Target continues to improve its diversity-management initiatives, with a deep focus on talent development.

The company’s exemplary mentoring program is a model for other organizations, with group, virtual and peer mentoring, as well as skip mentoring (in which a senior leader mentors a team member two or more pay grades below the mentor) and a technology-focused mentoring program. Ninety percent of managers participate in the mentoring program, which is cross-cultural and has metrics to assess progress. Target is being honored on Oct. 16 as DiversityInc’s Top Company for Mentoring.

Target has a variety of resource groups, used for talent development, recruitment, on-boarding, community relationships and marketing, mentoring and diversity training. Those training efforts include an annual Asian Leadership Day and the LGBTA Business Council’s bringing in ally training for corporate headquarters. The groups are used for cultural-competence education sessions at corporate headquarters, which are webcast to other company locations.

Target’s corporate philanthropy includes several multicultural organizations, including GLSEN, the National Black MBA Association, the National Society of Hispanic MBAs, UNCF, and the Hispanic, Asian & Pacific Islander American, and American Indian scholarship funds. Almost 30 percent of Target’s senior executives sit on the boards of multicultural nonprofits.