DiversityInc - January/February 2009

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12 DIvERSITYINC.COm

Editor’s Letter

What’s the Best

Diversity Structure?

As we visit companies that have purchased DiversityInc’s benchmarking service, we are often asked how vital it is that the head of diversity report directly to the CEO.

Five years ago, only 4 percent of the companies participating in The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity® survey and 12 percent of companies in the DiversityInc Top 50 had their heads of diversity directly reporting to the CEO. Last year, that was 18 percent of participants and 32 percent of DiversityInc Top 50 companies, and we expect it will be even higher this year.

They recognize that this elevates the chief diversity officer to that of other C-level executives—chief financial officer, chief operating officer, etc.—all crucial to the direct success of the company. And it sends the clear message that the CEO is holding a direct report personally responsible for the company’s diversity initiatives.

With that said, there are companies whose structures are so large or so different that having the chief diversity officer as a direct report is unwieldy. There are CEOs who don’t want to have more than a handful of direct reports. In those cases, what’s more critical is access to the CEO. As the chief diversity officer at one of the country’s largest telecoms (who does not report to the CEO) told me: “I have his ear, and diversity is a priority for him. There isn’t a week that goes by that we don’t sit down and discuss diversity, and if I need his sign-off or opinion on something, I know I can get it.”

Diversity-department structures vary, depending on the size, industry, centralization and culture of the company. We’ve been studying diversity-department structures in-depth for the past two months and have been featuring audio interviews with companies every week on DiversityIncBestPractices.com, our diversity-management web site.

The full results of our study on diversity-department structures will be available on DiversityIncBestPractices. com next month and will be synopsized in the next issue of this magazine. But here’s a preview of what we’ve learned: The most successful companies have diversity structures that mirror their business structures and that put diversity front and center as being crucial to the company’s future. They don’t silo diversity as an adjunct to human resources or relegate it to a “soft” staff position.

How many direct reports do most chief diversity officers have and what are their functions? How big are their budgets and how do they maintain or surpass previous budgets in this economy? What falls under their department and how do they work with other departments?