the best in all pockets of society,”
he says.
How does the Hispanic-Latin
network kick in? Briano says
the organization has a host of
members who are alums from
the Columbia Business School,
so his group takes an active hand
in approaching potential intern
candidates about working for the
company. “We can make it very
clear that to come to Merrill in
the summer means they will have
a support network of people that
understand their issues, whether it
be language or cultural,” he says.
“It’s about having a sense of
belonging,” Briano adds. “When
I did my summer
internships, it was
important to know
there was someone
who would say,
‘Come here. I’ll look
out for you.’ When you’re comparing where you want to work, Merrill Lynch is a potent brand in and
of itself. I have no doubt it plays
a factor in the process to a lot of
people on the margins.”
Other companies are indeed
following suit. Ford Motor Co. (No.
27 in the Top 50) is also looking
to brand its ERGs as recruitment
vehicles. Allison Trawick, global
manager of the office of diversity
and inclusion at Ford, says the
company now has 11 company-sponsored ERGs: Veterans, African
Ancestry, Hispanics, Ford Globe
[Gays, Lesbians, Bi-Sexuals and
Transgendered], Middle Eastern,
Asian Indian, Chinese, Disabilities,
Interfaith, Professional Women’s
and Parenting.
“They help us build our external
relationships from professional
organizations like the Black MBAs
group, Society for Human Resource Management, or the Society
of Hispanic Engineers,” Trawick
says. “So in terms of recruitment,
our resource groups get involved in
our relationships with universities,
including HBCUs. They help us in
actual recruiting activities and are
very much a part of the work we do
with interns.”
Carla Preston, a business-operations and planning manager
for global product development,
serves as the vice chair of Ford’s
Latino group. She says her members attend recruiting conferences
regularly, including the Society
of Hispanic Professional Engineers; Hispanic Engineer National
Achievement Awards Corporation;
Hispanics in Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics;
The National Society of Hispanic
MBAs; and Hispanics in Engineering, Science and Technology.
“They’re the largest of the engineering conferences in the United
States,” says Preston. “It gives
us the opportunity to show that
not only does Ford have a diverse
work force but [Latinos] come
in many different forms at the
company—whether we’re managers or engineers or people starting
right out of college or people that
have been here 20 years.”
Preston says her members
spend time at these conferences pouring over résumés from
potential recruits and holding
select receptions for prospective
candidates.
“We bring our executives in
and try to speak to them on a one-on-one level and let them know
the different sides of Ford Motor
Co.,” she says.
Steve Lewis, chairman of the
Ford African Ancestry Network
(FAAN), takes it another step fur-
ther. He believes when tasked cor-
rectly, ERGs can and should have
a bottom-line impact on company
revenues. “There’s nothing like
having internal measurements.
When we talk about vehicle
sales that are an impact of these
organizations, unless I have hard
metrics, it doesn’t
help,” says Lewis.
“We have sold an
average of 3,500
vehicles incremen-
tal to the company
because of FAAN.”
And Lewis points to his ERGs’
involvement at various events
around the country, such as the
National Black MBA Association.
“We’ve always had a demonstrable
presence in terms of recruiting at
that event. We also talk about our
brand there. When we sponsored
the NBMBA annual concert, it
may sound like a simple thing, but
then you have the venue to talk
about all the products that Ford
Motor Co. offers,” says Lewis. “That
translates into having students
and applicants coming to the
career-fair booth looking for the
possibility of winning a vehicle.
Those types of things ensure brand
awareness when we utilize those
different platforms as levers to talk
about Ford and strengthen it in the
African-American marketplace.”
“They help us in actual recruiting
activities and are very much a part of the
work we do with interns.”
