Over the past almost two weeks I have been in Europe leading workshops, working with a few clients, and presenting to recruiters from Germany, France, the U.K., and The Netherlands. We all face the same issues. Some of these are generational differences, an aging workforce, lack of loyalty, difficulty to engage and attract new college graduates, the economic recession, and growing talent needs in some areas with meltdowns in others.

I picked out one challenging area: that of how to deal with diversity and the generations.

In a workshop I held a couple of days ago, one of the scenarios we grappled with was whether diversity is growing or lessening and the role generational differences play. I presented them with the following scenarios and asked them to discuss (argue?) and challenge each other on which of these is closer to their experience and belief.

I asked them to get data to support their positions and look at the generational issues on a macro scale as well as on a local or personal level. For example, it is a fact that there are more countries in the world than ever. Large unions, such as the Soviet Union, have broken into smaller countries and others have fractured within themselves. We also know that people are more mobile than ever and that many young people have traveled to, lived in, and worked in many countries.

Read the two views expressed below and then let us know what you think. This might be a great discussion for your weekly staffing meeting or for an offsite.

Your opinions will shed light and provide examples that will help us all decide which of these is most likely to be the reality. Or you may decide that the reality is some sort of fusion of the two or even something entirely different.

What do you think? What are implications for recruiting and development? Will recruiting these younger people be a significant challenge or just the same as usual? How will our views of diversity evolve?

View One: Gen Y and the generation following, often called Gen M for mobile, don’t carry the same baggage about gender, ethnicity, and other surface differences between people. They grew up with more awareness about different learning and communication styles and many of them are of mixed heritage/cultures themselves. Over the next few years, we will chuckle at the conflicts and issues that challenged us in the Twentieth Century. We will overlook physical differences, cultural and language differences, and embrace each other’s strengths. We have elected a President who is half white and half black. He bridges divides and unites us in the process. This will be the direction of the world.

View Two: While the “surface” diversity of sex, color, and ethnicity decrease, new differences emerge. Religious and cultural differences are growing every day and some parts of the world are polarizing. Rather than less diversity, we are discovering more and more areas of difference and are latching onto those differences to discriminate in many ways. Shiites, Sunis, and Kurds cannot find common ground. Religious sects are proliferating. Rather than become one, we are becoming ever more fragmented. We have learned how to hide our feelings, but express them in nuanced ways. Recruiting diverse people will be very hard and there may be conflicts that we haven’t anticipated. The world is more fragmented than ever.

Many firms are hiring college graduates and interns for next summer. In many of those cases, relocation is paid to the college graduate or summer housing is arranged for the intern. A look at the experienced hiring market illustrates an entirely different story. A search in Google for “local candidates only” delivers more than 250,000 results. Sure, several of these openings are for retail or hourly employees where considerable education credentials aren’t required.

But you get:
50,000+ results for “local candidates only” vp
5,000+ results for “local candidates only” mba

If you sift through there a bit, you’ll find some senior openings like Chief Financial Officer and Chief Marketing Officer. Would it not be wise to mix in talent from other regions, if not solely to have different vantage points and a more diverse perspective? The best companies I’ve ever worked for had these qualities and created true diversity in skills and life perspectives. Ideally, you should be recruiting the best people who are passionate lifelong learners with cutting-edge skills capable of a building a collaborative, high-performing culture regardless of their location.

It’s similar to what I see when analyzing strategic Internet marketing programs. It comes down to one simple thing: legacy, incumbent budgets that prevent you from achieving the desired outcome. Long-standing, legacy budgets fund college graduate and intern relocation programs and are regularly renewed while mid-level, experienced-hire budget resources are highly irregular and often insufficient to acquire the best talent.

