around the world. Marriott also helped her share her expertise with other women-owned businesses.

Marriott has been honored by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, the Women Presidents Educational Organization and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for its supplier-diversity efforts.

2012 DiversityInc Top Company for Resource Groups

Dell
No. 26 on the DiversityInc Top 50 list
Accepted Award: Steven Price, Senior Vice President, Human Resources

In the past two years, Dell has placed a major emphasis on increasing employee participation in its resource groups, creating and expanding global groups, and using these groups to further its business.

Dell has seven global resource groups. Three have chapters outside of the United States: WISE (Women in Search of Excellence) in the Asian Pacific Japan region and Europe, the Middle East and Africa; PRIDE (for the LGBT population) in Brazil, and True Ability (Employees or Family Members of Employees with Special Needs/Disabilities) in Brazil.

The groups are available to all U.S. employees. Each group provides a charter of its strategy and mission annually, with a strong value proposition for its members, communities and Dell’s business goals. Programs include a Cross ERG Leadership Series and brown-bag sessions to help members learn software and social-media applications.

Business-relevant uses include:

• GenNext generational group providing feedback into product development and packaging. GenNext offered expertise on the launch of internal social-media vehicles.
• Adelante Latino group developed a process in which Spanish-speaking individuals deliver product briefings to prospective Latin American customers.
• The Asians in Motion group translated materials into languages for customers across Asia.
• The True Ability ERG has been engaged in product development for customers with disabilities.

Top Company for Executive Development
Kraft Foods
No. 7 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50
Accepted Award: Mark Clouse, President of the U.S. Snacks Business Unit

Talent development and the use of diversity training, resource groups and mentoring to maximize potential have been priorities for Kraft Foods in recent years—and the results are impressive.

Kraft’s Vice President of Diversity Jim Norman and retired executive Wayne Canty presented the company’s JumpStart program at our winter Innovation Fest! The initiative helps new managers, especially those from underrepresented groups, understand the corporate culture and the subtle signals of bias that can derail a career. For the video and presentation of this innovation, go to www.DiversityInc.com/innovationfest.

As the company undergoes a split this year into two separate entities, the resource groups and talent-development initiatives will be even more critical to its ability to connect with its increasingly multicultural consumer base.

Essential to that connection are its 10 resource groups, which are available to all U.S. employees, including hourly workers. The groups are used for recruitment, engagement, talent development, leadership training, marketplace research/connections, and diversity training. Resource-group members serve as facilitators for Kraft’s “The Power of Differences” internal training.

The groups’ success is measured through increased referral/rate of hires of people from traditionally underrepresented groups, retention of talent from those demographics, and increased promotion rates.

Almost three-quarters of its managers are involved in its formal mentoring program, which includes group mentoring, mentoring for new hires and traditional one-on-one mentoring. Seventy percent of the mentoring pairs are cross-cultural.

–Barbara Frankel

The post Diversity Management: 2012 DiversityInc Special Awards 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.

For more best practices on resource groups, view our Diversity Web Seminar on Resource Groups: Connect With Customers for Top Sales Results.

The post Solve Problems Collaboratively With Resource Groups (VIDEO) appeared first on DiversityInc.

Lou Miramontes, partner, KPMG (No. 22 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity), Jim Norman, vice president, diversity, Kraft Foods (No. 7), and Nellie Borrero, managing director, global inclusion and diversity, Accenture (No. 12), discuss these issues in our diversity web seminar on diversity metrics/accountability.

Moderated by DiversityInc’s Barbara Frankel, senior vice president and executive editor, these diversity leaders reveal the keys to their diversity-management success through their measurement of diversity metrics and best practices such as resource-group membership, mentoring participation, philanthropy to multicultural organizations, and supplier diversity—and how they link executive compensation to the success of their diversity-metrics scorecards.

The 90-minute diversity web seminar, which is also available as a downloadable PDF, will offer readers comprehensive information in the form of case studies, including:

• Insight into key best practices in diversity management from our exclusive DiversityInc Top 50 data, such as mentoring, philanthropy and metrics measurements
• How KPMG determines its diversity goals and why it takes a layered approach to measurement
• What Kraft Foods’ diversity and inclusion initiatives are and how it uses a diversity-performance factor to hold leaders accountable for results in diversity management
• Why measurement helps Accenture fully utilize its diversity-management initiatives

Borrero says, “Building an inclusive and diverse workplace through a culture of sponsorship and measurement … is a journey.” Make sure your organization is prepared and is measuring the right metrics.

Watch the diversity metrics web seminar on DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

The post Diversity Web Seminar on Diversity Metrics: Which Diversity Metrics Are Most Valuable? appeared first on DiversityInc.

By Shane Nelson

Q: What are the top drivers of employee engagement?

A: Employee engagement can be a barometer of how well diversity efforts have been implemented. In the workplace, high employee engagement leads to increased retention rates and higher productivity, which helps to drive down costs of replacing employees and lost productivity. In the marketplace, high employee engagement leads to better customer satisfaction. So how can organizations retain their talent and empower them in the marketplace? Here are three ways our data demonstrates that diversity helps increase employee engagement.

