DiversityInc - May 2011

RETENTION

CONTINUED

to go to. The graduation rate is extraordinarily low. For the last 15 years, our people have been volunteering their time mentoring some of the hardest cases there. Instead of graduating at a 25 percent rate, the kids that our people are volunteering graduate at a 95 percent rate. You just change lives. We’re replicating that, not just in the United States but around the world.

HAMILTON
Susan Hamilton Assistant Vice President of Diversity and Chief Diversity Officer

»CSX CORP. • NO. 17 IN THE DIVERSITYINC TOP 50

We had our coaching inclusion forum last weekend. We recognize our top inclusion council (geographically based), our top (employee) group (based on a shared bond or theme) and our individual champion. They’re recognized in front of the kickoff audience with the executive team present. It’s a big deal to them. The employee groups have three goals every year. No. 1, business imperative: They pick what they want to do to help the business. We are a B-to-B, so it’s harder for them than it is for a marketing company. But they all must do that first. Secondly, employee engagement in their areas, bringing people to the table, getting people committed. We don’t just want compliance. We want commitment of our employees. And third is our outreach. They are the face of our company and our core values out in that community that we want to be recognized as the kind of company people want in their community and the kind of company that other companies want to do business with.

BEST-PRACTICE EXAMPLE

Our African-American inclusion group was named the best group for the second time in four years.

They have developed a partnership with a historically Black college in northeast Florida, Edward Waters College. They provide an approved leadership curriculum during the spring semester. We work with the administration. They select the students. We put the students through this rigorous leadership curriculum over the next two to three months. Then we pick the top students to be interns at CSX. Obviously, we benefit because we want to help our pipeline with students from this college. But this college needs corporations to partner with them to help show their students the opportunities there are out there in the world and to get them ready for it.

Cindy Brinkley

We have 10 employee-resource groups. Everybody used to have their own individual kind of annual meetings. Now, we bring them all in together and have one huge conference and tremendous amounts of executive participation. Our chairman is there, and it’s just a great way to recognize those ERGs that have done incredible things through the year. We have a contest around innovative things that they’ve done. Our veterans group won the award for collecting things for the soldiers. People come at their own expense. It’s not something where the company pays their travel. It’s a two-day conference at AT&T University (in Dallas). It’s grown 70 percent in the second year from the first year.