The expenses for experienced hire candidates, such as airfare and hotels during interviewing, and relocation costs of an experienced hire, often come directly out of the P&L of the business unit doing the hiring. As you enter budget cycles in the years ahead, you should consider creating a flexible budget pool for experienced hires that is independent of the business unit. This not only will help your recruiting programs hire the top talent you need today, but will position your firm strategically to have a nimble experienced hiring process in the upcoming years as the baby boomers begin to retire and you look to hire replacement leaders from Generation X.

In the short term, you need to get a bit more creative to give offers to the best and brightest talent. Here are a few ideas for obtaining the best, most geographically diverse talent:

Actively Seek Out Renters as Candidates. It’s understandable that you don’t want to take on real estate risk unless absolutely necessary, especially in the current marketplace. Additionally, you want to be hiring candidates who demonstrate responsible financial behavior — they might have the same positive tendencies when making decisions for your business! Renters with no outstanding debt or without hard-to-divest real estate should be therefore highly sought-after assets! An added benefit of this is that there is a correlation with having fewer personal belongings when renting and that would lead to a higher likelihood of a lower-cost move overall.

Target Veterans Terminating Active Duty Military. Lisa Rosser is a book author and founder of The Value of a Veteran, a firm that advises and trains organizations on the value and hidden benefits of hiring veterans. According to Lisa, “Over 100,000 service members separate from active military duty (i.e., not National Guard or Reserve duty) each year and it’s a little known fact that each and every one of them is entitled to one free move anywhere in the United States.” The veteran can request that benefit any time within one year after the date of separation. Many military members begin their job search eight or more months in advance of their last day of contracted service. That is the optimal window to begin marketing your company and its typical hiring needs to the military audience, and wrangle that free move on Uncle Sam’s dime. She also encourages people to look at the skills and competencies fully, not just their job titles and/or organization. These aren’t just infantry folks — among them are computer programmers, highly skilled engineers, nurses, and healthcare professionals.

Seek Out Spouses of Recently Relocated Workers. You might find some candidate gems here. Larger companies in your region who frequently relocate people might have lists of such people or access to organizations that provide support to these people. Look at their skill sets completely — not just their last job title and company brand. If you find a way to quickly show these people that you see value in them when they first move to an unfamiliar place, you are very likely to make an extremely positive impression. The result will be acquiring an appreciative, loyal, and content worker who has a higher likelihood of remembering your gesture.

Target Individuals Who Have Shown Interest in Your Geographic Region. You can seek bloggers and social media participants via search engines such as Google who mention the position’s location favorably in their writings about a vacation, a relative, or close friend that lives in the region, a business trip they particularly enjoyed, or otherwise. Then again, a candidate might present you with an old-fashioned letter to someone at the company stating a desire to move the area. Due to the affinity that they have for the area, they might be highly motivated to move to the region and happily share or absorb the costs upon receiving an offer. Just like with the relocated spouse, this individual will be highly appreciative of the opportunity. As an added bonus since you found them via their blog or social media tools they are likely to tell the story over and over, creating positive word of mouth about your employment brand.

Focus On Sourcing Candidates Who Once Lived In Your Region. If the role is New York City, knowing that they can handle living there can be an important factor in selecting a candidate. Potential candidates will likely fall into one of two buckets: A) they loved it and can’t wait for the opportunity to return; or B) they never wish to return. The latter might have ideas about candidates who might be appropriate due to their prior experience in the location, so even that outcome is not a waste of your time and effort.

Gen Y is fundamentally conservative.

This is not a rebellious generation. This is a group that moves back home with their parents after college, something you could never think of doing if you were going to, say, spend a decade using drugs and hanging out at Woodstock. The helicopter parent phenomenon is also a sign of a generation that is not rebelling. They let their parents help choose their college and their clothes. And when it’s time to get a job, they let their parents help negotiate their salary.

One of the things that makes young people look like big risk-takers is their propensity to job-hop. People in their 20s change jobs every 18 months. But the impetus for their constant job-hopping is learning: Their parents drilled into their kids that learning is the most important thing: “Get off the sofa! Stop watching TV! Do something productive with yourself!” And this is the generation that is steeped in SAT tutors, Spanish tutors, and private soccer coaching. So they expect to be learning every step of the way for their whole life. When Gen Y sees they are no longer learning a lot at work, they leave. Because this is what their parents told them: Get off your butt and learn something!

