As the healthcare industry is revolutionized under the Affordable Care Act, organizations that are successful will need to evolve to provide the best care for all citizens, says Deloitte’s Kelvin Womack.

Womack, who heads the Federal Health sector practice for Deloitte Consulting, has a new role in which he will help find the best, most diverse talent to address those challenges: He’s now also Managing Principal of Diversity, charged with helping all of Deloitte’s U.S. offices recruit, engage, retain and promote people from underrepresented groups.

“When we talk about diversity, we always talk about the power of differences; I see diversity as providing the power of perspectives—we have talented and smart people and we get better collective innovation,” he says.

Healthcare Revolution

The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act means a major business shift for hospitals, health-insurance companies, retail pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies.

“The Affordable Care Act is transformational to our nation. Our clients are looking at us to help them navigate. We are looking to harness the power of collective thinking and they need to see that we look like them,” Womack says.

His clients are looking for “more today than prepackaged solutions,” he notes, citing the need for innovative ideas to drive patient engagement and business. As an example, he mentioned Deloitte’s Center for Federal Innovation in Rosslyn, Va., where the company uses a Highly Immersive Visual Environment (HIVE) to analyze clients’ data with advanced visualization, interactive modeling and immersive environments to present creative ideas.

Diversity Management Solutions

The priorities of Womack’s new diversity-and-inclusion role are aligned with this need facing healthcare clients. “The challenge in healthcare—and other industries—is how we acquire, develop and retain diverse talent,” he says.

One of his main focuses will be on synchronizing the efforts of all of Deloitte’s U.S. operations. Recruitment of younger people is also another key priority, he says, adding: “We need to compete better for minority and women talent by amplifying the Deloitte brand at colleges and universities. How do we get to these students even earlier in their career? There is a limited population and all the firms like ours are going after the same people.”

Talent development is also an essential focus, with increased emphasis on identifying high-potential talent from underrepresented groups and mentoring and sponsoring them. He cites the Emerging Leaders Development Program, which includes formal sponsorship relationships, with prescribed hours and measurable results.

“We want to give them advice and guidance on how to grow their own careers, develop strategic opportunities, build their confidence in their development areas, and help them connect with others in the firm,” he says. The program, which started in 2005, has helped more than 700 people, many of whom have become Partners, Principals or Directors. Last year, the company had three times as many nominations for the program as there were slots available.

The challenge for diversity-and-inclusion programs today is figuring out how to help leaders become representative of all their employees, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc., Womack similarly explained at DiversityInc’s Innovation Fest! “It’s not about what I think I represent but what our people think I represent,” he said.

Paying It Forward

Womack understands the value of mentors more than most people. His parents were poor and received welfare when they weren’t working on the assembly lines at Ford Motor Company. Raised in Florida, Ohio and Michigan, Womack was a good student whose life was changed by a high school guidance counselor who suggested he apply to the U.S. Naval Academy. He got in “and my life was changed forever.”

After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he rose to the rank of Captain, Womack went to work in corporate America, landing at Deloitte.

“I am living the American dream and it’s because of people who have helped me. When just one person shows intimate care, it makes all the difference in the world,” he says.

He feels strongly about giving back—both to Deloitte employees from underrepresented groups and to the community, working with the Wounded Warrior Project and with The Children’s Inn at NIH (the National Institutes of Health), a home away from home for children needing lifesaving care.

“When it comes to our people, I want to make sure that not only am I paying it forward, but that our people understand what that means,” he says.

The post Deloitte’s Kelvin Womack: Connecting D&I and Healthcare appeared first on DiversityInc.

Read this story in the DiversityInc magazine digital issue, and sign up to receive DiversityInc magazine.

When senior tax consultant Juan Betancourt first came to the United States from Colombia, he knew his only option for success was to graduate college: “I knew it would be hard for my father to afford college, so I came to live with an aunt in Texas” and work full time as a dishwasher to get an accounting degree from the University of Texas.

However, a roadblock during Betancourt’s sophomore year almost prevented him from graduating. “All my college buddies had gotten internships at great companies. I had nothing and panicked. I was the first person in my family to go to college and didn’t understand all the things you have to do,” he says.

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities’ (HACU) National Internship Program (HNIP) helped him get the experience he needed with an internship at Deloitte, No. 8 in The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity. The program places high-performing college students with paid internships at corporations such as DiversityInc Top 50 companies PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sodexo, Marriott International, Eli Lilly and Company, and Target. Students also are placed at federal agencies. HNIP held its 20th-anniversary celebration gala on Oct. 22 in Washington, D.C., and has placed more than 10,000 students to date. Thirty-three percent of interns receive offers of employment, and 57 percent of the offers are accepted, HACU reports.

