How are companies achieving workplace diversity?

Black Collegian, Oct 1994 by Herbert, Solomon J

With 62 million people wielding a combined buying power of over $500 billion, the nation's African-American, Asian, and Latino populations grew nearly four times as fast as the White population did in the 1980's. Minorities, who were 31 percent of the nation's children in 1990, will increase to 34 percent by the year 2000, and 38 percent by 2010. As a group, the multicultural market will account for 24 percent of the population by the turn of the century.

African Americans account for nearly half of this total market segment, or approximately 30 million. Because of what some think is a sizable 1990 Census undercount, 40 percent of which consists of African-American males, the number may be even higher, with estimates reaching up to 40 million.

Whatever the exact percentage people of color account for the U.S. population, one thing is inarguable: The complexion of the buying public is changing rapidly. And companies and industries that want to stay competitive are quickly realizing that diversity in the workforce is a key ingredient to their continued success and growth.

Without a diverse workforce that mirrors the ethnic composition of the larger community, a company suffers from both internal and marketing perspectives, according to many human resources specialists.

"You're always going to have some sort of diversity in the workplace," says Wiley Sherman, alluding to the token persons of color that many otherwise all-White firms parade out to prove they are equal opportunity employers.

"But if you don't make it a point to have true diversity, then you get people who don't pick up on the ideas of people who are minorities in that work group. Those ideas may be good and great ideas, yet don't get heard," notes Sherman, manager for diversity staffing at Texas Instruments Defense Systems Electronics Group.

Sherman gets no argument from Lisa Ward, manager of training and recruitment for Connecticut-based retail giant Bob's Stores. The fallout, she says, can damage your corporate image. "In one store meeting, it came to our attention that some of the store management were saying something along the lines of, 'Well, it's the third Thursday on the month, and we believe that the WIC (Women with Infant Children) checks are coming out, and those people are coming into our store. So pay extra attention just to make sure that nothing is shoplifted.'"

The assumption, one that she characterized as "outrageous," was that people receiving this form of government assistance were prone to shoplifting. And while she thought the remark was made more out of ignorance than out of malice, it's the kind of stereotype that diversity in both training and staffing effectively combats. "We just want to be proactive and make sure that these kinds of things are not being perpetuated, certainly not by our management staff," says Ward, who says Bob's Stores recently earned the Act Diversity Program Award, the first time this prestigious honor has ever been bestowed upon a retail organization.

"It' s clearly a business issue," says Charles Mathews, director of workforce diversity and EEO programs for United Technologies Corporation. "Perhaps back in the 1960's, when we started affirmative action, the argument could have been made at the time that although we didn't realize it, we started it for the wrong reasons. We said basically in the '60's that it would 'be nice' if people would stop discriminating and hire people of color and women. But we never had a business reason for doing it. We just thought it would be nice.

"Now, 25 to 30 years later "we're starting to realize that America is changing. America is becoming more female, more of color."

Mitch Thomas, who is responsible for recruiting females and minorities at Walt Disney World Company for "target areas" in which they are under-utilized, echoes those ideas.

"Diversity is not only a desirable thing or a right thing," says Thomas, "but diversity adds value. It strengthens your workforce, because you have a diverse group of people coming to the table." The resulting exchange of ideas enhances the overall efficiency of your operation, and gives management a different perspective on the value of contributions that people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds offer, he says. Most importantly, Thomas assures, "it's going to affect your bottom line."

If you doubt that demographics are changing significantly, says Mathews, all you need to do is visit the nation's top business schools, engineering schools, and universities, and you'll discover that the best and brightest students are non-White and female. As a result, Mathews says United Technologies is determined to make sure that its culture and its businesses are set up in such a way that men and women of color can come aboard and neither feel nor see barriers. His mission is to help create a culture in which minority hires will be nurtured and therefore productive.

"If they are productive, we are going to make money," Mathews argues. "And if they are not productive, we're going to lose money. So it's real simple. It's a business issue for us. We want to be able to recruit the best and the brightest."