Gen Y is full of great team players.

This generation grew up on soccer teams, where everyone is a winner and no one is a star. School taught kids on the playground that you can’t say you can’t play, and kids translated this into a worldview where everyone plays together. They went to prom in teams and later they applied for jobs and quit their jobs in teams.

Today’s executive teams understand that work environments that use teams well outperform those that don’t; however, older generations are leaders and loners, not teammates. Gen Y is appalled by a lack of team structure at work, and often they feel like they are not accomplishing anything until they are working as part of a team.  Gen Y is so team-oriented that the place they really need help is in learning how to be leaders — something that comes so naturally to Boomers that they never even expect to teach it in such a fundamental way as Gen Y needs.

Gen Y women have more power than men.

For the first time in history, women in their twenties are out-earning men. This is true in every major city in the U.S., and the disparity persists until women have children, and then men earn more. Other generations might leap to cry sexism, but this generation understands that women have power to make their own decisions, and women are deciding on their own to downshift their career when they have kids, which means they are making an intentional reduction in earning power. Women in Gen Y feel empowered to get what they want in life, and they feel secure enough at the office to know that downshifting is fine.

Gen Y is more productive than everyone else.

While baby boomers are using their in-boxes as a to-do list, Gen Y is largely bought into the idea of an empty inbox. And while the idea of a constantly empty inbox might not seem defining to some, it is: For one thing, it means that Gen Y has more control over their priorities than everyone else because they are not choosing what to do by what is coming into their inbox, but rather, what their goals for the day are.

The other thing that an empty inbox signifies is Gen Y’s ability to slice and dice productivity software to get where they want to go. The key to an empty inbox is turning your email into a searchable database rather than a file system, which requires a good set of email tools. Gen Y chooses their own productivity tools, rather than waiting for the IT department to download them onto the company laptop. Gen Y’s productivity is so much higher than everyone else’s that you can assume that someone who is texting and watching a movie and listening to their iPod is still getting more done than you are.

“Sumak was a dream candidate. He graduated from MIT with a Masters degree in electrical engineering. He had 3 years of experience working for a large defense and commercial electronics firm, and he was willing to relocate. But he insisted on sending me resumes filled with photographs of his family. He even sent me some currency from his home country because I had mentioned that I thought it colorful.  He told me and the potential hiring manager all about his family connections back home and how those might be useful to us, and when he learned that I was single, he insisted that I at some point meet his sister! I was actually afraid to recommend him for fear I would be in trouble.”  - Senior Recruiter, large defense contractor

“Rapinee was sure she would be offered the position we had open because she had the highest GPA possible from her home university, which was rated the best in her country.  She also came from a titled family and her father was a very important businessman with government connections. She was reluctant to interview at all and answered my questions in a superficial manner. She thought she should just be offered the position!  I was so angry (although I did not show it) that I immediately decided not to pass her excellent resume on.”   - Director of Technical Recruiting, Semiconductor firm

These two vignettes illustrate issues that can arise when recruiting someone from another culture. While most North American recruiters have a basic understanding that people are different, most assume that the person being interviewed has been “westernized” and knows our operating principles.

It is usually a shock when either overt or subtle behaviors begin to show how different our cultures can be. Even recruiters who have lived abroad and have experienced other cultures are often caught off guard by the actions of candidates who seem very much like us and have excellent academic and experiential credentials.

I teach courses in cultural competency and have lived and traveled extensively in other countries for half of my life. I speak other languages and I am married to someone from another culture. Still, it is often surprising how often I react in negative or positive ways to the cultural differences that are increasingly part of our life.