“If it wasn’t for HACU’s connections, I’d have a different type of job and career,” says Paola Marte, HACU alumnae and senior tax consultant for Deloitte in New York City. Marte, born in the Dominican Republic, was among the first in her family to attend college. “The Big Four don’t recruit at small schools like mine [Barton College in North Carolina],” she says. “HACU was the bridge that allowed me to go to a large firm and line up a job before graduation.”

The transition from college to career is clear-cut for many middle-class students: You take classes, obtain an internship, graduate and then apply for jobs. But a majority of first-generation college-goers, many of whom are Latinos and immigrants, aren’t aware of the opportunities available to them, according to Dr. Antonio R. Flores, president and CEO of HACU. And the majority of Latino parents don’t have the career knowledge needed to provide the necessary guidance.

“Lack of exposure to development of expertise, successful interviews, taking corporate exams for entry or for full-time opportunities—all these things need to be addressed,” says Dr. Flores.  “Latino students need to know it’s possible for them to go into these high-performing careers, that these types of positions are available.”

Dr. Flores adds, “We have to make them think of themselves as professional, then give them a game plan to get there.”

The post HACU Helps You Develop Latino Talent Pipeline appeared first on DiversityInc.

People in the St. Louis region refer to their home as a thriving “city of neighborhoods.” Each of the city’s 79 communities features its own identity with distinctive characteristics and cultural heritage. Nicknamed the Gateway City, the city’s populations trace their heritage back to Africa, Asia, Latin America and many European countries. The largest demographic group is Blacks, who currently make up 49.4 percent of the population.

Despite the racial/ethnic diversity of the city’s nearly 320,000 residents, the neighborhoods formed by immigrant communities in the late 1800s to early 1900s remain very homogenous, says Reena Hajat Carroll, executive director of the Diversity Awareness Partnership.

“There are very specific white restaurants and bars and nonwhite restaurants and bars. You very quickly realize you are of the nonmajority. It makes it very hard to fit in if you are not Black or white,” says Carroll, who is Asian Indian. “Increasing diversity awareness socially and in the professional arena is very important for the region to grow and remain competitive.”

The Diversity Awareness Partnership hosts a variety of programs to educate the public on issues surrounding race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity. The nonprofit also works with 14 partner corporations, which include Edward Jones, Ameren, the Cardinals baseball team and the Rams football team, as well as DiversityInc Top 50 companies PricewaterhouseCoopers (No. 1 in the DiversityInc Top 50) and Wells Fargo (No. 33).

In addition to supporting the Diversity Awareness Partnership, local businesses also are taking their own initiatives to increase diversity awareness. In particular, Ameren, MasterCard, Monsanto, Edward Jones, McCarthy Building Companies and Anheuser-Busch have made diversity efforts a key strategy for recruitment, talent development and succession planning. Their goal: to attract diverse talent to the area to increase innovation and, ultimately, the city’s economic success.

Ameren
Leadership Accountability & Diversity Training

The largest electric utility in Missouri, and one of the largest investor-owned utility companies in the nation, the St. Louis–based Ameren Corporation has more than 3 million customers in the surrounding region. To provide them with exceptional service, Ameren has developed a comprehensive diversity-training program that allows its employees to have more awareness of diversity and cultural nuances while out in the field.

It’s one of the things that Ameren, one of DiversityInc’s Top 5 Utility Companies, is most proud of, according to Sharon Harvey Davis, vice president and chief diversity officer—so proud, in fact, that it makes the diversity-training program available to other companies for use in training their own employees. (Go to the Corporate Diversity page at Ameren.com to purchase the DVDs.)

“A large part of our efforts at Ameren are to move diversity ahead so that we can bring employees along to a new area of diversity,” says Steve Parks, manager of diversity. The training program is now in its third year with a focus on creating awareness around people with disabilities. Previous years’ themes included LGBT and sexual-orientation issues, and interracial relationships.

Davis notes that one of the rewarding effects of the training is that it helps employees in the community. “Our resource groups are charged with impacting the community around their respective focus areas. We give them training for community involvement and customer involvement,” she says. “Everyone that lives here is our customer. We have to be good at diversity.”

