Diversity in the Workforce: Summer Roundup

 

The U.S. has always been known as a melting pot; diversity is its strong suit. However, when it comes to the workforce and corporate America, diversity has been lacking. No longer. Minorities are becoming the majority and that means the majority of consumers, clients, employees, and leaders in the workforce.
The good news is diversity is great for business. Let’s take a look at how organizations can best prepare for the diverse workforce of tomorrow.

1. Diversity Officers Must Have These Four Qualities

Google, known for having its finger on the pulse of the future, has an employee base that is only 2% black and 3% Hispanic. Yet 85% of the net workforce growth over the next two decades will come from immigrants and their children. Can organizations really survive without employing large swaths of the population? Future-focused leaders know the answer is no.

Many are tackling this priority by adding a diversity officer to their leadership teams. This type of position is relatively new, and leaves some organizations confused. What does a person in this role actually do? What kind of candidate is the best fit? Where does this role fit in the organizational structure?

2 . Why Attracting and Retaining Diverse Talent is a Strategic Priority

If organizations want the best talent, they need address any issues that are keeping diverse talent out of their ranks and out of their boardrooms. Beyond talent on an individual level, a diverse workforce as a whole is important for the bottom line. In fact, 96% of executives polled in a Korn/Ferry Institute study believe diversity can boost the bottom line. The truth is in the numbers.

3.  Seven Tips for Managing Unconscious Bias

Even those with the best intentions behave in biased ways and simply have no idea they’re doing it. Most of us use biased language without giving it a second thought. But how can you manage something you can’t even tell exists? The good news is, it’s possible with these seven tips.

4. Can Eliminating Workplace Bias Be as Simple as Interrupting It?

Joan C. Williams writes, “When an organization lacks diversity, it’s not the employees who need fixing. It’s the business systems.”

There are many emerging strategies to increase diversity and eliminate bias in organizations. Some are even using big data to tackle the problem. Let’s take a look at one of those strategies known as The Interruption Strategy.

Are you aware of any cutting edge initiatives used to eliminate workplace bias?

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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The Ultimate Guide to Recruiting and Retaining Millennials

 

There are currently 80 million Millennials in the United States, and soon they will make up the majority of the employee population. Why? For one, Baby Boomers, which make up 40 percent of today’s U.S. workforce, will be leaving the workforce in the next decade. Secondly, this year the Millennial generation (born between 1981-2001) is projected to surpass the Baby Boomer generation as the nation’s largest living generation. That said, it’s crucial for your organization to know how to recruit and retain Millennials.

TINYpulse has put together a fantastic guidebook on this very topic called, The Ultimate Guide to Recruiting and Retaining Millennials. Not only is it chock-full of helpful insights and information, it’s also engaging and well written. I am proud to say that I am quoted in the guide.

The Ultimate Guide to Recruiting and Retaining Millennials* covers topics such as creating a transparent culture, embracing social responsibility, living your company values, supporting career development, creating an effective onboarding plan, and more. I am quoted in chapter 15, which talks about opening a virtual suggestion box.

Opening Up a Virtual Suggestion Box

The good news is, our days of traditional (awkward) suggestion boxes have come to an end. Technology has come to the rescue with simple online surveys and web platforms that offer more anonymity to employees who would like to share their ideas and solutions. That is what a virtual suggestion box is.

This is a great idea for the Millennial generation, also known as Generation Y. Why? Because it is very important to them to have a voice in their community, and community is a core element in the lives of this generation.

Also, Gen Y was born with a mouse in its hand. Consequently, they are tech-savvy and expect information to be “downloaded” immediately, including their ideas and suggestions.

They were the first generation to have family meetings and safety laws enforced with bike helmets, car seats, and seat belt laws. The message from this was “You are special. We value you.” Consequently, this generation values connections and wants to be part of a community at home, work, and play. They will work with their friends at the same company if they feel it’ll allow them more time with their community. Having a voice in their community is important to Gen Y. They have the confidence to articulate their vision and the tech skills to create their vision. Now they need you to support them in listening to their vision.

If only we could jump 50 years ahead– just for a day– to see how this generation will have transformed the workplace. Preparing your organization to successfully recruit and retain the Millennial generation is not only imperative, it’s exciting.

Let’s have a little fun. Pretend you have a virtual suggestion box where you can leave an idea or suggestion for every organization in the country. What is one idea and/or suggestion that all U.S. organizations need to hear? I can’t wait to read.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Workforce Trends: The Importance of Diversity–The Old Minority Will Become the New Majority

 

There are several major demographic trends in today’s workplace, such as Baby Boomer retirement, companies losing female talent and the increasing need for workplace flexibility.

Perhaps the most profound trend, however, is the fact that the United States is transitioning from a nation whose majority population is white to a nation in which the majority of the population will soon be people of color.

 

So-called minorities accounted for 92 percent of the nation’s population growth in the last decade. They are now the majority of residents in four states, 348 counties, the District of Columbia, and a growing number of major metropolitan areas like New York, Las Vegas, and Memphis.

