This presentation featured at Intern Bridge Inc\’s Diversity Best Practices Online Conference provides a practical how to for employers genuinely interested in recruiting minorities that will stay and achieve in the workplace. Encompassing recruitment strategies, mentorship programming, debunking myths about minority achievement, and improving communication in diverse workplaces this is a true best practices manual for any employer.

1. Retaining and Cultivating Achievement
in Minority Talent

2. Juris Doctorate
Case Western Reserve University
(Cleveland, OH)
B.A. in Political Science
Hampton University
(Hampton, VA)
Diversity Coordinator
Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association
Recruiter
Case Western Reserve University School of Law

4. Groups are ready to
be viewed as an asset.
Organizational
Diversity is prepared
structures will adapt
to impact corporate
to maximize
objectives and
diversity's asset
priorities
impact
Diversity groups are
Diversity will
capable of
demonstrate
leveraging their
tactical and
strength and
strategic value.
influence
Executives will invest
Diversity will be
in diversity,
measured by asset-
commensurate with
oriented criterion
contribution

5. Clarify your
definition of
diversity. Include
visible as well as
invisible
dimensions using
• 1. Leadership is in denial about the results and department or
employees lose trust as a result function using
focus surveys.
2. Leadership listens and decides that hiring a member of
the under represented group via executive search without
see a need or finding the time for long term solutions
behind the actual issues
3. There is a strategy meeting in which good ideas for long
term solutions are made but there is no accountability or
steps to implement the specifics and so other than
discussing the need for more diversity there is no change
Simma Lieberman “Moving Beyond the Numbers How to Recruit and Retain a Diverse Workforce

6. Include diversity as a part of your
Research and develop a list website and marking materials.
Start in middle and high
of colleges that historically Candidates look at a website if it
school. Attend career days
have large numbers of does not state and show a high
and come prepared to
women, people with value for diversity they will look
discuss the benefits of else where. So really take the time
disability, different cultural
working for your to think about diversity and craft a
and ethnic backgrounds.
organization and industry great meaningful statement
Send recruiters there. (Kellogg Diversity Statement)
MAINTAIN VISBILITY AT EVERY STAGE (DON’T DROP THE BALL)
Simma Lieberman “Moving Beyond the Numbers How to Recruit and Retain
a Diverse Workforce”

7. Actively search
out the
candidates you
are looking for
Make sure you
deliver what you
promise
Building relationships
early is the key to
having employees that
have a sense of loyalty
and will stay even
through difficult
periods
Simma Lieberman “Moving Beyond the Numbers How to Recruit and Retain a Diverse
Workforce”

8. New Hire
Orientation
On
Campus
Interviews
Establishing consistency
will create a sense of your
organizations real
commitment to diversity
• Visibility at
Every
Recruitment
Stage

9. Staff Training that Focuses on
Intercultural Competence
The more knowledge that exists about
diverse groups, the more likely is
an increased sensitivity for the
individualities and particularities
of the work force
Team
Building Communication
(flexibility, Training
problem (verbal/
solving, talent nonverbal)
recognition)
Sensitivity Training
(generational gaps,
situational sensitivity)
Don’t Drop The Ball:
For the selection of situative appropriate forms of behavior the relevant
environment factors must first be perceived and correctly interpreted,
intercultural competence of action calls in turn for sensitivity and knowledge.
Dr. Ursina Böhm, Interculturally Competent, Tur tor Fenster Report, Issue 5, 2009

10. Open Doors that Are Really
Open
 Establishing Mechanisms to
Handle Conflict
 A diverse organization is more
likely to face internal conflicts
between the employees or between
employees and management.
Therefore, an effective conflict
management system should be
evolved between the HR
department and senior
management for swift
and efficient resolution of such
conflicts.
 Quality Evaluations
 employees of color are often given
vague performance evaluations that
give no indication of what they
need to work on. Next thing they
know, they've been passed over for a
promotion for no apparent reason
 Having an Inclusive Promotion
Strategy
 Support continuing education and
be sure that promotion
opportunities are transparent and •George Thompson, Strategies for Recruiting a Diverse Staff,
open to diverse applicants. Diversity Council.org
Demonstrate that diversity is •Vikas Vij , 10 Ways for Managing Diverse Employeees,
welcome in all levels of the business BrightHub.com
or organization.
•Carmen Van Kerckhove , After Decades, Little Progress, Crains
Business NY June 2008

11. • Standardized tests seem to predict
Tests ≠ performance on traditional academic
tasks better than they predict
performance on everyday, real-world
Success tasks or on unusual, multifaceted
problems that are likely to arise in the
business world
• Intelligence does play an important
GPA≠ role in school achievement, but many
other factors—motivation, quality of
Success instruction, resources, support, peer
group expectations—are also involved.
Scores ≠ • Standardized scores do a reasonable
job of predicting achievement for a
short period— the following year or
two. They are less useful in predicting
Success achievement over the long run,
J.E. Ormrod, IQ and School Achievement, Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, (2007)

12. Female Employees
≠
Work/Life Balance Issues
The labor-market participation
rate for women 25 to 44 years of
age - the average child bearing
years - rose from less than 20%
to more than 75% between 1900
and 1999