Recently, Ameren was recognized for its efforts in the community: The Governor’s Council on Disability named Ameren as honorable mention (runner-up) for its annual Inclusion Award. Ameren’s Network for Disabled Employees frequently reaches out to area public schools to engage students with disabilities and teach them the importance of education. The group hosted a Mentoring Day that produced a two-fold benefit: Students met employees and learned about opportunities in the utility industry, while employees interacted with students and developed a new comfort level with this demographic.

Ameren also sponsors Rams Blitz: Youth Working Together to Break Through Boundaries, a sportsmanship program, featuring players from the NFL’s Rams, that is bringing together football teams from Seckman High and Parkway North High for a series of activities during the school year designed to promote understanding and acceptance of differences.

Overall, more than 50 percent of Ameren’s community giving goes to multicultural nonprofits and college-outreach programs. “Ameren is very well known for its diversity efforts. A lot of people come to work here already aware and knowledgeable of what we’ve done through outreach and community giving,” says Davis, who attributes the company’s reputation to CEO Tom Voss’ visible commitment to diversity and inclusion. “He’s helping the city become better for all types of people through his involvement in organizations like the regional chamber of commerce and The Black Rep theater. His effort speaks volumes and it’s impacting his peers and CEOs in the community to get involved.”

Davis notes that Voss often is called on by other organizations to speak, such as during Edward Jones’ Inclusion and Diversity Week in October: “He’s a corporate champion in the community.” She continues, “Tom made it clear that if you’re a leader in this company, you’re involved in diversity. It’s expected of all direct reports and all high-level executives.”

Voss, who spoke at DiversityInc’s event last April, discusses how he holds his executives accountable in his Q&A with DiversityInc at www.DiversityInc.com/tom-voss. Davis’ work with him is highlighted  in 2 Case Studies of CEO Commitment.

MasterCard
Recruiting Tech-Savvy Millennials Is Key to Innovation

MasterCard is technology focused, with a goal of improving security and efficiency for all consumers globally—covering a total of more than 23 billion transactions a year. As such, MasterCard’s strategic plan is closely tied to the innovation of its talent and, therefore, the diversity of its employees. This is especially true in St. Louis, where the company’s office for tech and operations is based.

“We’re focused on bringing in top, diverse technical talent and distributing that talent globally—and that’s not just diversity in ethnicity and gender,” says Rob Reeg, president of the MasterCard Technologies division of MasterCard Worldwide. He notes that students in the technical and operations fields at most colleges and universities predominantly are Asian males. “It’s increasingly difficult to find diverse kids.”

“We need different perspectives; technologies invented here have to work across the world. Having that reach and representation from location, ethnicities and cultures is needed for innovations,” explains Luis Campadelli, group head, Human Resources, MasterCard Technologies. “Millennials are early adopters of technology and willing to try new things, especially emerging mobile and ecommerce solutions.”

A key recruiting strategy for MasterCard, No. 15 in the DiversityInc Top 50, has been to attract Millennial workers via targeted internship programs with colleges that provide access to a diverse talent pool. The MasterCard Technologies unit has found success in hiring from universities across the Midwest over the past three years, with the number of Millennial employees in its workforce increasing from 10 percent to 24 percent.

“For us, you have to look from a technology lens, which makes Luis’ job a little harder. We have to focus on campuses that can bring us the right level of diversity,” says Reeg, noting that MasterCard also utilizes its resource groups—which include groups for Black, Latino, Asian, women, LGBT, veteran, older and younger employees—as a way to target and identify prospective candidates.

MasterCard also began collaborating this year with InSight St. Louis, which offers an immersion program for graduates of Historically Black Colleges and Universities who relocate to St. Louis and showcases the city as a great place to build a career, and with Washington University in St. Louis on a new MBA program.

The company plans to further its national recruiting efforts next year by partnering with the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities.

Additionally, MasterCard will continue its partnership with INROADS, a nonprofit that places high-performing Black, Latino and American Indian students in internships at leading corporations. It will also partner with Junior Achievement, which educates children about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy, and the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Programs, which engage students in activities that build science, engineering and technology skills.

Monsanto
Diverse Pipeline Improves Processes, Technology & Innovation

Diversity-and-inclusion efforts at Monsanto, No. 44 in the DiversityInc Top 50, give the global agriculture company “deep roots within the St. Louis community” that support its strong focus of business success through innovation, says Melissa Harper, vice president of Global Talent Acquisition and Diversity.