Those of us who are in urban, coastal areas work with people from other cultures on a daily basis and are often deluded into thinking we are cultural experts. Yet, we get surprised as much as anyone else. As organizations expand their recruiting to other countries and as different cultures mix, being culturally competent is critical to recruiters’ success.

North American recruiters tend to operate under a number of assumptions and unspoken rules. Here is an incomplete sampling of some of them:

• Interviews are more or less formal affairs and exchanging personal information or getting “chatty” is frowned upon as unprofessional.
• Degrees are only important for a short time after graduation. By the time someone has been out of school for 3 years or so, the kind of work they are doing and where they are working plays a greater role in deciding who to hire.
• Where someone went to school, where they are from geographically, and who their parents are plays little role in selection.
• Family is not discussed during the recruiting process except in a general and superficial manner.
• The fact that a candidate has been a favorite of the boss or that s/he has received special praise or recognition internally is either frowned upon or of minor importance.

However, each of these may be deemed very important to those from other cultures. Many cultures place great importance on family connections, titles, and schools. Bringing these up in the interview is expected and necessary in order to gain the favor of the recruiter.

Anthropologists divide cultures broadly into those that are collectivist and those that individualistic.

Collectivist cultures are family- and group-oriented. We in North America are brought up in a very individualist culture where accomplishing things independently of others is considered a virtue.

However, in collectivist cultures, such as those in most of Asia, the opposite is true. So showing your commitment to the family and the group is important to them.

Another way cultures are divided is by body language and the way people address others. We are all sensitive to this and we know that people from some cultures won’t make direct eye contact.

Others show bodily deference by bowing or keeping their bodies lower than those of people considered superior. Some call everyone “sir” or “madam” or use titles and formal names when addressing anyone deemed more important than they are.

Most North American recruiters are turned off by this kind of behavior. We like people who “look us in the eye” and respond to our questions firmly, quickly, and with confidence. Any different behavior often influences their judgment as to whether a candidate is suitable.

Everything, from how close someone stands to you to their hand gestures, is the result of cultural training and upbringing. These behaviors are hard to change and yet should not influence a decision about a candidate’s skills and abilities.

Here are 5 tips on how to become a more culturally sensitive, and therefore more skilled, recruiter. Multicultural recruiting will be more and more important over the next decades as organizations become more global in their recruiting practices.

• Tip #1: Take a course in cultural competency. Build up your understanding of different cultural norms and gain skill in dealing with people from a wide variety of cultures and backgrounds. Most universities and many other organizations offer courses in cultural competency and a quick Google search reveals many books on the topic. Cultural competency is not about learning what to do and not do in a particular country. Rather, these courses provide you a framework of cultural knowledge that makes it easier to understand and respond to specific behaviors.
• Tip #2: Expect to be surprised. When interviewing candidates from other cultures, be prepared for different behaviors and try not to judge based on those behaviors or actions. Probe for competence and skill. Perhaps give a short skills test and make certain the candidate understands that you are focused on skills and competence, not on family or degrees or titles. Be prepared to spend some time in what you feel is meaningless chitchat or in conversations about family or other things that seems outside the expected. You may learn a great deal about the candidate and you will put them at ease. Schedule a little more time for the interview when the person is not a native of your culture and try to learn a bit about what the norms are of that culture prior to the interview.
• Tip #3: Let people have a preview. Email interview questions to candidates before the interview and even ask them to respond in writing.  This will give you a sense of their thought process and may open areas for you to probe when you actually meet them.  It helps them understand what you are asking for and gives them a chance to think through their answers in their own language.
• Tip #4: Use a set of criteria that you apply to all candidates. Make sure that the criteria you use are as free as possible of cultural bias. For example, a criterion that says the candidate must answer quickly and concisely may disqualify good candidates who prefer to talk and elaborate on their answers. Your criteria should be directly related to performance on the job and not on subjective and unproven traits.
• Tip #5: Separate culture from skill. The two stories at the beginning of this article exemplify highly educated and capable candidates who should not be excluded because of their culture. North American cultural traits may be the norm for most of us, but those traits are significantly different from those of people who have an Asian, Indian, or Middle Eastern background. Being able to separate culture from skill, and knowing how to steer a conversation or interview to the areas important to you, are important parts of being a good recruiter.

