We see this relating back to diversity management in three key areas:

Corporate reputation: The public was up in arms when several Wall Street corporations accepted taxpayer bailouts to avoid bankruptcy and then proceeded to dole out hefty bonuses to its executives. With now-tarnished reputations, these organizations give protesters a key target to blame for continued economic inequity. Keep your executives accountable for achieving individual, non-financial initiatives, such as diversity goals, and publicize these efforts to help avoid attacks from protesters.

Intergenerational communications: A majority of OWS protesters are millennials, a tech-savvy, self-promoting generation of people in their 20s and early 30s whom many employers struggle to understand. (Many are recent college grads who can’t find jobs and have plenty of time to stake it out on the picket lines.) A survey we summarize on DiversityIncBestPractices.com details how to successfully engage Generation Y workers so they will be peer advocates for your company, while our Generations at Work webinar discusses these strategies further.

Philanthropy: It’s hard to pin a scarlet letter on an organization that has a history of corporate responsibility. Make sure your actions speak louder than words; get involved in your community. Research on employee volunteer programs—such as those at PricewaterhouseCoopers (No. 3 in The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity) and Prudential Financial (No. 16)—shows that 78 percent of employees value a company’s ethical status more than the salary they receive.  

Will Occupy Wall Street Occupy Your Front Entrance?

Gain further insight into how the 99 Percent movement is impacting corporate America and why diversity management is key to the solution in DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti’s Ask the White Guy column on DiversityInc.com, and in the roundup of relevant OWS/99 Percent news coverage below.

What the Occupy Protests Can Do Next
Christian Science Monitor reports that continuing income inequality following the housing bubble will sustain OWS protests.

Cantor Discovers Income Inequality
The House majority leader admits to the existence of economic injustice, calling to solve the disparity with more high-income friendly legislation.

The Fight for Equality from MLK to Occupy Wall Street
Huffington Post blogger makes the case that racial equality is akin to the social and economic justice that OWS supports.

Video: MLK’s Daughter: My Father Would Have Supported The 99 Percent Movement
Rev. Bernice King calls OWS “a freedom explosion” for racial and economic injustice.

Dr. Boyce: Black People Need to ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Too
News One column calls Blacks to the front lines to combat inequality in wealth, homelessness and job distribution.

Protesting for Diversity: Occupy Wall Street Round Table
Latino USA’s roundtable debates how OWS directly links to the prominence of racial injustice and grassroots inequality over the last decade.

Video: Danny Glover’s Inspiring OWS Speech: “You Represent Troy Davis”
Danny Glover asserts to protesters the need to stand together to represent all the non-union workers, people who are homeless and those who are dispossessed to bring about economic change.

From Tahrir to Wall Street: The Role of Religion in Protest Movements
A Huffington Post blog details how the Faith and Spirituality tent at Occupy Boston creates a space for equality and diversity celebration.

Video: Russell Simmons Joins Occupy Wall Street Movement
The hip-hop entrepreneur shares with The Washington Post his support for OWS and its stance on love, justice and unity.

Video: Kanye West Occupying Wall Street
In this BET.com video, R&B artist “silently” supports giving economic power back to the people.

The post What They’re Saying: Diversity Strategies to Keep Occupy Wall Street Protesters at Bay appeared first on DiversityInc.

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is targeting corporate America. I don’t think it’s a flash in the pan; rather, it’s gaining momentum. That means that getting behind the situation—waiting for the protestors to show up—is an unrecoverable situation that is bound to destroy productivity, market share and investor equity.

It has to be pretty tough on average employees to cross through a crowd that regards them as part of the problem. How about when you’re applying for a job? Nobody wants to answer their child’s question of “Mommy, why is your company’s logo on that piñata?” Management would have to be obtuse to be happy about declaring a record profit when the protestors are right outside; it’s not the best way to appear on CNBC. Further, it’s never a good idea to make investors nervous. In this kind of market, repercussions are swift and strong.