The world’s rapidly increasing population size and diversity make this particularly relevant today, notes Harper. Agriculture, she explains, is a pivotal intersection point among food, fuel and fiber where success is based on three factors—food/product demand, innovation and execution. With the world population expected to increase by 2.3 billion, to more than 9 billion, by 2050, innovation will be all the more important.

“That’s why we’re continuously looking for ways to improve on agriculture today, to help our farmers and growers be successful through better technology, processes and innovation,” says Harper. “We rely on people from all different backgrounds and viewpoints to develop new, best products continuously.”

Harper recently spoke at DiversityInc’s Innovation Fest! event about how the company’s three-part talent-acquisition process helps overcome recruiting challenges and more fully integrates and engages its employees from various global cultures. Watch the video:

Monsanto’s strategy takes a proactive approach to increasing diversity in the talent pool. St. Louis–based initiatives include outreach to support diversity and local communities through education—such as partnerships with the company’s philanthropic arm, the Monsanto Fund—to help encourage Black, Latino and women students to study STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects.

These efforts include financial contributions; partnering with professional associations, such as Black Data Processing Associates, Future Farmers of America, Women in IT and the National Sales Network; supporting school-based and local urban greenhouses; and allowing employees to volunteer in classrooms to assist with science experiments and provide tutoring services.

Monsanto also participates in the InSight St. Louis program. The nonprofit is dedicated to recruiting top graduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities to the St. Louis region. Monsanto and other participating companies host these students and provide educational development while showing them what it’s like to live and work in the city.

“We want to generate better awareness for long-term technology and engineering careers at Monsanto,” says Harper. This helps the company build a diverse, local set of qualified recruits for the future.

Additionally, Monsanto donated $1 million this year to the St. Louis Chapter of the United Negro College Fund. And members of Monsanto’s nine resource groups—Black, Latino, Asian, women, LGBT, family, veterans, people with disabilities, and young professionals—host and plan United Way’s Inspire Fashion Show each year, with all proceeds going to local charities in Greater St. Louis.

“Our recruitment and talent efforts are very deliberate. Being proactive helps us—we do not wait until we have an exact need to hire. Companies that do that tend to struggle a bit more,” says Harper.

Edward Jones
Improving Diversity in Financial Services—Getting White Men on Board

Although St. Louis has a diverse population, generating diversity awareness and finding diverse talent still proves to be a top challenge for organizations, particularly if you are in the financial-services industry, according to Emily Pitts, principal, Inclusion/Diversity at Edward Jones. The investment firm, which has 5,000 employees at its St. Louis headquarters, has nearly 7 million clients and more than 10,000 branches in the U.S. and Canada.

In a predominantly white- and male-dominated industry, the firm has had to make proactive efforts to attract diverse candidates to the region, she says. These efforts include fostering partnerships with multicultural organizations and professional associations, as well as its own robust recruitment and on-boarding programs for new hires.

“We sponsor events such as the National Urban League and the National Society of Hispanic MBAs. We’re always looking to strategically align ourselves with organizations that can help attract more diverse talent to St. Louis,” explains Pitts.

Like Monsanto’s Harper, Pitts notes the benefits of the InSight St. Louis program. Edward Jones has been a member for the last four years.

The company also has partnered with the Washington University chapter of The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management for the past three years. The program aims to attract diverse, young professionals who are pursuing their MBAs. Returning students have an opportunity to interview with the program’s sponsors.

Edward Jones also has a Rotational Development Program that rotates recent graduates through four or five divisions in the firm before they are assigned a final placement. This allows the graduates to learn about the culture of the firm and observe the intricacies and nuances throughout the business.

To support its talent development and recruitment efforts from the inside, Edward Jones for the last three years has held an annual Inclusion and Diversity Week for both its associates and leaders. The week provides employees the opportunity to hear national speakers, attend cross-cultural-competence workshops and network.

This year the firm extended the program to the surrounding community through a partnership with the World Diversity Leadership Summit. “Diversity 2012 and Beyond,” a two-day event hosted at the company’s headquarters, was attended by 200 senior global executives from leading corporations, and sponsors included Ameren, Prudential Financial (No. 9 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50), the Diversity Awareness Partnership, United Negro College Fund and Major League Baseball.

