The October issue, with Dr. Julianne Malveaux, President Bennett College for Women featured on the cover, presents its 10 most powerful woman in the health, medicine and pharmaceutical industry. Other articles include interviews with Ria Stern, Global Brand Executive for Hyosung, Terry Austin AIG and Alicia Morga CEO of Consorte Media. Departments include the art of delegating, the power of thnic marketing, and how to rediscover your “authentic self.”

This issue also, for the first time, features an interview with a man —Mike Davis, Director of Diversity and Inclusion at DLA Piper. Davis talks honestly about woman in the workplace, from a male perspective. The decision to include a man was controversial for some DW supporters, but the editorial board decided that in the name of diversity, a male point of view would be refreshing.

Decide for yourself! You can subscribe to Diversity Woman on its website, www.diversitywoman.com

• I ordered vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate

• I chose the Ferris Wheel over the roller coaster

• I was no longer too cool to cry during movies

• I realized that I didn’t have to finish a book that wasn’t engaging me — my time was too precious

• I no longer felt the need to one up my sister all the time

• My friends and I threw a dance party (that started at 7 and ended at 10:30) , instead of just going to a bar to boogie

• I said to our son, “because I said so.”

• I walked the dog because I needed the exercise, not her

• I started to read the business section in the daily paper

• I still read the daily paper

• I stopped wearing t-shirts with logos on them (except at the gym)

• I went to buy a sexy outfit and came home with a pair of men’s pajama pants

• I turned down the volume on the car radio when my son was driving

• I began subscribing to the symphony

• I put sunscreen every time I went outside—even on a cloudy day.

• I stopped being embarrassed about my horrendous singing voice and began singing Take me out to the Ballgame at the top of my lungs.

• I had sexual fantasies about the Paul Newman in the Color of Money instead of the Paul Newman in Hud

• I resisted sneaking that extra slice of wedding cake

• I realized I was relating to the girl next door instead of the bad girl in TV movies

So your initiated a diversity, equity and inclusion program for your company and have completed a round of initial training. You don’t want to lose the momentum established, so what’s next? How do you keep the positive energy alive and ensure that diversity principles filter throughout the entire org chart?

1. Emphasize that everyone needs to take ownership.

Disseminating diversity practices throughout your organization and its culture is not just a top-down initiative. You must have buy-in and participation on all levels. Make sure to direct your efforts throughout the company, not just with managers. This entails not only training, mentoring and management development programs, but encouraging and helping employees to set up affinity groups and increasing your diversity communications efforts so everyone is in the loop.

2. Limit word-of-mouth recruiting.
Most employees associate mainly with people like themselves. So if your workforce is not already diverse, relying on word-of-mouth recruiting virtually guarantees a continuation of a non-diverse workforce.
To achieve diversity, expand your recruiting efforts. Place advertisements in newspapers or with organizations that focus on the community from which you are trying to recruit. Also try posting the vacancy at the state unemployment office.
Read the entire article in USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/jobcenter/workplace/employmentlaw/2002-12-02-diversity_x.htm

3. Communicate!
What good is even a robust diversity program is nobody—internally or externally—knows about it? A diversity program needs to be disseminated and reinforced with regular communication, via newsletters (print or electronic), websites, blogs, email blasts and other vehicles.
Consistent diversity and inclusion messaging buttresses not only the company’s commitment to diversity, but displays a coherent strategy.

• For starters, make sure to go “public” with your diversity statement and inclusiveness policies in all appropriate communications with all audiences. Post it on your website, prominently.
• Leverage your website to teach managers diversity best practices and present the latest research and thinking on topics such as mentoring, diversity hiring, diversity training and networking. The website is also an ideal vehicle for, in one location, promoting events, training sessions, resources and making a human connection between policy and training and success in the field.
• Reinforce organizational diversity in publications and other media through print, graphic, and audio/visual representations, and translations, while avoiding tokenism
• Establish yourself as a thought leader. Include diversity topics as appropriate in industry or professional publications.
• Remember, diversity can be intimidating and complex, both the concepts and the language. Therefore, different constituencies require different communication channels and messaging.
4. Sweat the details.
Microinequities are cumulative, repeated behavior and subtle messages that devalue, discourage, and impair performance in the workplace. It’s imperative that the company and its leaders are aware that a seemingly small action or comment—such as saying Merry Christmas to a Muslim employee who does not celebrate that holiday—can have a deleterious effect.
Here’s some tips:
• When holding an offsite meeting, selecting venues that are accessible, attractive, and hospitable to diverse groups
• Planning program or agenda to interest and be sensitive to the needs of diverse participants
• Planning educational activities that represent all levels of experience and diverse viewpoints
• Using a variety of presenters that diverse audiences can identify with
• Including accessibility, accommodation, and language options in registration materials
5. Walk the walk.
Nothing harms a diversity program more than the perception that it is not valued at the top. But preaching commitment is not sufficient. Senior managers must examine their own processes and demographics and look for ways to make visible change.
One place to start is the succession plan. If the group of employees being groomed for future leadership positions is not diverse, ask why. Are the training and work experiences that are necessary to advance to the highest levels accessible to all groups? Are there promising employees who have not been steered on the right career path who could benefit from mentoring? If implemented from the top down, diversity and inclusiveness can be achieved.