It is often said, I think erroneously, that as the world shrinks we all become more alike. What I see is that as we experience more cultures, we become more aware of the many small but enriching differences we bring to our work.

Neil Romano, assistant secretary, office of disability policy, told the ILG conference today that people still believe the myth that disabled people are receiving plenty of money and don’t need to work. On the contrary, Romano argues: the disabled are innovators who crave the chance at developing products others may not have thought of.

“The marginalization of people with disabilities starts very, very early,” Romano said, speaking from personal experience as a dyslexic. He said every job he has ever received has been from word of mouth, because his disability prevented him from successfully and correctly applying for jobs. “I completely messed up the health care forms at the Department of Labor — so much so that I wasn’t covered for two months,” he jokes. (Romano also tells the endearing story of when he called his mother to tell her the White House nominated him to his job, only to hear his mother respond, “do they know you can’t spell?”)

Disabilities are a running theme of this year’s ILG, with many speakers arguing that disabled job candidates are the next wave of diversity, the next band of talent largely shut out of the workplace, as women and blacks once were.

On the exhibit floor, the Job Accommodation Network is evaluating employer websites for their accessibility. JAN is likely to be busy in future months as the government takes a closer look at the multimedia running on career sites. SSB BART is one private company also in this field.

Meanwhile, Northrop Grumman, the 120,000-employee maker of radar, missile defense, laser systems, satelite systems, and more, is making a special effort to hire the severely disabled. It’s recruiting from job fairs, military facilities, and via word of mouth. “There’s no big list of everyone who’s been injured and is out looking for work,” Northrop HR director Mike Jones says.

Because it’s often hard to translate military skills — for those you who do not offer positions driving tanks — Jones says he’s looking at his effort as “reverse recruiting,” examining candidates’ skills and then seeing where the company may be able to place them.

Northrop expects to hire about 15,000 people this year, and has something like 2,000 different types of jobs open now, from HR to systems administration to secretarial to accounting.

Business management often argues that recruiters are not presenting the right candidates, and in perfect “hiring hindsight” find fault on the basis of candidate education level, character attributes, work experience, technical skills, compensation, etc.

Recruiters are quick to remind management that they present, but do not select, candidates for hire, and that most employees who leave a position do so because of other issues such as training, compensation, work schedule, promotional opportunity, etc. Recruiting and line managers need to acknowledge a shared responsibility for employee retention, and a shared success when good employees elect to stay and grow with the company.

In the spirit of developing good metrics, here are a few specific questions to help assess how successful a recruiter has been in contributing to retention

Did the recruiter submit a diverse slate of candidates?

One of the best ways recruiters can influence retention early in the hiring process is by presenting a diverse slate of candidates, thereby offering management significant choice when it comes to who they would like to hire. Employee referral programs, while often highly successful, sometimes have the unintended consequence of creating homogenous employee populations with a tendency to leave or switch employers in groups. Diverse employee populations aid in retention by offering a richer employment experience to new hires, simultaneously encouraging a culture of inclusion and innovation through broader perspectives.

Did the candidates submitted fit the job description as it was posted? Did the job posting accurately portray the requirements and qualifications sought in successful candidates?

Both internal and third party recruiters are subject to EEOC regulations and should present the most qualified candidates for an open position, regardless of age, race, gender, etc. So even if a particular hiring manager only wants to see candidates who are Cowboys fans, recruiters must use criteria from job postings when assessing candidate qualifications. Further, most new hires framed their understanding of a particular position based on the job description — and if they start with a flawed premise, it’s often hard to recover. This is especially true if career path, training, or other promises fail to deliver.

Did the recruiter explain the job description, work schedule, general compensation structure, and benefits information to the candidates?