Local community-focused organizations also were invited to an exposition to showcase the opportunities for associates to get involved in community outreach. Nonprofits participating included the Disabilities Institute, the Diversity Awareness Partnership, the Urban League and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

“Having an event like this raises awareness and also creates a catalyst to get associates engaged. Diversity at Edward Jones is strong and we have a great culture, but people are always looking for what they can do or reasons for why we’re doing this,” says Pitts. “It creates a vehicle to educate and engage and promote the importance of inclusion and diversity in our firms.”

Additionally, Edward Jones works closely with the Diversity Awareness Partnership through the Give Respect Get Respect program. The five-month program brings together students from 25 middle and high schools, along with teachers and Edward Jones associates, monthly at Edward Jones’ offices to explore the issues of race, religion, disability, and sexual orientation and gender identity. Employees volunteer a total of 15 hours with the program, for which Edward Jones compensates them.

It’s a partnership that’s grown over the past decade, according to DAP’s Carroll. “Give Respect Get Respect provides companies internal diversity training in a nontraditional sense,” she says. “We’re helping students learn to handle conflict situations at school, like bullying and prejudice, but what also happens is students are teaching the adults. A lot of associates have kids as well so they get to hear an [unbiased] student’s perspective.”

Edward Jones was the first company to endorse the program, and Carroll says there will be three more companies—Boeing, the Saint Louis Zoological Park and the Missouri Botanical Garden—in 2013.

McCarthy Building Companies
Employee-Owned Company Builds Engagement Among Students

Finding diverse talent is also a key priority for McCarthy Building Companies, a St. Louis-based national general-contracting company that handles challenging, technical projects. “Talent is a significant issue and a concern for us across all our companies,” says Scott Wittkop, president, McCarthy Central Division. “The construction industry offers a wide variety of high-quality employment opportunities and will need to add 1.5 million workers to successfully install the volume of work expected in 2014 alone.”

Wittkop says his company’s advantage lies in his employees’ diversity and their ability to innovate by bringing different perspectives to the table. That’s why the company both looks to attract talent from across the country and continually develop its employees, as well as develop and engage talented students within local regions.

“We are continually challenging ourselves to accelerate the development of our top talent. Our annual senior talent-review process includes a formal identification of high-potential diverse employees and the creation of personal-development plans to foster their internal growth in our company,” says Wittkop, noting that talent development and retention is a particular concern for this 100 percent employee-owned company. “Developing our future leaders is critical to our long-term success.”

McCarthy Building Companies’ approach to talent management is just one part of its four-arm diversity-management strategy. The company also focuses on increasing educational support, collaborating with diverse clients and partners, and increasing philanthropic efforts.

For example, the company is the founding partner of the Introduction to Construction Careers program, which exposes diverse groups of talented students in St. Louis to high-paying construction careers. “It helps create awareness and excitement around those types of opportunities,” says Adam Knoebel, vice president of operations for McCarthy’s Central Division. “The construction workforce is aging and we’re all sending kids to school. The challenge is: Who’s going to be building our buildings in 10 to 20 years?”

Similarly, the Association for Construction Careers, Education & Support Services (ACCESS) serves to increase exposure to the construction industry among Blacks and Latinos, as well as provide educational support services. “The focus is to provide a clearinghouse for individuals interested in career opportunities in the city and put them in touch with needed educational opportunities,” explains Knoebel.

He adds, “Maintaining dialogue is important. We need to be a part of the conversation, internally and externally, and share best practices in a collaborative manner.”

The benefits of McCarthy Building Company’s diversity programs and outreach efforts are further dispersed throughout the region by its support of diverse suppliers. “Their ability to learn about a project early on and get involved with estimators” is a key driver for their ability to compete and find economic success,” says Monica Bailey, director of diversity, Central Division. “A lot of suppliers are unaware of projects out there, so we host specific events to collect their input, provide networking opportunities and help them with bidding, estimating and cost.” The company also provides formal and informal mentoring to diverse suppliers.

Wittkop and his executive team sit on boards or committees of 10 different nonprofits that are dedicated to improving St. Louis’ diversity within the workforce and among subcontractors. Currently, the company has dedicated approximately 18 percent of its spend to minority- and women-owned businesses, the company says.

Anheuser-Busch
More Than $1B in Social-Responsibility Commitments

Executives at Anheuser-Busch say their commitment to diversity management, and to maintaining a diverse employee base and inclusive work environment, is an essential strategy for the beer company’s business success. Creating an inclusive work environment not only helps it stay competitive in an increasingly global market and meet the needs of its consumers, but it also helps Anheuser-Busch stay true to its corporate goal of becoming the “best beer company in a better world” through focused efforts to promote alcohol responsibility, environmental sustainability and community outreach.

