COLBORN: What has been the biggest change in your company’s approach to workforce diversity and inclusion in the last five years?
GRAVES: Schering-Plough now has operations in Latin America, Europe, Canada, Asia/ Pacific and the U.S. We’ve graduated to a larger effort at building a global diversity and inclusion strategy.
HENDERSON: Weyerhaeuser’s customers are requiring more, and shareholders and boards of directors are beginning to ask more questions. We’re a business-to-business company and a lot of our customers are business-to-consumer, so this is a critical business lever.
GLOVER: IBM is finding that the impact of mobility and other factors gives us the ability to manage our work and our relationships with our clients and workers more flexibly. The nine-to-five continuous workday just isn’t how business operates anymore, and that often means our workers can participate in ways that are more in line with their personal and family needs. It’s closely related to a true global economy.
LEE: A few years after Miles White moved into the CEO position at Abbott we created an executive inclusion council that he heads. We have leadership goals for diversity across the organization. Over the last five years we’ve created employee networks for women, African Americans, Hispanics and more. We even have a part-time employees’ network that focuses on people who need flexibility in their work lives.
HUDNELL: The great thing about being an engineering company is that we measure everything, so in 2002 we at Intel did a study to help us understand how we were doing with diversity. We see we’ve become more mature about where our leadership pipeline and our representation are going. We certainly are not perfect yet, but we are definitely seeing a difference.
OLIVER: At General Dynamics, the broadening of the definition of diversity has generated the largest change we’ve seen. In the civil rights days diversity was focused on a particular ethnic group, or women. Later on age became an issue, then veterans. Now it’s broadened into the way people think.
HUDSON WILLIAMS: Toyota has developed a pipeline that focuses on external recruiting, college relations, community outreach and internal development. It’s been made more structured and more focused.
WHITING: About five years ago Microsoft put a road map in place, a strategic plan that helps drive our results in the company. A huge piece of it is employee and leadership engagement. We have about forty affinity groups in the company, and the energy and involvement of our employees is remarkable.
CASEY: For the first time in U.S. history we have four generations in the workforce. At WellPoint we’re finding that employees work differently and customers want to be engaged differently. Some of the millennials don’t care about a physical office, they just want connectivity and what they need to get their job done. A baby boomer may prefer face-to-face contact. They can both help us understand how our customers want to be engaged.
FARRAR: You really need to be able to communicate with cultures and folks around the globe. Given that Sempra Energy is now a global enterprise, it’s important for us to reach out to all constituency groups and make sure their voices are heard. We’re one of the first global companies to work with firms in China that bring women into positions of responsibility and authority.
TRAWICK: As Ford’s global industry and business changed, it highlighted the need to integrate diversity more deeply into the business. We leverage our processes and groups to develop a strong technical pipeline.
YRIZARRY: Our growing broadband communications and entertainment business has led Verizon to make significant strategic shifts, like the 2006 acquisition of the former MCI and our global expansion. Our employees at all levels reflect a diversity of perspective and experience. Through our employees who speak languages other than English, we’re reaching out to an entire new customer base.
COLBORN: How have these changes affected your company’s technical workforce?
LEE: Abbott is driving its technical workforce to be more diverse. We believe that a diverse workforce offers diverse perspectives, leading to greater innovation for our healthcare products.
GRAVES: Schering-Plough has identified certain competencies in our job profiles and performance evaluation systems. An important one is to have a global perspective but retain a sensitivity to the local environment.
HENDERSON: A significant number of Weyerhaeuser people will be eligible to retire soon, so we’ll have a fairly significant change in the makeup of our workforce over the next five to seven years. We need to adapt our work environment and climate to attract individuals coming out of college.
GLOVER: In my view, the need for a “water cooler” everyone can gather around is even greater in a technical community like IBM than in other communities. Innovation happens when people’s ideas collide against one another and something new comes out of it. But how do you replicate the water-cooler atmosphere when some of the people are in Tokyo and some are in Raleigh?
OLIVER: Because of the classified nature of our work, General Dynamics doesn’t have the ability to globally source technical help as most other companies do, although we have the same aging workforce. Our solution is to do more training. We need to make more U.S. citizens technically competent to deal with our continually changing technology needs.
HUDSON WILLIAMS: I think Toyota’s more structured approach to diversity has strengthened the technical workforce and given diverse technical students and professionals greater access to information. The company is involved with NSBE, SWE and SHPE, and I think this helps the overall culture to be more open and inclusive.
TRAWICK: As Ford reduces its workforce, managers realize they need inclusion to maximize and retain talent. Our CEO has said our performance will be determined by the breadth of our inclusion effort.
Our technical workforce has a direct tie to our diverse customer base and this helps us leverage our diversity. Our product development process involves teamwork around the world.
YANCEY-BRAGG: At DuPont, we feel that to get the most out of this next phase of our journey we have to work on engagement, diversity and inclusion all at the same time. When you talk about inclusion and engagement I think the majority of the population can see themselves in the picture.
YRIZARRY: Verizon’s need for well-rounded managers has increased. We certainly need leaders with technical expertise but they also need to be effective communicators and skilled managers. We are working to develop leaders at all levels who can draw from a diverse base of experiences.
COLBORN: What do you think the biggest change will be in the next five years?
GRAVES: As Schering-Plough begins to see the capabilities that can come through our network groups, and the organization that brings all the groups together, we will be better able to function and grow in the U.S. and other parts of the world. We’re building leadership’s capability to move cross-culturally with ease and comfort.
HENDERSON: If you look at who’s graduating from the technical schools you’ll find a significantly larger percentage of students from Asia, India and Africa. That will mean more cross-cultural and spiritual and religious differences in the workplace. We must learn to accommodate this in terms of work climate and culture.