Finally, here are some excellent pointers from ASAE (the American Society of Association Executives), a nonprofit dedicated to both increase performance and also make a positive impact on society. These pointers can serve as a checklist for initiating, or enhancing, your diversity efforts.

http://www.associationforum.org/resources/diversity-topics.asp

So your company is rolling along, with a robust diversity program. You got a CDO installed (or at least a HR representative who has diversity matters on her plate), you’ve done some training of upper and middle level management, and even encouraged and helped employees form some affinity groups.

And you’re feeling pretty good, right?

Well, even the most robust and highly functioning diversity program is not leveraging its resources if no one knows about it. It’s too easy to pat each other on the back and hope for the momentum to continue. But people forget unless messages are reinforced. Here’s a great article, part of a Rand Corporation white paper, that makes the case for folding a communication program into your diversity efforts.
www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2007/RAND_OP206.pdf

Here’s 10 reasons why it’s important that you establish a diversity communications program to communicate with your internal and external stakeholders and therefore support and extend your laudatory diversity efforts.

Rational and benefits of an integrated, strategic diversity communication program:

• Recruitment/retention tool: Attract a larger and more diverse pool of applicants as both internal and public-facing communications demonstrating the organization’s commitment to diversity.

• Cross promotion: share strategies and cross-fertilize ideas among the various organizational units—highlight each, so readers can get us quick snapshot of how their peers are promoting diversity.

• Recognize—and thus reward—internal diversity champions. Encourage and publicize career success stories from leaders, managers, and employees.

• Promote community for underrepresented staff, through announcements, columns, articles and profiles of diverse staff members. Help reduce isolation and marginalization; promote employee affinity groups.

• Internal: Leverage the website or e-magazine to teach managers diversity best practices and present the latest research and thinking on topics such as mentoring, diversity hiring, diversity training and networking. Website is also an ideal vehicle for, in one location, promoting events, training sessions, resources and making a human connection between policy and training and success in the field.

• External: Promote your company as a diversity expert. Serve as a diversity, equity and inclusion portal—create an integrated program and place for aggregating and then disseminating best practices, findings, studies and information on diversity, equity and inclusion—at your company and in your industry. This portal, or program, can serve as a one-stop shop for understanding and working with diversity, equity and inclusion practices and principles.

• “Shine a light” on the system’s progress and intent regarding diversity: transparency demonstrates commitment.

• Diversity can be intimidating and complex, both the concepts and the language. Therefore, different constituencies require different communication channels and messaging.

• Consistent diversity and inclusion messaging buttresses not only the company’s commitment to diversity, but displays a coherent strategy.

• Make employment and promotional opportunities public so all employees have pertinent information and any perceptions of favoritism are prevented.

One of my gigs is serving as executive editor of Diversity Woman (www.diversitywoman.com), a national women’s business magazine targeted to entrepreneurs and woman executives at Fortune 1000 companies. In our fall 2008 issue we ran an informative and thought-provoking piece on the politics of size in the workplace, which delved into the challenges larger woman experienced in corporate America.
Size Doesn’t Matter
(http://diversitywoman.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75:size-doesnt-matter&catid=65:features&Itemid=140)

As originally written, the word “fat” was the adjective used to describe these women. The rationale was, that for the most part, the support groups and organizations that represented a woman of size, used that term.

However, as we got closer to print, the publisher of the magazine got cold feet and asked that we change the word “fat” to “plus-sized.” She was concerned using the word “fat” would insult many women and have a negative impact on advertising sales. So, we made the decision to change the wording. We also made the mistake of changing the word in people’s direct quotes, which to this day is a journalistic cardinal sin I still regret.

And then came the firestorm. While we got letters from women who loved the article (in fact, we got significantly more positive feedback than negative), we also got some e-mails that took us to task for this language swap.

Here is an excerpt from the most impassioned and compelling letter:

“….I don’t know how others feel, but I personally am angry at having my words changed in a way that — if consulted — I would have strongly opposed. I do not use the term “plus-size” to describe myself or my work. (I am *NOT* on a “quest for plus-size acceptance”!) This term, in my view, refers to clothing. The issue that I address goes far beyond fashion into every area of people’s lives, including our civil rights. The community of people who resist weight-based discrimination have chosen the F-word, “fat,” as our preferred term of identity. I do not personally identify as plus-size unless I am shopping for clothing. In everything I do, I identify as fat. That editors would disregard and override both my choice and the choice of my community goes contrary to the principle of respect that I would imagine a diversity magazine should uphold.