“At Anheuser-Busch, in all that we do we recognize our responsibility to improve the world where we do business. We are committed to building a company for the long-term with a legacy to be proud of—for the people who work for us and with us; for future generations and the environment in which we live; and, above all, for our consumers who we hope will always enjoy our products responsibly and be as proud to choose them as we are to create them,” states Anheuser-Busch’s Global Citizenship Report. The company has dedicated $1.3 billion to social responsibility since 1982.

As one of its foundational pillars, community outreach is a shared commitment among employees: More than 4,700 employees volunteered in 2011 with programs to promote alcohol responsibility, make a difference in the environment and help make a positive impact on local communities, including St. Louis.

With donations of $4.5 million in 2011 to United Way, Anheuser-Busch continues to be one of the health-and-human-services agency’s top corporate donors in the region. (The Anheuser-Busch Foundation and company employees have contributed more than $38 million combined to United Way since 1985.) Anheuser-Busch also avidly participates in Habitat for Humanity as a way to facilitate and improve economic development in local regions. Hundreds of employees helped to build homes in St. Louis in 2011, the project’s second year. “We’re proud to partner with Habitat to help our neighbors in need,” said Margarita Flores, vice president of community affairs for Anheuser-Busch. “Our employees look forward to these builds and it’s a real source of pride for them and us as a company.”

Additionally, Anheuser-Busch provides financial support to multicultural college students via national educational scholarship funds. This includes more than $24 million in contributions over the last 30 years to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF), which has provided more than 23,000 scholarships to Latino students, and a donation of $325,000 in 2011 to the UNCF, formerly the United Negro College Fund.

“We are committed to making a difference through our people, integrity of our business conduct, and support of our community. We are proud of the positive and meaningful impact our business has on the communities in which we work,” Flores said.

Anheuser-Busch also supports the National Urban League, St. Louis American Foundation, NAACP, Hispanic Chamber of Metropolitan St. Louis, Casa Salud, the Hispanic Arts Council, St. Louis LGBT Business Guild, Organization of Chinese Americans, American Legion Post, YWCA and numerous other diverse and inclusive organizations both in St. Louis and across the country.

The post Building a Diverse Talent Pipeline in St. Louis appeared first on DiversityInc.

In our diversity web seminar on mentoring and sponsorship, BASF’s Chief Diversity Officer Patricia Rossman, and Deloitte Consulting’s Kelvin Womack, Principal, Lead Client Service Partner, Federal Health Practice, and Managing Principal, Diversity, discussed:

• How BASF Successfully Launched a Mentoring Program: The company utilizes an eHarmony-style digital system to match mentors and mentees, which increases engagement and customizes each mentoring pair for optimal results.
• Why Sponsorship at Deloitte Drives Careers: The company’s pilot Navigation to Excellence formal sponsorship program nationally paired 15 Black, Latina and Asian women with sponsors. Participants reported improved relationships with senior sponsors, networking and communication skills.

Additional insights from BASF and Deloitte include:

• Relationship Must-Haves: What you need to formalize and integrate mentoring and sponsorship programs into your corporate culture.
• Benefits of Formal Programs: How are they different from informal programs and why companies opt to formalize their talent development.
• Metrics & Data: What are the best metrics to assess progress, especially involving retention, engagement and promotion?
• Consistency: How to achieve a sustainable program at your organization.

Please log in to DiversityIncBestPractices.com to watch the presentation and download the slides.

Not a subscriber? Buy this web seminar now, or request subscriber information and pricing for DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

The post Will Your New Mentoring/Sponsorship Program Succeed? appeared first on DiversityInc.

KPMG, No. 22 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50, is one of eight leading companies that presented at our Managing Relationships Between HR & Diversity Departments event held in New York City.

Visit DiversityInc.com/events for a schedule of our upcoming learning sessions, such as our DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity Announcement on April 23 and 24 in New York City.

Video Minutes

00:58 The Four Success Factors of Mentoring

02:27 KPMG’s Mentoring Expectation

08:30 Business Impact: Advancement Opportunities & Senior Leadership

12:20 How to Improve Mentoring Through Sponsorship

16:05 Sponsorship at KPMG: Different than Mentoring

17:53 Audience Q&A Session

The post HR, Diversity & Mentoring: A Correlation to Talent Development? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Dana Green, national manager, Corporate Diversity & Inclusion, and Nikki Nance, corporate manager administration, discuss at our diversity event how the car manufacturer’s innovative approach to diversity-management and HR enables the entire company to find, recruit, engage and retain the best talent, especially from underrepresented groups. Watch the video below.

