COMPANIES FOR
DIVERSITY
CORPORCATEEO COMMUITNMICEANTTIONS
Diversity Training
100%
8 0%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Mandatory for
Work Force
or GLBT people, for example, a training DVD and in-house legal guidance
as part of an aggressive communications campaign from October through
December to get them on board.
Whether people review the material is
irrelevant, says Genevieve Girault, HR
communications manager. “We
equipped them; there are no excuses.”
These conversations—how many,
with whom and completion rate—are
factored into partners’ performance
evaluations under the “people” catego-
ry, which is 25 percent of their annual
bonuses. Simmons sits at the table for
the talent review for all the partners.
“I’ll be keeping in mind people who
aren’t living in accordance with our
values—and part of our values is hav-
ing direct, honest dialogue,” he says.
Get the Message Out
Providing context and experiential learning
around diversity helps combat resistance of
any form. “It may be operational, it may be
institutionalized or it may simply be the very
real fear that exists in individuals that diversity
isn’t about me, so anything that promotes
diversity is not a good thing,” says John
Wood, vice president and senior diversity consultant with Wachovia, No. 11 in the Top 50.
TOP 10 TOP 50
BOT TOM QUART ER*
Mandato ry for
Managers
Lasts at Least
One Day
Offered
Every Month
*Bottom quarter of companies in survey. There were 317 participants.
thinking are pretty hard to wash away, and the
implication is that people who are different
start with some extra baggage,” says Chris
Simmons, partner and chief diversity officer for
PwC, reporting directly to U.S. Chairman and
CEO Dennis Nally. “We’re encouraging our
partners to start having direct conversations
with women, minorities and gay and disabled
people to better understand the direct detail
about ‘what life is like to be me’ on a daily
basis.”
Last fall, PwC rolled out one-to-one partner
meetings. Now hundreds have taken
place. “If there’s no trust, people
don’t hear your explanations about
why they’re not ready for that big job
yet,” adds Simmons. “People who feel
ignored, discarded or not fairly
rewarded for their contributions
check out mentally. They’re not the
employee in your hotel chain that
picks up the stray piece of lint that’s
not in the hall he or she is responsible for keeping clean.”
Faced with initial backlash from
some partners who felt they “weren’t
equipped” or “didn’t feel comfortable” having
these deep conversations, PwC put together a
package of sample conversations, “Top 10”
lists for conversing competently with black
“If we have the insights of these
diverse shoppers and consumers,
we can outthink and outperform
[our competitors] because we’ll
be able to meet and exceed their
stated and unstated needs.”
Helayne Angelus, Procter & Gamble
Wachovia CEO and Chairman Ken
Thompson decided a few years ago that the
bank needed a more strategic model around
diversity communications to align its brand and
corporate messages. “We’ve spent quality time