 

And, in case you think this is just a blip on the screen, you should know that, as of July 2011, the majority of new babies born in this country are now children of color.

 

That is only going to increase, because Latinos, on average, are in their prime childbearing years, while the average white woman, at 42, is probably done having children.

In fact, because the majority of older people are white, and the majority of younger people are not, we’re looking at a very new kind of divide that’s both racial and generational.

 

And here’s another issue: Right now, Hispanic and black youth are graduating from college at far lower rates than their white peers: 13% and 18%, versus 31% for whites.

That’s why I said that this is the most profound of the three demographic trends. Because if the majority of young Americans are not educated and prepared to take their place in the workforce of tomorrow, that will be a true disaster for your organizations and our economy.

 

Solution

You hear so much about how manufacturing has left the U.S.  But what you don’t hear is that the manufacturing jobs we still have can be hard to fill, because young workers aren’t really interested.

 

And it’s not just that Gen Y doesn’t want to work an assembly line.  They also don’t want to be manufacturing executives.  They’d rather work for a tech start-up. So what do you do if you’re a manufacturing company that has to replace its retiring workers with a diverse workforce?

 

I’m helping this client create a Strategic Workforce Planning Tool that will help my client track birth and education rates, education rates, and other key data on a country-by-county basis, so that they’ll know where to expand, consolidate, or even close a plant.

 

Ideally, you want to be proactive, and educate new workers.  But the first step in that process is knowing where you’re most at risk, and that’s what my client is focused on right now, in order to increase diversity.

Note: Many of the statistics presented in this blog series have been pulled from Deloitte’s Human Capital consulting resources and The Gender Dividend report. 

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

 

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Discovering Diversity Success: 10 Questions to Ask Yourself

 

By Jessica Alvarez, Chief Management Officer

A few years back, I was yearning for a community to embrace me, a tribe that would understand and respect that I’m not just a few general categories of a person, including female, Latina, mother. I needed a community outside of my corporate life that understands that the indigenous roots in me are not only from the Americas but can be traced back to slave trafficking from Africa to the coasts of the Caribbean, central and south America. My grandmother’s knowledge of the use of roots, herbs, and plant medicine has been passed down the generations through song and story.

In my search for such an embracing community, I found Centro Ashe, now the Wild Ginger Center in Washington D.C., which shares, protects, respects, and promotes the connections between plants, earth, and people. I enrolled in their training program to spark and renew the love and knowledge of plants I had in me.

Yes, it sounds very urban hippy, right? The first day I was amazed to be surrounded by an astonishingly diverse group of people, all coming together to learn and share experiences. Here, I didn’t need the emotional and mental protective walls I habitually built around me.

With my corporate and human capital lens, I tried to analyze the reasons for such “diversity success.” They didn’t use a sophisticated recruiting system with algorithms tweaked to maximize diversity. The curriculum was the same for everyone. The setting was a barn on a small farm. Yet, the diversity success was evident with race, ethnicity, creed, preferences, identities, age, careers, education, and social-economic levels all in one room, ready to learn. Everyone showed up with a smile and open to an embrace. Cell phone connection was awful, the conversation was great, and we all had meals together where we learned about each other’s families, interests, and even dreams. It struck me how different this was from work and school settings. Although there was a lot to learn and do, there was ample room for each person’s personality and voice to shine equally. They organically met the diversity and customer loyalty aspirations of the corporate world.

After months of enjoying the camaraderie, I concluded that the Wild Ginger Center’s secret ingredient for their diversity success is the kindness and respect that runs through its core. Empathy and respect not only for the plants and the earth but for people. Each person that walks into the center is unique, respected, acknowledged, encouraged, and celebrated for showing up as who they are.

By the time the workshops concluded, I had acquired lifelong friends, carpool mates, herb/veggie exchange buddies, but most importantly, I found the tribe I yearned for. I belonged.

Can we translate this success to the corporate world? Yes! Below are my top 10 questions to ask yourself.

1.    Is your mission clear?

2.    What is the human connection to your work (the back story of why we do what we do)?

3.    Are people working with a purpose?

4.    Is everyone’s uniqueness equally celebrated and acknowledged beyond the basic categories?

5.    As employers, are we creating safe spaces for team members to connect beyond transactional tasks?

6.    Does each employee feel encouraged to grow, to say, to be?

7.    Does every employee feel free to show up as who they are (i.e., my big curly hair vs. straightened hair, my ethnic wear vs. pantsuits and heels)?

8.    Is respect and compassion part of your corporate vocabulary?

9.    Is diversity even valuable to your corporate goals?

10. Are you aware of your company’s diversity standing?

I can help you start diversity conversations too. I’m pleased to announce DEI360, an organization’s starting point for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI). It’s an easy, customizable, online assessment that quickly allows organizational leadership to see how they’re doing from the employee’s perspective. Once an organization takes the assessment,( our team walks through the final report giving clear DEI data, a snapshot of the internal DEI landscape, and actionable next steps. Have questions? Check out our FAQ or contact us directly.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

 

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