By Tamara E. Holmes
FleetBoston Financial knows diversity.
Recognized in April as one of the top 50 companies for diversity nationwide by DiversityInc Magazine, the financial services company is adjusting its diversity training policies to reflect the changing times.
"We see [diversity] as a business-driven priority," says Carolyn Shoenecker, director of diversity for FleetBoston. "Any workplace is impacted by the talent in the organization. With the changing demographics [in the country], you have to attract talented people and help them deliver the best to the customers."
According to Katharine Esty, managing partner at Waltham, Mass.-based Ibis Consulting Group, Inc., a company that helps corporations develop diversity training programs, diversity training "is changing quite dramatically."
"Diversity remains on the corporate agenda," she says. But companies are moving beyond mere diversity awareness training. Today, firms are focusing on providing management with specific skills that are designed to attract and retain a diverse workforce.
As a result, employers are updating their diversity training materials. A video tape shown to managers in the 1980s isn't going to be relevant today. So companies are moving increasingly to e-learning, or Web-based training strategies.
"The trend in all training is to move toward e-learning," says Esty. "People believe that in another 10 years, 60 percent of training will be e-learning."
But corporate training materials are not just changing in form. They are also getting an upgrade in content.
Diversity committees are being set up in many companies, Esty says, and they are implementing programs designed to make different gender, racial and ethnic groups feel more comfortable.
FleetBoston, for example, has seven diversity resource groups that allow employees of a similar background to come together to support one another. Fleet has separate groups for Asians, African Americans, people with disabilities, gay and lesbian employees, Latinos, parents, and women.
Not only do the groups meet so members can offer support to one another, but they also raise money to supply grant awards to organizations in the community that are aligned to their missions.
"It's not just about getting together and meeting but also supporting organizations that we network with," says FleetBoston spokesman Joe Good. The company's philanthropic arm, FleetBoston Financial Foundation, supplies money to the resource groups so they can provide grant awards. In 2002, the foundation provided $285,000 to the seven resource groups. That money, in turn, was used to make 90 grants to organizations across the northeast.
But one of the biggest changes in corporate training practices in recent years has to do with the changing face of America. African Americans are no longer the predominant minority group in the country. When the 2000 Census results were announced, many people were surprised to learn that Hispanics now made up 13 percent of the U.S. population and were the largest minority group in the United States.
This development caused many companies to add language training to their diversity programs, says Natalia Cepeda, academic director for Habl Espana, a Boston-based company that teaches corporate clients' employees how to speak the language.
Not only that, but companies are increasingly having to change their diversity training programs to incorporate issues pertaining to foreign-born workers.
"[Employers] are beginning to see [immigrants] as a distinct group that has needs that are different from domestic people of color," says Ibis Consulting's Esty. "Visa issues must be addressed."
With federal legislation making it increasingly more difficult for immigrants to do such things as obtain a green card, employers must train managers to understand their responsibilities under the law.
Companies
have also had to update their diversity-training programs in the aftermath of
Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon. "Companies are having workshops to inform people about Islamic issues,"
Esty says. In doing so, they are hoping to ward off anti-Muslin sentiment within
the workplace.
FleetBoston's Schoenecker admits that diversity training procedures have had to remain fluid since there are always issues such as Sept. 11th and the War with Iraq, which affect employees' views of people of other races and ethnic groups.
But, "at the same time, some core principles have been steady," she says. Awareness of the importance of diversity, as well as a desire to act on that awareness and hold executives responsible for adhering to diversity policies have been the core ingredients of a successful diversity program for years.
Perhaps the biggest testament to a diversity program's success is the appreciation of customers who are members of all demographics.
"The ability to have a workforce that can be respectful of all your customers and engage with all your customers is very critical," says Schoenecker.
Tamara Holmes is a freelance writer based in Largo, MD. She can be reached at maraholmes@aol.com.
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