Toyota Motor North America, No. 41 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50, is one of eight leading companies that presented at “Managing Relationships Between HR & Diversity Departments” held in New York City.  Visit DiversityInc.com/events for a schedule of our upcoming learning sessions. Also, register today for our  diversity web seminar on diversity councils on Oct. 16, where executives from Kellogg Company and Comcast will provide case study examples to help you  implement a successful diversity council–or better utilize the one you have–to drive measurable results.

For more on Toyota’s innovative recruitment and talent-development strategies, watch this Innovation Fest! presentation–How Recruiting People With Disabilities Solved Toyota’s Costly Problem–where executives detail how the company leveraged its employees with unique talents to speed up its production line, improve public relations and diversify its workforce.

Video Minutes:

0:00:00 How Manufacturing, Sales, Marketing & Finance Collaborate

0:01:15 Senior Execs Lead as Diversity Champions

0:02:14 Building Accountability for Diversity

0:03:30 Recruitment: Launching Mentoring Programs

0:04:25 Diversity Training for Diversity Champions

0:05:00 Diversity Benchmarking & Measuring Data

0:06:33 Executive Diversity Advisory Board

0:07:34 Recruitment: Work/Life Benefits, Messaging & Job Postings

0:10:52 College Recruiting

0:12:20 Talent Development & Measuring Employee Engagement

0:19:29 Toyota’s Two Pillars: Continuous Improvement & Respect for People

The post Working Collaboratively With HR: Recruitment & Talent Development appeared first on DiversityInc.

Elena Richards, talent management leader, Office of Diversity, PricewaterhouseCoopers, presents at DiversityInc’s Innovation Fest! how her firm improves hiring, engagement and promotion of Blacks by providing new hires a year-long leadership/talent-development program as part of its on-boarding efforts. The company is No. 1 in The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity. Watch the video below to learn about this innovative program.

The full Innovation Fest! presentations with PowerPoint slides are available on DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

Watch the other Innovation Fest! videos: How 9 Companies Capitalize on Innovation: Resource Groups, Engagement & Talent Development.

The post Increasing Engagement, Retention & Talent Development of New Black Hires 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.

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My colleagues and I at GLSEN have been faced with a similar question ever since we opened our doors in 1990 to create educational environments where every member of every school community is valued and respected, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. How can we identify and support talented young leaders in order to advance our common goal?

Our mandate is to improve the school experience for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students despite the many inclement conditions that can impact their ability to learn and succeed. Since our founding, GLSEN has served as a resource for schools, equipping them to be a safe space for LGBT students by preparing educators to teach the fundamentals, including respect for all. Our goal is to make sure that our nation’s youth are set up for success from the very moment a student enters kindergarten until they graduate from high school and set off to pursue their own hopes and dreams. The end result is a new generation of future leaders—LGBT-identified or otherwise—ready to address the issues of their time.

Yet sadly, LGBT students have shouldered the burden of making sure they can learn and grow despite being at heightened risk of facing incidents of victimization and hostility. A majority of LGBT students in the country have reported experiences of hearing homophobic remarks or even being physically harassed in school simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. And through more than a decade of research, we know that when an LGBT student feels unsafe in school, they are more likely to skip class, perform poorer in school and say they are less likely to pursue post-secondary education. Instead of worrying about a down economy, GLSEN has been confronted with the disparity in educational opportunities for LGBT students and their allies.

Student leaders were among the brave trailblazers who founded GLSEN, and student leadership has always been at the core of the programs and advocacy designed to address this disparity. Ten years ago, GLSEN decided to invest in supporting student-leadership development in and of itself, and we established a series of student-leadership programs designed to support student-driven efforts that would ensure schools were safe and free from the harmful disruptions of anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment. In doing so, we believed the very students experiencing these incidents of victimization would be empowered to not only create change in their schools but also transform their own lives into something more hopeful.

