To evaluate the impact of global diversity efforts, we have investigated best practices that correlate to results, measured in increased human-capital diversity and business opportunity. Through 203 data submissions and extensive interviews with 25 companies, we have learned that diversity-and-inclusion initiatives have been mostly focused around gender, while efforts to include ethnic and religious minorities, people with disabilities and LGBT people are just beginning to surface.

We studied all global regions and found the most successful diversity-and-inclusion efforts in Europe, Asia and Central/South America. Virtually all start with initiatives aimed at women that emphasize local cultural values. We found direct correlations between companies that have initiatives for recruitment and talent-development programs for women and increased representation of women in the workplace, management and the senior-executive ranks. We also note correlations between D&I initiatives such as resource groups and mentoring, and increased female representation in management ranks.

Support from corporate and local leadership is especially critical when addressing other dimensions of diversity. Companies in every region with global diversity councils have made far more significant inroads in LGBT inclusion. And companies with regional diversity councils led by local business leaders are far more likely to implement supplier-diversity initiatives.

In this report, we will document which best practices are working through analytical data and case studies demonstrating results. All of the companies we have analyzed tell us these efforts are just beginning and they expect to see rapid advancement in their global diversity efforts and enhanced competition for talent.

I. Methodology: DiversityInc’s Global Diversity Research

This report relies on two years’ worth of data submissions, totaling 203 entries from 46 countries. The submissions represent nine industries—professional services, technology, consumer-packaged goods, pharmaceutical, chemical, manufacturing, auto, hospitality and medical devices. The questionnaire was designed to be culturally competent, capturing and codifying demographics (gender, age and locally underrepresented groups where reportable) as well as best practices (talent and leadership development, resource groups, diversity councils, supplier diversity).

Our thirteen 2012 sponsors helped us determine what best practices to examine locally and globally to implement initiatives with sustainable results. Our interviews, with an emphasis on talent development, leadership pipeline and resource groups for underrepresented groups, gave us perspective on what has worked for different companies in different countries/regions, and how they overcame challenges. The sponsors are: Accenture, BASF, Cigna, Dell, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, Ernst & Young, General Motors, Merck & Co., Medtronic, Pfizer, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sodexo and Wells Fargo.

Companies filled out the survey for each country they chose; most also provided information for headquarters. The survey continues to stay open. We add companies, countries and regions to our database with each new submission. The survey has approximately 100 questions and is divided into the following seven sections:

• General Information: Ascertains how long the diversity-and-inclusion initiative has existed, and how it is organized and staffed (full-time, part-time and volunteer).
• Headquarters: Assesses global diversity councils and global support and control of local diversity-and-inclusion initiatives.
  
• Leadership and Values: Examines what diversity and/or inclusion means locally, what the three biggest challenges/barriers facing successful D&I efforts in each country are, what type of internal diversity council has been established, the support of local business leaders, how D&I is integrated into the local business goals, what metrics are used to assess D&I success locally (i.e., what is the business case?), and how employee engagement is measured.
  
• Human Capital: Measures workforce, management and senior-management representation by gender, looks at the age of the workforce in each country, and probes whether the local organization has specific recruitment and leadership-development efforts for women and other underrepresented groups.
  
• Best Practices for Global Diversity: Looks at local efforts to implement global diversity strategies and initiatives that include resource groups, mentoring, training, outreach to LGBT people (where legally permissible), outreach to people with disabilities, work/life benefits (especially flexible workplaces), and website communications about D&I.
  
• Supplier Diversity: Studies whether local supplier diversity exists and, if so, what groups are targeted and what best practices are in place to support growth and impact.

 II.  Major Global Diversity Findings 

Our findings show significant correlations between established best practices and human-capital results, primarily measured in recruitment and promotions of women. The data and interviews support specific and proven approaches to recruitment, leadership development, flexible workplaces, formal mentoring, resource groups, generational issues and global executive diversity councils. Full findings are available to global sponsors and global consulting clients. (See more information on DiversityInc Global Consulting.)

Examples:

• Companies with formal recruitment policies aimed at women reported dramatic increases in female representation in the workforce. For example, in India, companies with formal recruitment policies had one-third more women in the workforce.

• We note a significant increase in management opportunities and promotions for women in companies that have locally based leadership-development programs aimed specifically at women. In contrast, leadership programs targeted at underrepresented groups are scarce globally. For example, in Brazil, companies with leadership programs for women had almost four times as many women in management as companies without these programs; in Japan, the difference was sixfold.