If a telephone screening or recruiter interview is a part of your hiring process, good recruiters will use this time not only to evaluate the candidate, but also to go over the most important details about the position and company. Other recruiters will ask a candidate to prepare before a screening by conducting some research about the company, and then more effectively use their time by filling in the gaps with all of the information about the position that isn’t available online.

For call center positions or those with unique work schedules, candidates sometimes fail to fully grasp requirements such as evening or weekend work, mandatory attendance for training, or lack of flexibility in scheduling (which is sometimes required due to childcare or class schedules for those continuing their education). The more clearly these things are explained on the front side of the hiring process, the better your retention will be because there will be no surprises for your new hires.

Did the recruiter set appropriate expectations with the candidate about the interview, hiring, and onboarding process?

This is a partnership, and recruiters can only give candidates information that they have. Management and recruiters need to communicate closely when there are process or procedural changes that will affect new hires. Interviewing and orientation are highly influential parts of the process as they set the tone for new hires who are still forming their first impressions of your company. Missteps here are often magnified, and gross errors can give the impression that a company doesn’t care, toils under bureaucracy, or is generally ineffectual.

Did the recruiter make himself/herself available to the candidate during the hiring process for any questions or concerns?

In large corporations, often there are teams of individuals who handle pieces of the process such as relocation, employee orientation, benefits, etc. Recruiters and line managers are equally responsible for redirecting candidates to the correct point of contact so that new hires receive necessary information. Entry-level candidates, in particular, often have difficulties navigating through the various departments responsible for ensuring a smooth onboarding experience. The best recruiters will always offer to help and provide resources, recognizing how a good start can contribute to better retention.

Did the recruiter check-in with the candidate after the start date? (This is not always feasible in volume hiring situations, but is a great best practice where possible.)

The biggest employee retention issues often surface within the first couple weeks of employment. Candidates sometimes have not taken down their resumes from job boards or formally ceased their job-seeking activities. Introductions to coworkers, management, and staff begin to uncover personality clashes or stylistic differences. Commutes that seemed like a great idea now become unbearable. While candidate check-ins can’t erase these issues, they can at least help recruiters proactively identify these things in case there is anything management needs to do to prepare for or address.

Human resources and line of business management share responsibility for the successful recruitment and retention of employees. Recruiting functions must educate management as to the role they can play in retention, and must also draw clear lines as to what they cannot impact in results. The better this responsibility can be delineated and shared, the stronger your retention results will be.

While the reactions are understandable, what’s not is why the advocates of diversity don’t do much to help their cause. Instead of making an effort to demonstrate where diversity can add value, the approach has been to keep insisting that diversity is beneficial for employers in general, without any proof to support the claim. It should be taken on faith that investing in diversity is a good idea and that questioning the value indicates opposition stemming from bigotry or ignorance.

A Solution in Search of a Problem

Diversity is EEO plus. Equal employment opportunity alone would ensure that there was diversity in the workforce for most employers. An employer would have to work very hard to reach a state of no diversity among its employees. With women making up 51% of the population, African Americans 13%, Hispanics 15%, and Asians 4%, the employer would need to be actively engaged in discrimination to avoid any diversity. Any employer that does so would not be around for long.

So what exactly is the problem that’s being solved by diversity? One person mentioned that companies should promote diversity because it’s the right thing to do. That reflects the mindset of many in the diversity community — do the right thing, suggesting that not doing so would be doing the wrong thing. That is why so many of these programs exist in a vacuum. They give no thought to the wider context in which organizations exist. All organizations exist for a purpose, and for companies the primary one is profit. For others it may be something else, but it’s not likely to be one to support a social program with highly questionable benefits.

