COMPANIES FOR
DIVERSITY
This doesn’t happen by itself. In a competitive job market where skilled workers
increasingly have the luxury of choice, companies have to make a compelling value
proposition for their employment brand.
That means getting out and interacting.
“If we just sat in the tower in New
Brunswick, N.J., and aspired to have diversity
in the work force and were not out everywhere
that diverse individuals existed, we
wouldn’t be particularly successful,” says Foster-Cheek.
Currently, 12 of Johnson &
Johnson’s 250 operating companies
partner with six national
INROADS affiliates to provide key
internship and mentoring opportunities to youth of color. Since
1999, 100 percent of job offers
extended to interns by these operating companies have been accepted.
Word of mouth is among the
most cost-effective sources of talented recruits, provided the buzz
about your employment brand is
positive. Corporate and government scandals in today’s information age have contributed to a
general sense of mistrust between
the public and large institutions, especially
among people of color, for whom past experiences dictate present realities.
“One of the most powerful things we can
do is to create the kind of work experience
that causes employees to be ambassadors and
champions for us,” says Foster-Cheek.
“There’s no stronger recruiting, purchasing-power or advocacy tool than employees who
have those experiences.”
There’s no specific metric for tracking the
ROI of “authentic experiences,” but unbiased
retention—people of color, women and men
retained at an equal rate compared with
whites—is a direct testament to a company’s
ability to forge solid relationships across
demographic groups, and thus a key indicator of brand health. It signifies a corporate
culture in which people of color perceive
they are treated and valued equally compared
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
with whites. If people don’t perceive advancement opportunity, they’ll leave—and chances
are they’ll share their experience with others.
At Sodexho, managers are evaluated on their
ability to achieve unbiased retention in their
respective departments. It’s the hallmark of an
inclusive culture. “It’s important to build rela-
tionships with all the stakeholders—everyone
needs to see themselves as a part of it, includ-
ing white males,”
says Anand. Metrics
are usually about
women and people of
color, which can lead
them to feel outside
of diversity efforts,
she adds.
Sodexho has
found success engag-
ing across demo-
graphics with its
cross-cultural men-
toring program, part
of its strategic Spirit
of Mentoring initia-
tive, which returns
$12 per dollar invest-
ed. Such relationships
build cross-cultural-
relationship skills, provide professional-development and networking opportunities and, perhaps most importantly, an opportunity to build
trust through understanding differences.
When Veronica Harville, director of
finance and African American Leadership
Forum program chair, got paired up with
Mark Price, vice president, operations of corporate services last March, she had her doubts
about the relationship. “He’s a white male
and I’m an African-American female,” says
Harville. “I felt that both of us could bring a
variety of biases to the table, but we dealt
with them head on.”
“We were able to build high levels of trust
so we could explore very sensitive subjects,”
adds Price. “While I was assigned as the mentor, the truth is that Veronica motivated and
challenged me with her mastery of networking
and being a highly organized, proactive profes-
HUMAN CAPITAL
Recruiting New Talent
TOP 10 TOP 50
BO TTOM QUARTER*
Active lyActively Actively
Recruit GLBTs Recruit People
With Disabilities
*Bottom quarter of companies in survey.