• Almost all companies surveyed felt that flexibility in terms of hours and location is key to increasing retention, engagement and promotions of women and younger people in general. The degree of flexibility often depends on the local cultural role of women and how strong their home/family duties are. For example, in France, companies with flexible workplaces have almost double the percentage of women senior executives and a third more women in management. They also have double the amount of women in the workforce.

• While formal mentoring and sponsorship programs are just beginning to catch on in most of the world, their impact in areas where they have been in place is dramatic. For example, companies in Australia with formal mentoring had one-third more women executives than companies without.

• Global resource groups traditionally are aimed at women and focus almost exclusively on talent development, but we are beginning to see groups based on age, sexual orientation and, in a few cases, race/ethnicity. There are definite correlations between having groups and increased diversity in the workplace. For example, in the United Kingdom, companies with resource groups had 10 percent more women in management.

• Our research shows a vast difference in the age of workers in various countries, with many Asian countries having very young workforces and some European countries having older workforces. The issues facing them are very different and, therefore, require a variety of solutions. For example, more than half of the workforce of the countries in Asia are younger than 34.

• Global executive diversity councils are increasingly used to set D&I strategies for the organization, which then are filtered to local diversity councils for implementation. They show organizational consistency in values and subsequent messaging, which produces results in the global workplace. For example, in Europe, companies with global executive diversity councils are twice as likely to offer domestic-partner benefits in countries where they are legal and three times more likely to include sexual orientation in training. And companies with global executive diversity councils are also three times more likely to have regional councils to implement strategies. Supplier diversity is a good example of that: Companies with regional councils in Europe are twice as likely to have formal supplier-diversity outreach. (There is virtually no supplier diversity in Asia yet.)

Case Studies:

Global Diversity Best Practice: Developing Female Talent in Australia: Can flexible workplace models and leadership programs provide measurable improvements in gender diversity? Read these case studies from Deloitte and Ernst & Young.

Global Diversity Best Practice: Flexible Workplaces in India: Global companies must combat a “leaky pipeline” of women talent, but these best practices from Sodexo, Merck, Dell and Deloitte can improve retention.

2 European Case Studies: People With Disabilities & Ethnic Minorities: How are Sodexo and Merck recruiting people from underrepresented groups in Europe?

Best Practice: IBM’s Global LGBT Support: How is IBM’s global commitment to the LGBT market reshaping its business advantage? It builds credibility and trust with clients—and increases revenue prospects.

III. Conclusions About Global Diversity

The direct link between diversity-management best practices and sustainable human-capital results is clear from this research as well as from the interviews with executives around the globe.

To highlight the key correlations:

• Companies with recruitment programs for women recruited 20 percent more women in Europe and Central/South America.
• Companies with leadership programs for women had 44 percent more women executives in Asia.
• Companies with flexible work arrangements had 34 percent more women executives in all areas studied.
• Companies with formal mentoring programs had 12 percent more women in Central/South America.
• Companies with global diversity councils were twice as likely to have global LGBT efforts in all regions.
• Companies with regional diversity councils led by local country executives were four times more likely to have supplier-diversity programs in Europe and Asia.

The best practices the companies have detailed for us, and which still are evolving, increase representation, engagement, productivity and marketplace connections. However, the research shows they work most effectively when specifically tailored to local cultural norms and when there is support from both global headquarters and local leadership.

There are demographic differences between regions, which we note in this research, such as the much younger workforce in Asia and older workforce in Europe. There are also varying standards on women’s roles in and out of the home, inclusion of LGBT people, the need for proactive efforts to include people with disabilities, and the importance of supplier diversity.

Global diversity is evolving at different paces in various regions and countries, but all participating companies agree to its increasing importance in having an engaged workforce that relates to the local population.

WHAT’S NEXT? 

Our consulting practice can help build your global diversity initiative and successfully implement it on a local level. This service includes: Making the business case to local leadership; in-depth assessment of organization/current initiatives; roadmaps and specific plans of action; situational analysis; written and verbal debriefs.

Our next round of global research will start in the spring of 2013, and will focus on increasing our knowledge database, especially in emerging-market countries where there is significant business-growth potential. Sponsors will be able to shape the best practices we study and will receive data analysis of their submissions compared to the competitive set.

For more information on consulting and research sponsorship, visit DiversityInc Global Consulting or contact consulting@diversityinc.com.