Although OWS organizers seem to be mostly white, diversity is playing a huge part in the movement because the issues that drive Occupy Wall Street disproportionately impact underrepresented groups. My hunch about the lack of OWS diversity is that although this recession has impacted Blacks and Latinos more than white people, white people are seeing the largest tangible drop in lifestyle. It’s a matter of what you expect compared with what’s actually happening—and that’s why I think OWS momentum will continue to build.

Domestically, U6 unemployment (which includes underemployed people), for the past three years, has averaged more than 16 percent—nearly double the percentage of the average of the 10 years before the crash. At the current rate of job growth, it will take at least five more years to recover the jobs lost in this recession (seven years in total). In comparison, it took only nine months for job losses to be recovered in the 1981 recession. What was the working middle class (people who were not in knowledge-worker jobs but were earning what enabled a decent lifestyle) has been permanently damaged economically. Aside from unemployment, here are some basic facts that point to building momentum in this election year as our nation reels from the following:

• 3 million home foreclosures
• 10.8 million mortgages under water
• 22 million people unemployed or underemployed
• 45 million people on food stamps
• 50 million people with no health insurance
• Trillions spent on Iraq and Afghanistan with no end in sight
• $850 billion student-loan debt (now larger than credit-card debt)
• 13 percent Congressional-approval rating

It’s infuriating to many people that nobody has gone to jail for the subprime crisis. We are a country that has less than 5 percent of the world’s population but has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners. You would think that this is one area in which we would excel, but we’re far better at imprisoning some groups than others. More than 50 percent of prisoners are Black and Latino. Tellingly, Black and Latino households were two to five times as likely to be sold inappropriate subprime loans. In contrast, look at the representation at the Wall Street banks. Nowhere do you find equity.

Traditionally, the way for governments to quash protests is to eliminate means of organization and communications. After Nat Turner’s uprising, slave states passed laws prohibiting teaching of enslaved people to write. W.E.B. DuBois estimated that only 5 percent of slaves were literate in 1860. Today, with the Arab Spring, we have seen how oppressive governments, who controlled traditional media, were swept away by people with Internet and cell communications that were unavailable just 10 years ago. Please think about the facts presented above—if the “system” has failed you, and you feel that there is no hope for the status quo to change, it’s logical to change the status quo.

How much your company is perceived as being part of a problem is dependent on three factors: values, deeds and communications.

Johnson & Johnson’s Credo is the most clear and concise and the best statement of corporate values that I’ve ever seen. There is a precedence of whom to care for: consumers and the supply chain, employees, communities and stock holders, in that order. The entire value statement fits on one sheet of paper and is written in very human, caring and absolute terms.

Your reputation is dependent on how well you execute your stated values. Most corporate value statements imply equitable treatment for people; some include a statement about valuing diversity, but most companies do not execute equitably. Execution can be measured by outcome, and the closest measure of how well you live up to your values can be found in your human-capital results. For example, do you have equitable promotion by race and gender? Do you make sure the pipeline is what it needs to be to make that happen? How you treat your own people—by outcome—is the critical measurement of your execution of values. It’s impossible for me to believe that a company can treat its customers, suppliers and the community any better than it treats its own people. The corporate practices that hold people accountable for equity in outcome are responsible for sustaining an equitable culture. When an organization has an equitable culture, it is far more likely to not make mistakes that damage people.

Finally, your communications must meet the challenges of the times. Most of the companies I meet with are somewhat reticent to discuss their good deeds. Most are also unfocused in their communications. Trusting a third party to manage communications is a mistake. You must do this yourself because it has to be from the heart. (Ever notice that ad agencies don’t advertise their own services?) In an era where many people tweet their inner dialogue to hundreds of their “friends,” your organization cannot present old-school blow-dried and hair-sprayed “statements” or a robo-Facebook page without creating a target. Your best course of action is to honestly, vigorously and persistently communicate how well you have executed your values. I suggest you put a human face on it by having the CEO communicate with his/her picture on the website. Have you seen Mr. Bill Marriott’s blog? It’s down to earth, just like Mr. Marriott. In a time when distrust and fear are causing people to take to the streets, an absence of good news can be interpreted as something to hide.

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