50
“That’s his commitment,
his passion, his realization of
the need for cultural competence, and the success of our
business is what really took it
to [another] level,” she says.
“He has taken the same tenor
and tone to the global arena as
well where he is making it
very much a part of his legacy
and his strategy.”
With the global initiative
1-1/2 years old, Sodexho is
beginning to address the diversity
challenges in France. “One of the
first things we’re doing is to develop some training programs for our
managers, particularly around
recruiting to make sure that there
is unbiased recruiting as well as to
allow managers the opportunity to
recognize talent,” Anand says.
Diversity
Front ier
Nex t
Global
The
Corporate America faces a challenging
enough task understanding the increasingly diverse United States, but to remain
competitive, companies must address
what happens on a larger playing field.
Embracing diversity globally requires an appreciation of distinctive societal, governmental and cultural values, including a lack of metrics that U.S.
diversity leaders rely upon as benchmarking tools.
For example, while racial and ethnic demographics serve Rohini Anand as valuable measures
for evaluating work-force diversity at Sodexho in
the United States, the senior vice president and
chief diversity officer doesn’t always have that
type of ready information in other countries.
“In France … you can’t identity people
by ethnicity or race,” says Anand, whose
company, Sodexho, is No. 14 on The 2006
DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for
Diversity list. “All you can do is collect gender information, so it becomes extremely
challenging if you don’t know what the
numbers and percentages are in your work
force to establish any target.”
So how does Sodexho handle this
challenge? Inclusively. Anand relies on
the viewpoints of a 12-person global
task force from South America,
Australia, Asia and Europe. The
group meets virtually once a
month to discuss the company’s
action plan and to share and
report on best practices as well
as understand the cultural
nuances that define diversity in
their respective societies.
Sodexho, which has operations
in more than 70 countries, started its
diversity initiative in North America
four years ago when Anand came on
board and found a champion in then-Sodexho CEO of North America, Michel
Landel. Now as CEO of Sodexho Alliance,
Landel advocates for diversity on a global
scale. About 10 percent to 15 percent of
managers’ total bonuses are linked to diversity
objectives for recruiting, retention and promotion of women and people of color in the
United States, she says.
The Greater
Global Challenge
Deeply embedded customs and values
in countries can make it difficult for U.S.
corporations to carry out even the most
basic equality measures. In South Korea, for
example, there still is a cultural expectation
that women stay home and take care of their
children, leading many companies, both South
Korean and foreign, to ignore investment in
training women, says Michalle E. Mor Barak,
a professor at the University of Southern
California’s School of Social Work and
Marshall School of Business.
“It’s not just that you are not utilizing half of the potential work force to
its fullest, but you’re also not addressing the expectations of your potential
[women] customers,” Mor Barak
says. “To some extent you need
diversity to address the varying
expectations of your potential
customers. Different viewpoints
can greatly enrich the company’s vision.”
BY PETER ORTIZ
ILLUSTRATION BY CATHY GENDRON