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The announcement, made by Merck Foundation Executive Vice President Brian Grill, is an affirmation of the company’s core value of inclusion. Merck & Co. is No. 16 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50.

“We cannot continue to provide support to an organization with a policy that is contrary to one of our core beliefs. We remain ready and willing to re-consider our funding position in the event that the BSA were to revise its policy,” Grill said in a statement. “We’re confident that this decision is aligned with our high ethical giving standards and strong core beliefs, and reinforces our long-standing commitment to policies that prevent against discrimination.”

The company also plans to review its other funding decisions for 2013 and will evaluate whether those contributions align with the company’s policies and ethical beliefs.

Records show that in 2011, Merck gave $30,000 to the Boy Scouts of America and $10,000 to the Cradle of Liberty Council, which governs troops in the Philadelphia area, where Merck Chairman, President and CEO Kenneth Frazier grew up.

LGBT Discrimination & Boy Scouts

The Boy Scouts’ gay ban, which prohibits LGBT people from participating in the organization as leaders and scouts, has been in place for more than a decade. In June, the BSA was slammed by LGBT supporters when it failed to make any revisions to its anti-gay ban and refused to allow Jennifer Tyrrell, a lesbian, to resume leadership of her troop.

Other corporations have suspended funding to the BSA as well. Additionally, two Boy Scouts board members have spoken out on the issue: Ernst & Young (No. 6 in the DiversityInc Top 50) Chairman and CEO Jim Turley became the first board member and corporate leader to publicly urge the BSA to change its policy, and AT&T (No. 4) Chairman, President and CEO Randall Stephenson also issued a public statement promoting diversity and inclusion. Both companies earned 100 percent scores on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.

Ernst & Young, No. 4 in The DiversityInc Top 10 Companies for LGBT Employees, and Turley in particular have been very visible supporters of diversity and inclusion.  Turley spoke at a DiversityInc event, for example, about his public pronouncement for the rights of women in Saudi Arabia, and he served as keynote for the Committee for Economic Development’s release of its “How More Women on Corporate Boards Would Make America and American Companies More Competitive” report.

Stephenson also spoke at a DiversityInc event, discussing the need for cultural diversity in education and corporations’ responsibility to build diverse talent pipelines among talented youth. AT&T is No. 8 in The DiversityInc Top 10 Companies for LGBT Employees.

Also read:

Supreme Court to Hear Prop 8, DOMA Cases

Diversity Wins: Demographic, Psychographic Shifts Decided Election

Gay-Cure Ban Stops ‘Quackery’ Therapy

LGBT Pride Facts & Figures

Ask DiversityInc: How Can Corporations Support Same-Sex Marriage?

Safe LGBT Spaces: What Schools Can Learn From Resource Groups

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Employees Make the Case for Resource Groups

After four years with Aetna in customer service, Cyndee Ward was at a crossroads familiar to many women. She had a toddler son and a newborn daughter and had every intention of becoming a stay-at-home mom. Then came the call.

“It was from someone wanting me to work on a project. Half-kiddingly, I said, ‘The only way I’m coming back is if I can work from home.’ And he said, ‘No problem,’” she recalls. Ward became chair of the company’s Telecommuting Network resource group.

Stewart Anderson of HP has a very different story. He joined the tech company in 1999 in product development. A gay man, he had lost jobs at other companies after being outed. Since his partner had children from an earlier marriage, Anderson was very leery about coming out at HP.

Then in 2004 he was asked to attend a company weekend workshop called White Men As Allies. “It was cathartic on so many levels. I came to understand that, being a white male, I had so many things attributed to me that I had no knowledge of. I came out that weekend to the organization and it changed everything,” he recalls.

Anderson joined HP’s Pride group, which he believes at 30 years old is the oldest LGBT resource group anywhere. Working in the organization, he developed his leadership skills and today is a business operations manager in consumer products.

“I started out with the company as an individual contributor,” he says. My ability to think systematically and globally is largely because of my involvement in the resource group. There was reciprocal mentoring. I was able to interact with other senior leaders in a non-threatening way.”

For Ward, Anderson and thousands of employees across the United States and, these days, globally, membership in a resource group has been critical to their retention and development and often has made the difference in their career trajectories. For their companies, resource groups play a rapidly increasing role in the recruitment, retention and talent development of ALL their employees and in their marketing efforts aimed at traditionally underserved communities.

