Workplace diversity grows, but not at the top, report says
Local organizations, in a report to be released today, say they have improved overall workplace diversity but that minorities are underrepresented at the highest levels, with 23 percent reporting they have no people of color on their leadership teams.
Eighty percent of the 111 organizations that participated in the survey indicated that workplace diversity has improved in the past five years, according to the study done by Commonwealth Compact, a project launched by business leaders and the University of Massachusetts at Boston in 2007. The initiative aims to help reverse Boston's image as unfriendly to minorities and women.
In the report, 76 percent of the organizations surveyed said that people of color and whites advance in their organization at the same rate, and 79 percent said diversity is explicitly referenced among the organizations' values or goals.
But there is still a long way to go, according to the report.
Forty-two percent of the organizations said they were not satisfied with the diversity of their leadership, and 11 percent have no minorities on their governing or leadership boards. Minorities were heavily represented in clerical and technical positions, however.
Stephen P. Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies, who helped create Commonwealth Compact, said he hopes the findings will push companies and organizations to address gaps in the upper ranks. The group plans to conduct the survey every year, compare the findings, and use the results to help organizations improve.
"The kinds of things that we'd be working on for sure is a representation of people of color and women in the most senior positions," Crosby said. "You only have to look around and see that women and people of color are not represented well."
Beverly Edgehill, chief executive officer of The Partnership, a Boston nonprofit that addresses workplace diversity, said the report reinforces that having minorities and women in the workplace doesn't mean there will be diversity in the leadership ranks.
"There has been a lot of effort to bringing people into the workplace," she said. "There has been less of a focus to bring in people to break the glass ceiling."
Organizations - including companies, nonprofits, and healthcare and educational institutions - volunteered to participate in the project and answered a series of benchmark questions about their views on diversity and their efforts to address it.
Participants included Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Staples Inc., John Hancock, Tufts Health Plan, Harvard University, Northeastern University, and Bethel A.M.E. Church. The 111 organizations surveyed employ about 180,000 people, more than 5 percent of the total state workforce, according to Commonwealth Compact.
Carol Hardy-Fanta, director of UMass-Boston's Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy, analyzed the data.
The report, "Stepping Up: Managing Diversity in Challenging Times," also offers recommendations on how companies can improve diversity, including integrating diversity goals into strategic planning, establishing groups that allow employees to weigh in on diversity, and gathering data on promotion and retention rates.
Crosby of UMass Boston initiated the Commonwealth Compact along with Ralph C. Martin II, managing partner at the law firm Bingham McCutchen LLP, and P. Steven Ainsley, publisher of The Boston Globe. The group will release the report today at an event at UMass Boston and will urge more organizations to participate in the next study.
Meghan Irons can be reached at mirons@globe.com. 