| Diversity
in Action Hewitt
Associates is walking the walk The
company's diversity interest goes beyond its own and even its customers' workforces.
"We're about making the world a better place," an officer notes
Hewitt
Associates, founded in 1940, is the world's largest human resources (HR) outsourcing
and consulting firm. The company embraces diversity as a key element of its own
business strategy, and has developed innovative programs to increase the diversity
of its workforce and help employees in their professional and personal lives.  | | Andrés
Tapia: community relations help build tomorrow's diverse workforce. |
Hewitt
has eighty-six offices worldwide, including twenty-five in the U.S. It works in
the areas of benefits, HR strategy and technology, healthcare, organizational
change, retirement and financial management, and talent and reward strategies.
Its clients include more than half the Fortune 500 companies and more than a third
of Fortune's Global 500, according to Andrés Tapia, chief diversity officer
at Hewitt. Information
technology is an important segment of the Hewitt offerings. Hewitt staffers are
involved in IT, both for clients and for the company itself. They do software
development and evaluation, LAN admin and apps development, and work in all phases
of the IT life cycle, from requirements development to the design and implementation
of client business apps, Tapia explains. Hot
areas of expertise, he notes, include ERP packages like PeopleSoft and Oracle,
information security, data warehousing in Cognos, Informatica and ETL, information
integration tools such as Corba andÊVitria, and IBM's Websphere. The
goal of diversifying Hewitt's own workforce has become more strategic and focused
in recent years, Tapia declares. The company now has organized affinity groups,
which it calls associate networks, at all its offices. These include groups for
African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Asian Americans, gays and lesbians, working
parents, and employees over forty. The
company offers diversity training. In addition, "diversity dialogues," featuring
lunch-hour speakers and discussions, have been in place for several years. Domestic
partner benefits have been offered for the past four years. Hewitt always does
well on the Human Rights Campaign organization's index, especially since the domestic
partner benefits went in, Tapia says. The index tracks how well companies score
on being friendly to gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transvestites (GLBTs).
Hewitt Associates
www.hewitt.com
| Headquarters:
|
Lincolnshire, IL | |
Employees:
|
15,000 worldwide | |
Revenues: |
$1.7 billion | |
Business: |
Global human resources outsourcing and consulting | |
|
The
company, in fact, is walking the walk. "We are about making the world a better
place," Tapia declares. "Hewitt wants its community relations to be about building
tomorrow's diverse workforce. We look at education, job training and infrastructure." Company
recruitment programs reflect the focus on diversity. Summer Folk, program manager
for the talent acquisition and transitions group, notes that recruitment goals
at Hewitt have changed substantially. "Five
to seven years ago our diversity recruiting was a decentralized, grassroots kind
of effort," she says. But in recent years, the strategy "also includes building
long-term relationships and sustainable programs." Hewitt
currently has strong relationships with BDPA and the Hispanic MBA and Black MBA
associations. Top company management meets regularly with the leaders of these
groups to develop goals and identify issues important to minority communities
and employees, Folk says. "We
also focus on minority-serving institutions and partner with their student organizations,
professors and administration," she adds. Once
the workforce is in place, the company helps out with a number of helpful work/life
programs. For example, folks who live in the city of Chicago are offered free
transportation to Hewitt's suburban headquarters, and childcare during school
vacations is available at some sites. Kerry
Astar, work/life program coordinator, points to a resource and referral service
called Life Care which is provided by the company. "They help people find childcare
and eldercare services and parenting information," she explains. A
few years ago a different company provided those services, but not on a broad
enough basis. An employee survey indicated a need for more minority-specific information:
about day camps in minority communities, for example, or contacts with minority
professionals like lawyers and psychologists. The
result was a switch to the Life Care group, because they were in a position "to
provide more diverse information for our diverse population," Astar notes. D/C | 
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