Four Business Benefits of Resource Groups

• RecruitmentAll of the DiversityInc Top 50 companies use their resource groups to recruit new members. Five years ago, only 75 percent of them did this best practice, but they’ve realized quickly how valuable an asset resource groups are for recruitment.

Specifically, they use resource groups to attend job fairs, host networking events for both recent college graduates and more experienced professionals, connect with their alma maters (especially HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions and women’s colleges) and offer testimonials on websites. Most importantly, they meet with potential recruits and talk to them about the cultural fit in the organization. They also spread the word to friends that this company is an inclusive place to work.

The resource groups can be used for very targeted recruitment. At CSX, for example, the Military Affinity Group worked with the staffing department on a specific recruitment strategy aimed at veterans. They recruit veterans in 23 states covering 108 military installations. The results? In 2008, 26 percent of total hires at CSX and 19 percent of management employees were former military.

• RetentionWhat are the key reasons vital employees leave? They feel disconnected and/or they feel as if their careers are stalled. Resource groups can address both aspects and improve retention, identifying cultural gaps that can prevent employees from realizing their potential, providing “safe” spaces to discuss them, offering mentors to guide them and giving constructive feedback.

For example, Accenture‘s Pedro Suriel said the company’s Hispanic group made members realize that a failure to speak up in a meeting “because I was brought up to respect people in positions of authority” is not a reason to leave but an issue to address that can lead to a successful career path.

• Talent DevelopmentResource groups are among the best sources of finding leadership talent and nurturing it. Many employees who might not have the “right” credentials to move up in management get a chance to shine as they develop into leadership roles in their resource groups. 

The groups also can identify potential talent and set up external and internal talent-development programs to develop them. At CSX, the African-American Inclusion Group has sponsored nine Black, female employees to be part of the National African-American Women’s Leadership Institute.

• Market OutreachAt many companies, especially consumer-facing ones, employee-resource groups serve as vital focus groups and innovators in terms of products, product placement and understanding the marketplace.

“The networks very much want to be connected to the business plan, and it also gives them lines of exposure to the business that they may not work in,” says Kerrie Peraino, former chief diversity officer at American Express.

On a global level, in 2008, Merck & Co. created 10 global-constituency groups, part of whose mission is to connect with their local markets.

“Historically, in the pharmaceutical sector, we haven’t really asked our employees to step out of their professional, technical subject-matter expertise and have their knowledge as healthcare consumers form our strategy,” says Deborah Dagit, chief diversity officer at Merck. “So this actually gave people a level of permission to do that, which they got really excited about. And it’s really helped us to be on the leading edge with our new commercial model approaches, the way we’re approaching research and clinical trial inclusion, and our strategic alliances.”

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Why do DiversityInc Top 50 companies have 4 percent more women CEOs than Fortune 500 companies? How do they use best practices in diversity management to build a sustainable pipeline of women executives? IBM, Kraft Foods, WellPoint and Health Care Service Corporation have women CEOs and a base of women leaders in the next two levels of executives.

The exclusive articles and web seminars on diversity management listed below feature data and strategies that benefit women in mentoring, talent development, resource groups and diversity metrics.

Where’s the Diversity in Fortune 500 CEOs?
There’s a dearth of Black, Latino, Asian and women CEOs running major companies—but the DiversityInc Top 50 companies have better stats, thanks to diversity-management efforts.

Women’s History: Diversity Fact & Figures
Here are the relevant women’s-rights events and demographics you need to know.

Mentoring Roundtable: How Mentoring Improves Retention, Engagement & Promotions
In this diversity-management roundtable, IBM reveals how its women’s resource group creates targeted mentoring programs to increase promotions of women.

How Kraft Increased Promotions of Women in Sales by 39%
One of 12  diversity-management case studies: Kraft shares how to leverage employee-resource groups to increase representation of women, especially in senior management.

Increasing Diversity in Talent Development
Merck & Co.’s diversity-management leader recounts during this roundtable how its women’s resource group partnered with external educational programs to better develop its women talent for executive roles.

Resource Groups Webinar
How are resource groups helping MasterCard and Aetna improve employee retention, especially among women employees, to reach business goals?

Why Is Global Diversity So Difficult?
Our exclusive research from 17 countries explores how the norms around advancing women vary between European and Asian nations and what companies are doing to address issues of gender equity through diversity management.

