Federal Agencies
A DIVERSITYINC SPECIAL REPORT
“To compete with the very best of industry and to be a top company was a strategic decision for us,” said U.S. Navy Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Admiral Mark
E. Ferguson at DiversityInc’s March learning event in
Washington, D.C., where the Navy and four other agencies
(U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Internal Revenue
Service, Army & Air Force Exchange Service and U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office) each earned recognition as one of
The 2010 DiversityInc Top Federal Agencies for Diversity.
To determine this year’s list, DiversityInc sent the survey to more than 500 agencies, with 30 actually completing,
to measure their commitment to the same areas as The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity®. Although the
five winners exhibited strong diversity-management and workforce representation, the aggregate participants lagged
when compared against corporate leaders in all areas of the survey, with the exception of supplier diversity.
The federal agencies that top this year’s list have
been taking diversity-management cues from corporate
America. After holding a series of fact-finding discussions with business and academic leaders, for instance,
the Navy implemented its diversity plan in 2006 with
the stipulation “to no longer accept the status quo,” said
Captain Kenneth J. Barrett, head of the Navy’s Diversity
Directorate, at the event, acknowledging that the
service’s workforce had been lagging national demographics for several years.
An honest self-assessment and serious diversity
commitment by leadership has helped accelerate the
Navy’s workforce turnaround, which includes about
300,000 active duty, 60,000 reserves and 190,000
civilians. In just two years, the maritime service
increased its racial/ethnic and gender representation by
200 percent, reported Capt. Barrett.
Despite the successful efforts of the Navy and some
agencies, there’s still a public-sector crisis: Too few
people from traditionally underrepresented groups
are filling federal workforce ranks. The U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission’s most recent
“Annual Report on the Federal Workforce” found
several pockets of workforce-diversity underrepresentation. The number of federal employees with targeted
disabilities, for instance, has been steadily declining
for more than a decade, dropping from 1. 1 percent in
1999 to less than 1 percent in 2008. Latinos, the fastest-growing population in the United States, also remain
underrepresented at all levels of the federal labor force,
accounting for only 3. 6 percent of the senior pay level
and 7. 9 percent of the total federal workforce. In 2008,
Latinos made up 14. 3 percent of the entire workforce
(U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
“It’s important that diversity is a real and active part of everything we do.”
CHERYL JULIA KELLEY, U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION
“It would be foolish to not take the great talent, the great confidence
and intellect of the young women who serve in our Navy today and bring
that into our submarine force.”
ADMIRAL GARY ROUGHEAD, CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
168 DiversityInc