One of the first students that GLSEN partnered with was Nathan from Michigan. Nathan was assaulted in school during his freshman year because he was perceived to be gay. And Nathan wanted to make sure LGBT students and straight allies—like himself—would not have to go through what he did. Nathan decided to join GLSEN as a student organizer where he and dozens of other LGBT and allied students from across the country received skills-building training, resources and individualized support throughout the year to make an impact in their school and communities. In turn, Nathan coordinated GLSEN’s Day of Silence in his community, helping to organize nearly 400 student participants from six high schools and two colleges to raise awareness about anti-LGBT behavior in school. He even went on to found his high school’s gay-straight alliance to support LGBT and allied students, and he lobbied the board of education to include protections for LGBT students within district policies.

Fast forward to the present and I can’t begin to share all of Nathan’s achievements. This remarkable young man graduated from high school and studied public policy at the University of Michigan. Soon after, he decided to put his education and community involvement to work by successfully running for a seat on East Lansing’s city council. And it’s worth noting that Nathan remained actively engaged with GLSEN’s work by serving on our national board of directors.

Nathan’s story isn’t a fluke. In fact, it has become an increasingly common and gratifying experience for me to hear of more students involved with our safe-schools work to excel in the classroom and accomplish tremendous things at such an incredibly young age. And research has shown that GLSEN’s student programs help LGBT and ally youth learn vital leadership skills and increase their engagement in community organizing and activism.

Take, for example, Jeremy, who is a current GLSEN student leader and high-school sophomore in Fargo, N.D. Jeremy recently traveled to Washington, D.C., where he secured Sen. Kent Conrad’s support for the federal Safe Schools Improvement Act. Or I can point to GLSEN student leader Tiffani from Arlington, Va., who recently met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to share how the U.S. Department of Education could better serve LGBT students experiencing bullying and harassment in school. These are just a couple of the growing examples of student leadership that GLSEN and our 36 local chapters across the country continue to cultivate and nurture.

GLSEN understands the many benefits of cultivating young leadership while encouraging their academic potential to succeed. And our perspective on how student leadership can improve school climate mirrors a similar understanding on talent management found within the corporate workplace. In order to maximize business performance, corporations must invest in leadership- and talent-development opportunities for their workforce. For GLSEN, we empower LGBT youth and their allies with tools and support to create a safer school climate where every student is able to succeed. And we know these leadership skills and experiences follow a student well beyond school and into the workplace when they successfully apply for their first job and their career begins to unfold.

The student-leadership model that GLSEN continues to build upon demonstrates how we can successfully address systemic challenges like anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in school. But it has also shown its astonishing value in transforming the lives of young people everywhere.

I remain in touch with Nathan, but I now receive a growing amount of emails from former students filled with news about their latest achievements at college or work. When I read these heartwarming notes, I am reminded that they and other young adults will be the next dynamic leaders in business, politics, education, media and social entrepreneurship. And I can say with confidence that our world will be in capable hands when the next generation is ready to lead.

By Dr. Eliza Byard, executive director of GLSEN. DiversityInc Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Barbara Frankel is a member of the GLSEN National Board of Directors.

The post Where’s the Pipeline of LGBT Talent? Why We Need to Support Gay Youth appeared first on DiversityInc.

Chief Diversity Officer Rohini Anand of Sodexo (No. 2 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50) led the discussion at a recent DiversityInc event and explored the challenges companies face in improving female representation at the executive levels. The audience of corporate and diversity leaders was able to ask questions, contribute their best practices for talent development and share firsthand their real-life success stories.

Companies participating included: PricewaterhouseCoopers (No. 1), Procter & Gamble (No. 5), American Express (No. 14), The Coca-Cola Company (No. 46), and BASF and Wyndham Worldwide (both are on DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies list). 

In What’s the Biggest Global Diversity Challenge? Female Talent Development, we share their best talent-development strategies and case-study examples that can help improve your pipeline of female talent globally. 

Talent-Development Best Practices for Women:

1. Provide a peer support system for women to help keep your top performers in the workforce
2. Promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace with respect for local laws
3. Gain cultural competence and understanding for local barriers to gender equality
4. Provide opportunities for global assignments to challenge and engage employees
5. Understand special issues facing women with strong family demands and devise culturally competent solutions
6. Adopt flexible workplace practices and educate managers about the value of flexibility
7. Use alumni/networking connections to encourage loyalty from female talent
8. Get senior-level managers on board with gender-intelligence training
9. Assign diversity champions in select countries to promote diversity-and-inclusion initiatives and help reduce gender bias

Read What’s the Biggest Global Diversity Challenge? Female Talent Development on DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

The post What’s the Biggest Global Diversity Challenge? Female Talent Development appeared first on DiversityInc.