DiversityInc - May 2011

GLOBA L
DIV ERSITY

CONTINUED

KELLY

of things. For instance, we believe all of our employees should have the opportunity to realize their full potential. But that might manifest itself differently in one part of the world than it does in another part of the world. If we want to make sure that women have an opportunity in India, we may do some things in India that we may not do in the United States because we can or because it makes better sense there. By that same token, we operate in parts of the world where it’s illegal to be LGBT. So I’m not going to necessarily have an LGBT affinity group to put people’s lives at risk. From a Cummins value standpoint, we still value our employees and we’re still supportive of our employees and we won’t do things that are counter to our values, but we’re not going to put employees at risk to fit a model.

So you have to tailor your message based on where you are.

OSSEIRAN-HANNA

Marilyn Priestley

Being a Swiss-based company, for you to really enhance your career, you have to have a global rotation. Within the United States, we have a really difficult time enticing people to go to Switzerland. BEST-PRACTICE EXAMPLE

We actually have an employee-resource
group called Global Network Exchange, all
for ex-pats. They have lunch-and-learns
about the myths and stereotypes about
living in Switzerland versus the rest of the
world. In doing that, we have been able to
encourage people to take the plunge. They
had a regional conference in the U.K. where
they invited ex-pats from around the world
to talk about their experiences and to share
best practices about how they assimilated
in different countries. Now these folks are
coaches to people who actually want to go
overseas.

Eugene Kelly

Worldwide Director, Global Diversity & Inclusion

»COLGATE-PALMOLIVE CO. • NO. 10 IN THE DIVERSITYINC TOP 50

Istruggle with saying diversity this, diver- sity that, because when I leave the States, what does that mean? For us, it’s the value of valuing unique opportunities and valuing differences and leveraging similarities. We want to mirror internally, at all levels, the people who buy our products.

Khatmeh Osseiran-Hanna Former Vice President for University Advancement

»NEW JERSEY CITY UNIVERSITY

I’d like to turn the question around—could we and should we learn from other coun- tries lessons of diversity in applying them here? If we put the shoes on from overseas it might be more advantageous to us. It’s not always the right way here, necessarily. We need to always be open-minded. That’s what diversity is all about.