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Technology giants like Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Apple have recently pledged to do a better job in recruiting, retaining, and developing diversity in their workplaces, understanding that workforce diversity is intricately linked to their customers and ultimately, to their profitability. They are right to do so. The new white paper, Accelerating Diversity for a Better Bottom Line, from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School examines the trend more closely. According to research compiled by  UNC Executive Director, Horace McCormick organizations rich in ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation diversity are more innovative, creative, and demonstrate better decision making and problem solving—all which lead to a better bottom line. The UNC Executive Development white paper describes how talent management and HR professionals can bring these bottom-line benefits of diversity to their organizations. No One-Size-Fits-All Approach By highlighting some of the various work populations, the paper demonstrates that there is no single “one-size-fits-all” approach to diversity. Corporate leaders should be aware of each group’s similarities, differences, wants, and needs. Women. Evidence shows, though, that the presence of women in the workplace and in leadership positions increases productivity and innovation and improves team dynamics and decision-making. And the number of women nominated to the boards of large, public U.S. companies reached an all-time high of 30 percent in 2014, according to the Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) report. However, women still face an uphill battle when it comes to corporate leadership positions. The ISS report also noted that in 2014, women comprised just 18.7 percent of sitting directors and less than 20 percent of U.S. boards on average. To address this poor showing, many organizations are increasingly introducing leadership development tracks geared exclusively toward women. But that is not enough. To attract and retain women in the workplace, the paper suggests HR and talent management professionals develop programs and policies: Have CEO endorsement and include accountability measures.Offer family-friendly benefits and encourage all employees (not just women) to use them.Develop work-life balance as part of the organizational culture, not just by exception.Actively develop women as leaders and ensure that leaders are an example. Hispanics. The exponential growth of this population is expected to radically change the workplace and marketplace. Organizations seeking to attract and retain Hispanics as clients and employees must be aware of their differences and similarities. To attract Hispanic talent, the Professional Diversity Network offers the following recommendations: Identify a trusted advisor to coordinate and advise senior managers on matters specific to Hispanic employee programming.Put existing Hispanic executives front-and-center to establish a sense of pride and to serve as a “real” recruiting case study.Go national on job searches. Many hispanic professionals will relocate for the right professional opportunity.Partner with credible Hispanic organizations to support causes that are important to the Hispanic community.Seek CEO engagement and hands-on support.Offer virtual and in-person networking opportunities for Hispanics that give them access to a hiring manager. If diversity has not been a high priority for the organization, there are a few steps that HR and talent management professionals can take to begin to improve diversity in their workplaces and in their investor and customer bases. Conduct a diversity needs assessment to ensure the workforce, board, and leadership reflects the communities and customers it serves.Obtain CEO support. Each of the top three organizations topping DiversityInc’s 2014 list (see call-outs) note the importance of senior-level support.Develop a diverse leadership pipeline now. HR professionals should review their organization’s talent development and succession plans to include diversity. To learn more, download Accelerating Diversity for a Better Bottom Line from the UNC Executive Development resource library.