Finding a Purpose

Organizations need a reason to invest in diversity. We know of one organization that has an aging workforce. With many employees planning to retire soon they are actively working to replace this talent with entry-level college graduates. Looking at the demographics of the better universities and disciplines shows that the student population is by definition diverse because the population reflects the best minds from around the world. To be successful in accomplishing its strategic objectives, this organization needs to be able to attract and assimilate this diverse population of students — otherwise it will fail. Second, its clients are diverse and demand not only world-class capability to fulfill their requirements, but they also want to work with an organization that promotes diversity. For them, doing this right means a competitive advantage when competing for revenue.

That’s a pretty clear-cut example of a reason why an organization will benefit from diversity. It’s focused on addressing a very specific need, which if not addressed will result in undesirable consequences, directly impacting the purpose of the organization. It also takes a comprehensive view — recognizing that the diversity effort would need to go beyond recruiting and also make an effort at assimilating diversity hires.

This is markedly different from the more typical situation where diversity programs are championed by HR with little or no input from line managers and no clear purpose or plan for execution. That produces some dramatic flourishes that have PR value but not much else. Recruiters are caught in the middle: forced to accept diversity-hiring goals that serve no purpose beyond making some metrics look better, but often failing in overall hiring because of unrealistic assumptions and no support outside HR. As many an HR generalist has discovered, many managers would prefer to be on the frontlines in Iraq than hear yet another diatribe on the subject.

Making the Business Case

A business case for anything starts with a problem definition. It includes a description of the proposed solution; an explanation of assumptions used as the basis for proposing the solution; an estimate of the likely costs; factors that may affect the outcome; measures of success; and a plan for execution. In the absence of these, it’s difficult to take the effort seriously.

Problems that may be addressed by diversity can include goals such as creating a product that requires the skills of a diverse group of individuals, winning or keeping a government contract, or attracting a diverse pool of talent. These problems are not universal by any means, and just finding more candidates that are diverse in terms of race and gender is no guarantee that they will be solved. A recruiting effort to find diversity candidates would need to determine if these individuals have the right skills, are willing to share in the goals of the organization, and possess the values of the organization or are willing to adapt. The business case would include a description of why and how diversity hires would deliver the benefits required, how much time it would take to realize these benefits, and what would be done to support the diversity hires to help them succeed.

The last is an essential and often overlooked part of diversity programs. There must be an effort to help diversity hires integrate into the new community and organization. One of the attendees in San Diego reported that they had difficulty in attracting and retaining diverse candidates in Denver. Many of those hired left because they were unable to find friends or social networks in the area. Given that the population of Colorado is overwhelmingly Caucasian, this should be no surprise. In the absence of social networks of particular racial or ethnic background, it becomes incumbent on the employer to create an environment that diversity hires are comfortable in. So the business case would also need to address how diversity hires would be assimilated. This may well be outside the capabilities of most organizations to do, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s necessary. If it’s not possible to do so, then the diversity program should recognize that success may be very limited.

Some organizations have done so — the Army, Deloitte, and Sodexo (the latter is written up in the July/August Journal). In each case, it has taken years or decades, a very focused effort, realistic goals, and clarity of purpose.

Conclusion

Diversity is not without value — in certain circumstances and for some employers. But there is no logic or evidence that supports diversity as a program that’s good in general, and none at all for limiting these programs to race and gender. If there was a real (or even imagined) social or economic problem that would be addressed by diversity, you can bet Congress would be all over it. The three presidential hopefuls have not said a word on the subject. Again, EEO alone would ensure that a workforce would be diverse, so mounting a special effort at improving diversity requires special circumstances. Those who have determined a need for diversity should make an effort to address all aspects of a program that can make a diversity initiative successful. Supporters of diversity would do well to take a businesslike approach to their cause.

An audience member in San Diego had asked what advice should be given to a newly hired Director of Diversity. The best advice would be to work with line managers in identifying problems that could be better solved by diversity and helping recruiters in getting aligned with those goals. That would include setting realistic hiring targets and developing a process to help diversity hires succeed. What not to do would be to preach the benefits of diversity without evidence to back up the claims and a strong rationale for investing in it. As many a missionary has discovered, getting converts is not easy, no matter how strong your own faith.