The generational challenge is already emerging: we have differences in how people approach and think about work. In both cases, Weyerhaeuser believes that flexibility in how the work gets done will emerge as a very significant opportunity.
GLOVER: We at IBM will need to quickly understand, absorb and teach people to work together across differences of language and culture and, in the case of the maturing workforce, the huge differences in familiarity and comfort with technology between the generations.
HUDNELL: I believe that in Intel’s industry we will still be working on the basics five years from now because the gap will probably not close in that time. But we’re beginning to look at things in different ways, and we need to be sure we are being sensitive and looking at inclusion of all our employees. It’s not easy: what our companies are trying to do with diversity is what society itself has not yet achieved.
WHITING: Microsoft has had great success in many parts of the world with, for example, women’s conferences in Japan and Mexico and a global women’s conference in Europe. But there’s still the challenge to make this real everywhere in the world, and that is the next frontier.
CASEY: The next big issue will be managing across socioeconomic lines. Corporate America must drive diversity. I also see a focus on people with disabilities, including many vets from the Iraq war. I think that at WellPoint and everywhere, we have to make sure our work environments support people with disabilities.
YANCEY-BRAGG: We have four or five generations working at DuPont now. In the next five years we have to really rethink our compensation and benefits practices and offerings, and aggressively work on developing and advancing women and people of color in the organization.
FARRAR: With baby boomers starting to retire, we may have a real challenge with expertise drain. When you’re dealing in energy, electricity and gas as we do at Sempra, you need a real depth of specific knowledge.
TRAWICK: I think our current challenges will only increase in intensity. For Ford, this means more virtual teams and global platforms, greater use of technology and new paths to cooperation and inclusion. Our leaders and managers must build their cross-cultural competencies, sensitivities and mindsets.
In the new workforce, diversity is a given. Being able to work with different generations is the current challenge, and it will probably increase.
COLBORN: How has your company’s approach to supplier diversity changed in the last five years?
GRAVES: The most recent and important change at Schering-Plough was hiring a fulltime supplier diversity manager. We decided that we wanted to put strategies and plans together within each business unit to take advantage of the untapped supplier resources that we know are out there.
OLIVER: General Dynamics is spending more time helping suppliers be successful in a changing environment.
HUDSON WILLIAMS: Toyota now has a more concentrated approach to the way we do business company-wide. We have a strategy in place, a diversity advisory board, and specific processes like developing and tracking targets. We became part of the Billion Dollar Roundtable in 2005.
BURKE: Two years ago we built a formal supplier diversity program, with commitment from the executive leadership team. We’ve focused on tier I and tier II spending, and the interface between diversity and sourcing. Supplier diversity provides important business solutions for our customers.
OJEDA: Ford now includes women in its supplier diversity base. And we’ve developed a technology platform that lets us look across our supply chain to the second tier and beyond.
MARTINEZ: Intel has narrowed its purchasing model. We’ve gone from regional purchasing to centralized purchasing and now to a global-sourcing purchasing organization, and we’re taking steps to adopt global supplier diversity. It’s creating a bigger playing field than has ever existed before.
YRIZARRY: Verizon has increased its spend with diverse suppliers year after year and strengthened its tier two efforts. We now include supplier diversity in calculating our managers’ short-term incentives.
JONES: DuPont’s buying organization has moved from decentralized to centralized. We’re focused on larger MBE suppliers, and we use tier two requirements to include smaller MBEs.
COLBORN: How have these changes affected your companies’ supply chain for technical products and services?
OLIVER: At General Dynamics and in our industry, we are seeing a number of retired military people who have developed businesses leveraging their experience.
HUDSON WILLIAMS: As Toyota’s business continues to grow our need for all products is increasing and there are more supplier opportunities. We have processes in place to give M/WBEs a broader opportunity to participate
BURKE: WellPoint is increasing its spending with M/WBEs. Our EVP of IT is driving the increase, and recently sponsored a networking summit for M/WBEs. We added several new companies to our technical supply chain, and we plan to host another IT summit.
OJEDA: As the electronic content of Fords and other cars increases, there are more opportunities for suppliers in that area.
MARTINEZ: Intel has really great diverse suppliers in tech staffing and services. But as we move into the global arena our diverse suppliers face the same challenges as everybody else. Should they look for opportunities to partner and potentially tool up in other countries? It’s a tough business decision, but I think corporations will be very interested in a supplier that does that.
COLBORN: What do you think the biggest changes will be in the next five years?
GRAVES: Schering-Plough will build a coordinated company-wide supplier diversity program that engages sourcing managers, recognizing that the real buying power is within strategic sourcing in the business units.
OLIVER: If companies can source on a global basis the competition will be much greater for MBEs here in the U.S. Small business entrepreneurs now have to compete in the global market. By being effective and efficient globally, General Dynamics can help itself and hopefully open up opportunities for the MBEs as well.
BURKE: Business-to-business customers will look to their corporate partners to help them with supplier diversity. Consumers, including M/WBE’s, will pay close attention too. WellPoint will have a robust supplier diversity program in the next five years.
OJEDA: On the non-production side, vendor management is becoming increasingly technical. We have applied technology to that process and it’s reducing our costs, making us more innovative and speeding our time to market. Of course all our suppliers must be capable of using these systems.
MARTINEZ: Intel will help all its suppliers realize this chance to embrace the global economy. I think it’s going to be an interesting time, but I have no prediction of how it will go.
YRIZARRY: For Verizon, the biggest change will come in vendor relationships with an increased focus on maximizing efficiency. We are working toward a smaller group of vendors, but still increasing our first-tier, second-tier and third-tier spend with diverse companies. |