Accelerating Diversity

Diversity is no longer mostly about demographics like race and gender, reports a recent study by the Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by SAP and SuccessFactors. Instead, focus has shifted to accommodating different values, goals, and skills within today’s global, multi-generational workforce. The global study, Values-Based Diversity, explores the challenges of managing an increasingly diverse workforce while highlighting the importance of diversity as a strategic business advantage. Key findings The EIU survey shows a link between workforce and marketplace diversity, with 83 percent of respondents agreeing that a diverse workforce improves their firms’ ability to capture and retain a diverse client base, 82 percent agreeing that a strategic approach to managing diversity can help access a rich talent pool and 80 percent viewing diversity management as yielding a competitive advantage in labor markets. And the battle for talent varies in regions around the globe. For example, research by the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO) confirms that constraints on the participation of women in the workforce in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and—to a lesser extent—Asia have significantly slowed economic development in those regions. Spurring growth, therefore, depends on encouraging and accelerating the entry of women and other under-represented groups into the workforce. To achieve this opening of the workplace, during the last two decades organizations worldwide have sought to attract and retain engaged and talented individuals from these populations. While efforts originally focused on demographic factors like gender and race, awareness has been growing that diversity concerns also need to encompass values. Indeed, the EIU survey reveals differences in work ethic, communication styles, and motivational drivers are now considered aspects of workforce diversity. For example, when asked about workforce characteristics that will require the greatest change in human resources (HR) strategies over the next three years, a majority of HR executives point to a lack of interest in assimilating organizational values (57 percent strong or moderate change); conflicting values across a multigenerational workforce (51 percent); and unrealistic expectations of millennial employees (47 percent). However, the survey also explains that executives view the integration of millennial employees into the workforce as a significant diversity challenge. This is true, in part, because millennials are perceived as having different motivations than previous generational cohorts had and, in part, because of millennials’ perceived lack of interest in assimilating the values of their organization. Bottom line:  “Values-based diversity” is here to stay—and it’s forcing HR to rethink strategies and incentives. The question is, in what ways? According to the report, executives view offering learning and career-development opportunities as key strategies for managing a diverse workforce. Survey respondents report that their organizations are exposing their high-potential employees to varied business situations (45 percent), offering opportunities for international careers (41 percent) and providing opportunities for diverse teams to address strategic challenges (36 percent). They are also supporting policy initiatives such as mentoring (47 percent) and flexible working arrangements (43 percent).  About the study To uncover these insights, the Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed 228 executives responsible for designing and developing their organizations’ human resources (HR) strategy. The respondents are based in Europe, North America and, Asia-Pacific (about 30 percent in each region); the rest are from the Middle East and Africa and Latin America. Also, the respondent pool is quite senior: more than half (53 percent) are C-level executives or board members, including 28 percent who are CEOs or the equivalent. One-half of respondents’ companies have US$500m or less in annual global revenue, while 25 percent have revenue of US$5bn or more. The senior executives polled are responsible for all of the main functional areas in 19 different industries. EIU also conducted a series of in-depth interviews with senior executives from major companies and other experts.

Diversity Focus Shifts to Values—Not Demographics

 Shifting demographics and increasing globalization, along with the advent of social media, are raising the stakes for organizational diversity and inclusion (D&I). The policies of a company relative to D&I are more transparent than ever. As the authors of the March 2014 Infoline, “Leveraging Diversity & Inclusion for a Global Economy,” point out, companies that embrace D&I are able to “attract, retain, and develop the best talent, casting a wider net for skilled employees.”Training and development professionals who want to harness these new economic realities can do so by enhancing their own expertise around D&I. They can also further their organization’s D&I efforts by integrating those principles into their learning curriculum. Trainers can do so through the following:Be aware of one’s own biases. This helps you raise awareness of how D&I influences interpersonal relationships, business outcomes, and innovation.Align training with your organization’s D&I strategy. Encourage employees to reflect on what this means in terms of teamwork and personal actions.Use several learning methodologies. Emotional responses to D&I can be extremely strong. Using a range of methodologies to include such things as interactive case studies, instructor-led modules, e-learning, and forced choice and voting exercises to identify biases, can improve the odds of reaching employees with a variety of learning styles.Develop a plan around how learning will be reinforced and sustained over time.Embed D&I across the curricula, especially in leadership development efforts.Make the business case for D&I explicit.The Infoline authors, Marjorie Derven, Ernest Gundling, and Pamela Leri, also emphasize that D&I efforts should be locally relevant and globally consistent. D&I initiatives should remain true to a company’s brand, yet not come across as irrelevant to local circumstances in countries far from their headquarters.Learn more, including how to order “Leveraging Diversity & Inclusion for a Global Economy” at the ASTD Infoline website.

