DIVERSITYINC LEARNING EVENT
Day
1
Kristin Johnson NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF DIVERSITY, KPMG (NO. 15 IN THE DIVERSITYINC TOP 50) “We went through reductions in force. I’ve been with the firm 11 years and I’ve never seen anything like it, and so a lot of us are doing a lot more with a lot less resources. Some of the positives are how we creatively looked at how to reduce our operating costs. An example that I’ll provide is our U.K. firm, where they developed a program of a paid sabbatical. They had about almost 85 percent of the employees and partners within the U.K. firm that signed up voluntarily to participate for a minimum of three months all the way to six months. They could receive 20 or 30 percent of pay, maintain benefits and status as an employee in terms of length of service and then come back and resume normal duties. That was a big success story in the U.K. firm. We did that here in the U.S., but really only about 7 percent of our employees availed themselves of it.”
What
They
DID
Kaplan Mobray
U.S. DIVERSITY PROGRAMS DIRECTOR, DELOITTE (N0. 25 IN THE DIVERSITYINC TOP 50)
“We have a lot of operations in India. So a lot of processes, marketing,
operations have been shifted to what we call Region 10, which is our
India practice. It forces conversation of how do you integrate diversity
from cost assurance into one consistent approach around people and talent. But also, we look at the talent market to attract candidates now. The
candidates that we would have probably attracted for jobs five, seven, 10
years ago, those jobs are perhaps now in India or in our global practice.
“It’s a continual challenge for us: How do we attract talent, whether it’s
for our U.S. practice or migrating for functions that are overseas? One of
the biggest challenges in India is training talent and that talent leaving
and the rapid attrition in that market. The work product that is done
overseas impacts the end product in the U.S. It’s a key issue of managing
talent and diversity. We find that our India practice wants to be integrated into the talent practices that we have in the U.S. There is a global
convergence of diversity that happens.”
Key TAKEAWAYS
; The global economy impacts all businesses, even ones considered strictly “domestic” ; Be proactive of the economic effect on your clients as well as on your own company ; Look at available talent pools from a global perspective; plan ahead and hire for future needs ; Consider suppliers as global entities for cost-effectiveness and innovation
For more information on DiversityInc’s next event, visit
www.DiversityInc.com/events
June 2010 105