Women today are leaving the corporate sector in vast numbers-twice the
rate of men. They are not leaving to tend to their families but rather to
seek positions that are more satisfying and rewarding or start up their
own business. According to a study released last year by the National
Foundation for Women Business Owners, women own approximately 7.7
million firms; an increase of 43% since 1990.
Women are forming new businesses at double the rate of men. In turn,
big companies are losing valuable players. This loss is becoming more and
more costly to organizations that have invested time and money in their
employees. It would serve both organizations and women to reexamine
the obstacles that prevent females from advancing and from being valued
in the workplace Mauricio Velasquez
, Shattering the Glass Ceiling: A Strategy for Survival

13. Values drive behavior, often Age ≠
in ways that we don’t even
notice.
Diversity
When people are working Generation
side-by-side and have largely Born: Age Now:
different values, conflicts tend Boomers 1940–60 52–72
to erupt, hampering Generation X 1960–80 32–52
productivity and morale in Generation Y 1980–2000 <32
workplace settings.
• Health and wellness
Add to that the observation Baby • Personal growth
that our workplace is Boomers • Work
dominated by two generations
• Balance
(Boomers and Generation Generation X • Techno-literacy
X)— one of whom tends to be • Informality
supervising the other— • Thinking Globally
generationally based conflicts • Civic duty
Generation Y • Achievement
are going to attract attention
• Sociability
Jamie Notter, Generational Diversity In the • Diversity
Workplace (2002)

14. Allowing employees to set aside time
for volunteer activities—even a few
hours a month—would send a
message that employers recognize and
value social outreach and community
A large number of minority involvement.
professionals do not feel that
their roles and
responsibilities outside the Companies could even take an active
workplace are recognized or role in helping young minority
understood by their professionals access nonprofit boards,
thereby giving them an early
employers. opportunity to develop leadership
Minority women in larger skills they can bring back to their
workplaces
companies (56 percent),
young women of color (50
percent), and Asian women
(49 percent) are the most
An overwhelming majority of our
likely to feel that their lives survey participants would welcome
are "invisible" to their training from their companies in
employers. fundraising for volunteer activities.
"Leadership in Your Midst: Tapping the Hidden Strengths of Minority Executives,"
Harvard Business Review, Vol. 83, No. 11, November 2005

15. Unilever introduced its
Getting into the Skin program
as a key part of the company's
leadership development
FOUNDATION asking selected groups of
current and future leaders to
spend time abroad in service
projects .
Company initiatives that
"widen the tent," such as
employee benefits that go Time Warner extended its
employee assistance program
Employers beyond the nuclear family. (which includes, for example,
should Nearly three-quarters (74 access to child care referral
percent) want help paying for Support services and company scholarship
recognize and
health insurance for up to diverse social programs) to other reliant family
value two members of their members (perhaps an aunt or
organizations
community extended families. Many (72 uncle) "In the last five months,
involvement percent) want a few days of there's been a 200 percent increase
in uptake
annual leave for the purpose
of elder care or extended-
family care.
Pitney Bowes has continued to
support Delta Sigma Theta
(an African-American
DON’T DROP THE BALL Sorority) in many ways, from
purchasing advertising space
in fundraising souvenir
journals to matching
charitable donations.
"Leadership in Your Midst: Tapping the Hidden Strengths of Minority Executives,"
Harvard Business Review, Vol. 83, No. 11, November 2005

16. Executive Level Opportunity
Enhancement of Skills and
Roles
Active Mentorship
Programs
A significant proportion of minority professionals (66 percent) supported the creation of
mentoring programs across divisions and the matching of minority employees with senior
colleagues from similar ethnic and cultural backgrounds. When mentors build trusting, open
relationships with minority protégés, companies gain an important window on leadership
talent that is often hidden from view. Mentors can actively engage their protégés in
discussions about their outside roles and work with them to apply and enhance those skills in
their everyday jobs. "Leadership in Your Midst: Tapping the Hidden Strengths of Minority Executives,"
Harvard Business Review, Vol. 83, No. 11, November 2005

17. • DIVERSITY IS AN ASSET WITH MONETARY AND STRATEGIC VALUE
• EACH ORGANIZATION MUST DO AN INTERNAL EVALUATION TO
DETERMINE WHAT THEIR DIVERSE NEEDS ARE
FOUNDATION
• BE PROACTIVE IN SHAPING YOUNG STUDENTS TO THE CANDIDATES YOU
WANT AND WILL BE A GOOD FIT FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION
GETTING • MAINTAIN CONTACT AND VISIBILITY AT ALL STAGES
THE RIGHT FIT
• DON’T MISS OUT ON GREAT CANDIDATES BY FOCUSING ON SCORES AND
GPA LOOK FOR A TOTAL PACKAGE
DEBUNKING • ADDRESS NONTRADITIONAL FORMS OF DIVERSITY WITH A FOCUS ON
MYTHS COMMUNICATION
• ENCOURAGE COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP AND SOCIAL INVOLVEMENT
• FOSTER MENTORSHIPS TO ENHANCE SKILLS AND UNCOVER POTENTIAL
ENSURING LEADERS
SUCCESS