Attract and Retain Top Talent with Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) is crucial to building global profits, developing top talent, and responding effectively to changing customer requirements. However, D&I execution often falls short of intended targets. Despite intense competition to reach new markets and attract global talent, D&I has a long way to go to become embedded in the regular operations of companies today.                                                              Making a compelling business case is a critical step that sometimes is overlooked.An understanding of D&I has evolved over time, from an early focus on compliance to today’s understanding that D&I is a critical part of how we must do business going forward. With changing demographics, more demanding customers, and mobility across borders, organizations must shift how they attract, retain, and develop talent, creating a more inclusive environment that leverages diversity effectively. However, we must make the business case explicit so that D&I isn’t seen as a practice focused solely on being “politically correct,” or as a window dressing process.As Baby Boomers age, more minorities enter the workforce, veterans return to the workplace, and nearly one in five people have some kind of disability, we must find talent from new sources and create a more inclusive environment. Failure to do so means losing talent to your competitors.Here are five steps to help you begin to build your D&I business case:Define external drivers that set the context in which your organization needs to operate to be successful. Conduct research about where growth is occurring and where existing and emerging competition is focusing. Collect data about how your organization’s customers and requirements are shifting, and what the implications are from a D&I perspective.Define internal drivers that show how increased competition for talent requires organizations to find the best people in new ways, and—once they successfully recruit them—foster an inclusive environment in which talent capabilities and contributions are encouraged and captured. Consider where some of the pain points in your organization exist—relating to turnover, diverse talent in leadership roles, effectively mirroring your customer base, and so forth.Conduct key stakeholder analysis to understand how various internal functions (such as IT, marketing, HR, operations, procurement, supply chain, and legal) need to adapt to changing demographics. Next, examine external stakeholders (such as customers, suppliers, market analysts, and government agencies) and how their perspectives are shifting in response to seismic demographic change.Identify key gaps which may be related to turnover of diverse talent, skills shortages, missed market opportunities, and so forth that provide the “burning platform” for organizational commitment to D&I.Capture and disseminate success stories that demonstrate “what good looks like” when D&I is leveraged to foster innovation, mirror the customer base, improve problem solving capabilities, and promote higher engagement within the organization.Once you have defined your business case, use multiple vehicles to communicate the message to various stakeholders. These channels can include:Infographics that summarize the D&I business case through graphs and illustrationsTown hall meetings led by senior leaders that make the link between D&I and organizational strategy explicitVideo success stories available on your organization’s intranet“Meeting in a box” materials that help leaders to create an effective dialogue about D&I with their teamsD&I tool kits that educate employees about today's demographic and market realities and define best practices for employees and leaders to execute daily.There is compelling evidence that focusing on D&I brings bottom line results: During a 10-year period, the index of publicly traded companies in DiversityInc.’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity outperformed NASDAQ by 28 percent, S&P 500 by 25 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 22 percent, according to Catalyst.How will you define the D&I business case that addresses the marketplace, workplace, and community so that it becomes a “call to action” and propels your organization forward? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.Check back for more posts this month on D&I and plan to attend the ASTD webcast, Best Practices in Diversity and Inclusion: A Panel Discussion on July 10, 2013, to hear more about this topic from a panel of D&I leaders from different industries.