That the word “fat” was deemed somehow unprintable and unacceptable by your editor is precisely the kind of negative thinking about fat people that I spend my days fighting. This editing choice exemplifies precisely the kind of discrimination your article seeks to educate its readers about. What message are readers supposed to learn? That weight discrimination is wrong, or that the word “fat” is wrong?”

Wow. At first, after reading the letters that took us to task I felt terrible. I screwed up, as the executive editor, in allowing quotes to be changed (and we also made another error; at some point downstream in the editing process we did a find and replace for the word “fat” and changed the wording to “plus-sized” in the names of organizations. We didn’t catch this in our fact-checking/proofing process).

But then, I was glad—or at least saw the silver lining. Diversity, and understanding people’s differences and how that correlates to work place and functioning, is all about communication. By making this mistake, we opened up the lines of dialogue. It also reinforced how important language is. One person’s sensitivity is another’s strengths.

So your company is rolling along, with a robust diversity program. You got a CDO installed (or at least a HR representative who has diversity matters on her plate), you’ve done some training of upper and middle level management, and even encouraged and helped employees form some affinity groups.

And you’re feeling pretty good, right?

Well, even the most robust and highly functioning diversity program is not leveraging its resources if no one knows about it. It’s too easy to pat each other on the back and hope for the momentum to continue. But people forget unless messages are reinforced. Here’s a great article, part of a Rand Corporation white paper,  that makes the case for folding a communication program into your diversity efforts. www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2007/RAND_OP206.pdf

Here’s 10 reasons why it’s important that you establish a diversity communications program to communicate with your internal and external stakeholders and therefore support and extend your laudatory diversity efforts.

Rational and benefits of an integrated, strategic diversity communication program:

• Recruitment/retention tool: Attract a larger and more diverse pool of applicants as both internal and public-facing communications demonstrating the organization’s commitment to diversity.

• Cross promotion: share strategies and cross-fertilize ideas among the various organizational units—highlight each, so readers can get us quick snapshot of how their peers are promoting diversity.

•  Recognize—and thus reward—internal diversity champions. Encourage and publicize career success stories from leaders, managers, and employees.

• Promote community for underrepresented staff, through announcements, columns, articles and profiles of diverse staff members.  Help reduce isolation and marginalization; promote employee affinity groups.

• Internal: Leverage the website or e-magazine to teach managers diversity best practices and present the latest research and thinking on topics such as mentoring, diversity hiring, diversity training and networking. Website is also an ideal vehicle for, in one location, promoting events, training sessions, resources and making a human connection between policy and training and success in the field.

• External: Promote your company as a diversity expert. Serve as a diversity, equity and inclusion portal—create an integrated program and place for aggregating and then disseminating best practices, findings, studies and information on diversity, equity and inclusion—at your company and in your industry. This portal, or program, can serve as a one-stop shop for understanding and working with diversity, equity and inclusion practices and principles.

• “Shine a light” on the system’s progress and intent regarding diversity: transparency demonstrates commitment.

• Diversity can be intimidating and complex, both the concepts and the language. Therefore, different constituencies require different communication channels and messaging.

• Consistent diversity and inclusion messaging buttresses not only the company’s commitment to diversity, but displays a coherent strategy.

• Make employment and promotional opportunities public so all employees have pertinent information and any perceptions of favoritism are prevented.

Your company has revenue is sliding like a bobsledder down a chute. The C-Suite is putting pressure on you to cut budget. So which programs do you jettison and which survive the axe?

A strong case can be made that this is not the time to cut diversity programs. Diversity is not a luxury; it is imperative for the bottom line. The literature suggests that workforce diversity positively affects a company’s bottom line by increasing the skill base and range of talent among employees. In part, this may be because

companies that recruit from a wider pool of candidates have access to and are able to hire a larger number of exceptional personnel. Effective diversity programs can also reduce certain types of personnel costs. Minority employees at firms with such programs are more likely to be satisfied and stay with the firm, reducing turnover.

Yet another profit-oriented argument is that by developing a diverse workforce that mirrors its consumer market, a firm can increase its customer base and appeal. Thus, corporations can boost market share by having a workforce similar to their target clientele. Furthermore, multicultural employees might be better able to communicate with and understand the needs of minority consumers, thereby increasing the quality of customer service and relations.

Some of this qualitative data has been substantiated by a number of studies that have demonstrated that diversity initiatives boost a corporation’s revenues.

