50
HBO
No. 5
No. 6 Top 10 Companies for Recruitment & Retention
No. 9 Top 10 Companies for Asian Americans
No. 8 Top 10 Companies for Executive Women
Business Type: Cable Network (part of Time Warner)
Corporate Headquarters: New York, N.Y.
Number of U.S. Employees: 1,831
Annual Worldwide Revenues: $3 billion
The best word to describe Home Box Office (HBO)’s
diversity-management practices is “organic.” The company that launched hit shows such as “The Sopranos,”
“Sex and the City,” “Six Feet Under” and “Lackawanna
Blues” ensures that its diverse employee pool focuses on
diversity practices. “The more you incorporate diversity in
Chris Albrecht
CEO and Chairman
Shelley Fischel
Executive Vice President, Human
Resources and Administration
your process, the quicker it becomes
organic,” says Shelley Fischel, executive vice president, human resources
and administration.
HBO’s diversity focus started in
1991 when it responded to its
female and black employees who
called a meeting to tell management they were unhappy. A manager said the cable network was developing programming for the
“underclass,” which did not sit well
with employees of color.
“So we began to make sure people got written performance evaluations that promoted objectivity
in promotion,” says Fischel. “We
also systematized promotions …
to make sure that decisions about
compensation and promotions
were as equitable as possible.”
Systemizing promotions included studying the type of evaluations
that would reveal an employee’s ability to be a manager, vice president,
etc. The company also developed a
system of compensation evaluation
that benchmarks employee compensation to that of the marketplace.
Of HBO’s 10 percent highest-paid employees, 45 percent are
women, who comprise 54 percent of
the company’s employee pool. HBO
has an unbiased retention rate that is
consistent across race and gender.
HBO’s managers mostly are
women, 51 percent— 17 percent of
whom are black, 8 percent Asian
and 5. 75 percent Latina.
“HBO is a hot place to be, a hot
brand, and it has a reputation for
being a good workplace for
women, people of color and people
with disabilities,” whom HBO
actively recruits along with gays
and lesbians, says Fischel.
Shows such as “Lackawanna
Blues,” about a black-owned boarding house in the 1960s, and “Sex and
the City,” which redefined female
expression, are the fruits of a diverse
employee pool. As a result, subscribers flock to HBO, 38 million
and counting. —Yoji Cole