Diversity & Inclusion: Making the Business Case

(From Center for American Progress) -- Our nation and our workforce are both becoming more diverse. The share of people of color in the United States is increasing; more women are entering the labor force; and gay and transgender individuals are making vital contributions to our economy, while being increasingly open about who they are. To that end, businesses that embrace diversity have a more solid footing in the marketplace than others. A diverse workforce combines workers from different backgrounds and experiences that together breed a more creative, innovative, and productive workforce. And businesses have learned that they can draw upon our nation’s diversity to strengthen their bottom line. In this way, diversity is a key ingredient to growing a strong and inclusive economy that’s built to last. Let’s look at the top 10 economic benefits of workplace diversity. 1. A diverse workforce drives economic growth. Our nation’s human capital substantially grows as more women, racial and ethnic minorities, and gay and transgender individuals enter the workforce. A McKinsey & Company study, for example, found that the increase in women’s overall share of labor in the United States—women went from holding 37 percent of all jobs to 47 percent over the past 40 years—has accounted for about a quarter of current GDP. 2. A diverse workforce can capture a greater share of the consumer market. By bringing together individuals from different backgrounds and experiences, businesses can more effectively market to consumers from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, women, and consumers who are gay or transgender. It is no surprise, then, that studies show diversifying the workplace helps businesses increase their market share. 3. Recruiting from a diverse pool of candidates means a more qualified workforce. When companies recruit from a diverse set of potential employees, they are more likely to hire the best and the brightest in the labor market. In an increasingly competitive economy where talent is crucial to improving the bottom line, pooling from the largest and most diverse set of candidates is increasingly necessary to succeed in the market. 4. A diverse and inclusive workforce helps businesses avoid employee turnover costs. Businesses that fail to foster inclusive workplaces see higher turnover rates than businesses that value a diverse workforce because they foster a hostile work environment that forces employees to leave. The failure to retain qualified employees results in avoidable turnover-related costs at the expense of a company’s profits. Having a diverse and discrimination-free work environment helps businesses avoid these costs. 5. Diversity fosters a more creative and innovative workforce. Bringing together workers with different qualifications, backgrounds, and experiences are all key to effective problem-solving on the job. Similarly, diversity breeds creativity and innovation. Of 321 large global enterprises—companies with at least $500 million in annual revenue—surveyed in a Forbes study in 2011, 85 percent agreed or strongly agreed that diversity is crucial to fostering innovation in the workplace.

The Top 10 Economic Facts of Diversity in the Workplace

At a seminar sponsored by the Public Manager Journal and Federal Special Interest Group of the D.C. Chapter of ASTD, diversity expert Mauricio Velasquez explained that diversity training has gained increased importance for federal managers since President Obama’s promulgation of Executive Order 13583, establishing a coordinated government-wide effort to promote diversity and inclusion in the federal workplace. OPM has issued its “Guidance on Implementation of the Government-Wide Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan” to hasten the implementation of these programs. Federal agencies will be required to present to OPM their initial strategic plans at a round-table discussion on March 16th.  “The intent of looking at diversity is to create and promote a more inclusive work environment.” says Velasquez. The primary dimensions of diversity are: age, gender, ethnic heritage, race, mental and physical abilities, and sexual orientation. “These primary dimensions of what we see are further influenced by what we cannot see.” These unseen elements include: language, military experience, religion, income, work experience, geographic location, operational role and level, communication style, family status, work style, and education.Mr. Velasquez suggested that inclusiveness means that a person is meant to feel comfortable and valued. “Values have to do with how we treat each other. It is based on attitudes, and is measured by concrete measurable behaviors.” A diversity strategy plan is developed and aligned by an agency’s senior leadership with the agency’s mission, vision, and direction.  Kevin Neal concluded the presentation with a review of Executive Order 13583. “All federal agencies will be required to present a strategic plan to OPM for a roundtable discussion on March 16th.  The plan is not expected to be complete or final, but should serve as a beginning to implement the President’s goals.”“The goal is to create a workplace that works for everyone,” said Mr. Neal. “The OPM wants concrete actions that will assist employees to reach their full potential. This is to be accomplished through three primary factors: (1) diversity by hiring a diverse workforce, (2) inclusion through the use of affinity groups, telework, diversity and inclusion panels, and resource focus groups, and (3) sustainability which is accomplished by the agency being responsible for implementing the strategic plan.”

Diversity Inclusiveness and Executive Order 13583

By expanding the definition of diversity and incorporating intersectionality, leaders stay true to DEI’s roots of creating workplaces and communities where everyone thrives.

The Table of Diversity: Maximizing Impact Using a Chemistry-Inspired Framework

To unpack how a skills-based approach is paving the way for greater diversity and inclusion, we’ve broken down three key areas, from hiring processes to performance reviews. Let’s review them.

Leading Change: How Skills-Based Organizations Enable Diversity

New ATD research examines diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging education in organizations.

ATD Research: Majority of Organizations Prioritize Diversity and Inclusion Training

Despite the measurable strides gender-based DEI initiatives have helped to bring about in corporate America, the inclusion of women in leadership ranks has slowed. According to IBMs Women Leadership report, fewer women were in leadership pipelines in

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