Diversity Metrics Webinar
How does your company fare with the representation of women in the workforce, especially at management levels? This diversity web seminar will teach you how to accurately track key diversity-management metrics and set a diversity-management scorecard.

For more on gender equity and current women’s issues, read How ‘Slut’ and ‘Sweetie’ Challenge Gender Equity.

The post Why DiversityInc Top 50 Companies Have More Women CEOs appeared first on DiversityInc.

More than three-quarters of the companies DiversityInc benchmarks, including most of the DiversityInc Top 50, are concerned about getting more racial/ethnic and gender diversity in their senior-management ranks and in the lower levels as a sustainable long-term pipeline to the top.

While “talent development” is the phrase that everyone uses to emphasize maximum engagement and realization of full potential, it remains elusive in many cases as employees—especially those from traditionally underrepresented groups—leave or just bide their time without fully contributing.

In this 3,160-word article, DiversityInc offers best practices and insights from a panel of chief diversity officers from five DiversityInc Top 50 companies with the highest scores in talent-development initiatives and results. We also present our data findings and recommendations.

The roundtable participants include Debbie Storey, senior vice president, talent development, and chief diversity officer, AT&T (No. 4 in The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity); Beth Brooke, global vice chair of public policy, sustainability and stakeholder engagement, Ernst & Young (No. 6); Deborah Dagit, vice president and chief diversity officer, Merck & Co. (No. 16); Sylvester Mendoza, corporate director, workforce diversity & EEO, Northrop Grumman (No. 42); Pat Crawford, senior vice president and head of diversity and inclusion, Wells Fargo (No. 33); Luke Visconti, CEO, DiversityInc; and Barbara Frankel, senior vice president, executive editor, DiversityInc.

Readers will learn:

• The three key areas that most benefit efforts to improve engagement, retention and promotions of people from traditionally underrepresented groups
• How to use resource groups as a recruitment resource
• Why increased participation in these groups leads to increased engagement
• Why cross-cultural mentors are important to nurture talent, especially among women
• How to build mentoring relationship across business lines
• The impact that strong CEO commitment can have on diversity efforts

For more best practices, case studies and results, read the full 3,160-word Increasing Diversity in Talent Development article.

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Diversity and inclusion research shows that understanding local cultures is key to creating inclusive workforces globally. But how can companies actually do it? Global diversity is an increasingly complex issue: Organizations must sustain their corporate values, often U.S.-based for multinationals, while respecting local cultural nuances. DiversityInc addressed this issue at our event in Washington, D.C.

DiversityInc Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Barbara Frankel presented initial findings from the DiversityInc Global Diversity survey of 17 countries, which surveyed more than 100 companies in 17 countries (in Europe, Asia and BRIC countries) on global diversity-management challenges and best practices.

Read the complete 1,008-word article Best Practices to Overcome Global Diversity Challenges, with full-length session videos, on DiversityIncBestPractices.com for more detail on how to implement these best practices at your organization.

Key findings include:

• Efforts to value and measure difference, including gender, are challenges in most countries and are illegal in some European countries. Differences are not valued across the board
• Disability recruitments are increasingly government-mandated in some countries (France, China, Brazil)
• Corporate LGBT efforts are rare globally, except for IBM
• Supplier-diversity efforts are minimal outside of the United States, even for gender

Leaders from five of The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity also provided case studies during the two-day event’s sessions. Attendees heard from Ron Glover, vice president of diversity and workforce policy, human resources, IBM (No. 17 in the DiversityInc Top 50) and a panel of global-management experts: Billie Williamson, partner, Americas inclusiveness officer (retired), Ernst & Young (No. 6); Sharon Wright, vice president, human resources, international division, Prudential (No. 9); Hitomi Fukasawa, human resources and general affairs, Dryden Customer Center, Prudential (Japan); Deborah Dagit, vice president and chief diversity officer, Merck & Co. (No. 16); and Eugene Kelly, worldwide director, global diversity and inclusion, Colgate-Palmolive (No. 10).

They discussed the strategies needed to successfully leverage cultural differences among employees and the markets they serve, and how to increase business from a talent and performance standpoint. Their best practices include:

1. Align diversity goals with core business values
2. Communicate those diversity-infused business goals to local regions
3. Be consistent across all regions and management levels
4. Hold leaders accountable for diversity goals

Read the complete 1,008-word article Best Practices to Overcome Global Diversity Challenges, with full-length session videos, on DiversityIncBestPractices.com for more detail on how to implement these best practices at your organization.

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