For example, Fortune Magazine and the Society of Human Resource Management  produced a study in 2001, “Impact of Diversity Initiatives on the Bottom Line,” which culled the responses of 121 HR professionals from Fortune 1000 companies and companies on Fortune magazine’s list of “100 Top Companies to Work For.” (http://www.criticalmeasures.net/diversity_training/invest.htm)

This survey found:

·        77 percent say diversity improves recruitment of new employees

·        52 percent say it improves client relationships

·        91 percent of HR executives say that diversity awareness helps their organization keep a competitive advantage

·        58 percent say awareness decreases interpersonal conflict

·        59 percent say it increases creativity

·        52 percent say it increases productivity

Then, another study, by the Hackett Group, concluded that establishing a supplier diversity program increased a company’s bottom line by generating 133% greater return on the dollar for procurement services when contracting with a diverse supplier. Here’s the piece, in Information Week, Diversity Benefits the Bottom Line: http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2006/08/diversity_progr.html

And, in fact, most Fortune 1000 companies are not slashing their diversity initiatives in our current recession. In February, DiversityInc surveyed its 2008 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity^® ((http://www.diversityinc.com/public/5190.cfm)). As it states on the Diversity Inc website: “More than 80 percent of those that were experiencing significant corporate cutbacks said their diversity budgets were either increasing or remaining stable. That’s a strong testament to their company’s beliefs that diversity is critical to their lines of business and is vital to both their long- and short-term success.”

In fact, the article concluded, some companies are currently ramping up their diversity efforts to take advantage of the buyer’s market in talent.

As the CDO of Merck and Co, Deborah Dagit told DiversityInc: “Diversity is essential because we MUST reflect our marketplace to have a competitive strategy and successfully execute against that strategy.” 

Furthermore, a study by the Society for Human Resource Management (http://shrm.org/hrdisciplines/Diversity/Articles/Pages/ShouldDiversityPay.aspx), revealed that while 40% percent of the companies they polled have decreased their discretionary spending (such as morale and teambuilding activities), only 10% of respondents said they had decreased spending on recruitment initiatives targeted at increasing the diversity of their workforce.

So, if your company is considering reducing its diversity training and outreach, tell them to stop! Perhaps diversity can be one of the pathways for your company to rise once again to the top of the heap.

Additional resource:

http://www.diversityinc.com/public/5106.cfm

http://www.diversity-executive.com/article.php?article=514

Until September of 2007,   I basically had no idea that there was any such thing as CDOs, diversity and inclusion departments in organizations, affinity groups and the like.  I knew about affirmative action; but not much more.

That September I received a phone call from a publisher North Carolina, Sheila Robinson.  Sheila was launching a new national women’s business magazine, to be entitled Diversity Woman. [www.diversitywoman.com] She asked if I would help her launch the magazine and serve as the editor-in-chief.  A few weeks later I flew to North Carolina, helped her hire and train the staff and all the sudden diversity was my world.

Except of course, for the previous 15 years, diversity really was my world in a personal context.  In 1992 I met an 11-year-old African-American male, Joshua, when I was volunteer tutoring at-risk youth at the Berkeley Young Adult Project. Joshua was in foster care at the time, and we hit it off immediately (it certainly helped to that I’d spent the previous five years as a sportswriter, covering the NBA and Major League Baseball, and had interviewed his hero, Michael Jordan, a number of times!).

Over the next few years, our relationship evolved, from tutoring, to mentoring to eventually Josh moving in with my husband Larry and I, to him calling us mom and dad. Josh became interested in politics and won the election as the president of the Berkeley High Black Student Union, the oldest and largest high school black student unions in the country. He went to and graduated from Howard University, (www.howard.edu)  one of the historic black colleges (he is now living in Washington, DC, working in politics).

So, as you can see, on the face of it, diversity was no big deal in our household.

However, it’s not quite that simple.  Just as a corporation has a culture and must work to incorporate other cultures and value systems into the greater aggregate, a family is the same. When Josh wouldn’t celebrate Christmas because he was raised in a literalist Baptist sect, we had to adjust and celebrate with gifts New Year’s Day instead (not all that hard, especially given that I’m Jewish!). What he thought the food we served was too bland and not salted enough, we had to do a combination of adjusting and educating. When my cousin called me to ask if was okay for her to serve watermelon when Josh came over for dinner (she didn’t want to embarrass him by reinforcing cultural stereotypes), we talked to him about it—and had a good laugh.  As we learned, accepting diversity takes work—but is incredibly rewarding.

So fast-forward 15 years and I realized that I have been fortunate enough to combine two of my passions in life—written communications and diversity. I’ve gained an incredible amount of knowledge about the rationale and process of diversifying small and large institutions, and learned how to communicate diversity messaging to a diverse audience. And best of all, as I delve deeper and deeper into the world of diversity, I have Josh to bounce ideas off of—and through the many complex and fascinating discussions that arise around race, ethnicity, religion, cultural expectations and much more, we have found another avenue for growing our relationship.