Senior-Management Accountability

The CEO and his/her direct reports serve as ambassadors for employee engagement. Engagement of senior management is often contagious, reverberating throughout the entire workforce. Our research shows that when the CEO and his/her direct reports are held accountable for diversity-management results, it sends the message that diversity is a business imperative. The benefits of accountability are twofold. The company benefits from increased employee engagement across the board, resulting in positive results such as an increase in the diversity of recruits or diversity of those promoted, or even increased diversity of senior management.

Sodexo is proof of these goals working. In the DiversityInc article Linking Executive Compensation to Diversity Goals,  the company notes that it links 25 percent of senior-executive pay to diversity goals and 10 percent to 15 percent for all bonus-eligible managers. The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 averages 12.2 percent, up from 11.5 percent in 2011. Encompassing the diversity goals are process metrics that impact behavior change and outcomes, such as being a mentor or executive sponsor of a resource group. There are representation goals, such as recruitment and promotions, that are based on the availability of women, Blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans and American Indians for the area and the position. Dr. Rohini Anand, senior vice president and global chief diversity officer, cites Sodexo’s employee-engagement scores, which have gone up dramatically and have been driven by increased scores mostly from women, Blacks, Latinos and Asians.

Resource Groups

For the DiversityInc Top 50, resource groups  serve as a key measurement of employee engagement. Participation in resource groups gives employees many advantages in navigating their careers. Participation in resource groups promotes career growth by exposing employees to the right people and the right projects. Ninety-six percent of the DiversityInc Top 50 companies have senior executives leading resource groups. Participants have the opportunity to showcase their talents to senior executives and in many cases are exposed to a senior executive they might otherwise not have come in contact with, and vice versa. This kind of exposure creates bidirectional engagement.

Senior executives find that new talent and participants are recognized for bigger projects. A resource-group study by Sodexo found that the top two reasons its employees joined resource groups were networking and to enhance professional and personal development. An Aetna employee-engagement study found that while overall engagement of employees increased from year to year, those in resource groups had significantly higher engagement scores than those not in the groups. Measures of manager effectiveness and customer focus also showed the biggest difference between those in resource groups and those not in the groups.

It also helps when a resource group is specifically tasked with increasing engagement and promotions of Blacks, Latinos, Asians or women, such as Kraft Foods. The company started a resource group for women in sales, the Women’s Sales Council, with the objectives of increasing the percentage of women in key sales positions and elevating them in the company. The group convened annually with more than 80 women leaders. Kraft Foods reported increases in promotions of women in sales by 39 percent.

Mentoring

Our data shows that mentoring is a vital component in driving employee engagement.  Companies that excel in diversity management use their formal mentoring programs to identify and nurture high-potential employees. The mentoring programs are formal and cross-cultural, meaning the mentor is of a different race, gender and/or sexual orientation than the mentee. Seven years ago, 10 percent of the DiversityInc Top 50 had mentoring programs with cross-cultural components. Today, 96 percent of the DiversityInc Top 50 companies include cross-cultural components in their mentoring programs. This ensures that the programs are reaching all races and genders and increases cultural awareness of all, including those at the senior-most levels.

Data from the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 survey shows a positive correlation between having a formal mentoring program and senior-management representation.

For IBM, it starts with identifying talent early. Every year, current executives and those who go through a screening process across the enterprise globally who are identified as having potential for executive leadership go through the company’s Business and Technical Leadership Process (BTL). Candidates are assessed against a set of competencies, including the ability to manage cross-culturally and globally. Leaders are asked to evaluate their own competencies as a part of that exercise, and where they come up needing development, specific efforts and opportunities around both mentor and mentee occur.

Ron Glover, vice president, diversity and workforce policy, human resources, notes, “We want to be conscious that the cross-cultural ones are the ones that tend to evolve into sponsorship types of relationships, particularly if they are at the more senior levels of the organization. But it has to build up the pipeline all the way up from the entry level of the organization, particularly if that’s the path [to] move into senior roles.” Glover spoke at a  DiversityInc roundtable on talent development. Watch the video below.

The post How Do Resource Groups, Mentoring and Accountability Drive Engagement? appeared first on DiversityInc.

But how do these companies use resource groups to reach community groups and schools to find new talent pools? How are they communicating to potential job candidates about the company’s inclusive culture?

DiversityInc asked several corporations for their best talent-acquisition practices to find out. Outtakes of their responses are detailed in “Resource Groups & Recruitment.”

For example, Ernst & Young uses resource groups to gain leadership access by holding formal employee-referral discussions to scout for similar leadership potential and to mentor future candidates.

Read this article for more best practices from ING, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, ADP, Kraft Foods and Prudential Financial.

For more on resource groups and their benefits, watch our resource-groups web seminar.

The post How to Reach New Talent Pools With Resource Groups appeared first on DiversityInc.