Tony Santiago, who recently launched the niche site TaxDiversity.com, says he started this site to change the perception of an industry dominated by white males.

“As a recruiting firm and industry resource, we saw a lack of diversity particularly among minorities in the tax profession, as well as a lack of women in senior leadership roles,” says Santiago.

“While individual companies have developed certain initiatives, no one has stepped up to create a comprehensive plan encompassing the entire tax profession,” he says.

The site has job openings, forums, case studies, and video commentary from successful minority tax professionals.

Santiago says he has hopes of setting up scholarships and providing mentors to those who are interested in the profession.

Microsoft must have heard Santiago’s pleas, because just last week the company pledged $1 million to the National Association of Black Accountants.

Microsoft says this gift — a mix of cash and software over the next three years — can help to build a pipeline of African-American talent in the accounting and finance professions.

Microsoft is already getting started in its own backyard, sponsoring a portion of the Seattle-area NABA chapter’s scholarship fund and general fund, and its accounting career awareness program designed to entice high school students to enter the profession.

This couldn’t come at a better time. Santiago says he recently surveyed U.S. tax professionals, and 68% think racial diversity at the senior executive level is below average or poor. Nearly half say the availability of support systems to promote diversity among tax professionals is below average or poor.

Real Tips for Real Diversity

Employment attorney Natalie Holder-Winfield recently wrote Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse Workforce, and in an interview with the New York Times, she questions the steps companies are taking to actively fill jobs with diverse workers.

She suggests finding better ways, “for example, interviewing at historically black colleges and universities, tapping into women’s networks at the colleges where you are trying to interview, or connecting with professional and trade organizations that represented the underrepresented. Then I’d ask if you’re aware of your company’s reputation when it comes to hiring and promoting and people of different backgrounds — maybe you should be looking at blog posts by disgruntled employees or company rankings within publications that cater to diverse audiences.”

Where the CPAs Are 2008

Another study, this one by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and titled “2008 Trends in the Survey of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits,” shows African-Americans account for 8% of all newly hired CPAs.

The survey also asked, “Is the number of experienced recruits hired by your firm likely to be higher, lower or the same as the previous year?” and here are the results:

But the magazine for career-committed mothers, which reaches two million readers, also has an annual award to honor companies committed to diversity.

The magazine’s new list honors 20 companies that require manager training on diversity issues and rate manager performance partly on diversity results, such as how many multicultural women advance.

Let’s face it. A lot of companies say they have diversity programs, but not a lot can show metrics as impressive as the companies awarded on this year’s 20 best companies for multicultural women.

The magazine says these businesses recognize that it’s not just about recruitment. Many use “real” inclusion programs to actively develop, retain, and promote their multicultural employees.

In fact, this year the magazine says it noticed a dramatic increase in the number of women of color who are senior managers. Also, women of color represented 13% of all new hires last year, 14% of all employees, and 7% of top 20% earners at the winning firms.

Here is a snapshot into what makes some of these super-star companies so great:

• Citi. Thanks to recruiting efforts at schools such as Howard University and partnerships with groups like the National Society of Hispanic MBAs , 28% of new hires last year were women of color, up from 25% in 2006. Even better, 16% of newly hired managers were multicultural women, up from 12%.
• MetLife. On the list for the third year in a row, one cool feature is its social Global Women’s Leadership Forum that was launched in 2007. In this networking forum, MetLife’s senior women officers and diversity leaders tackle diversity, inclusion, and women’s advancement, and also host webinars and regional meetings.
• Deloitte. Among leading U.S. accounting firms, it boasts the highest percentage of women partners, principals, and directors. Currently, 84 women of color hold corporate executive positions. The firm offered more than 400 networking, mentoring, and professional development events for women in 2007.
• IBM. One cool best practice is its “Basic Blue” week-long class that all new managers attend. It includes a three-hour diversity workshop addressing what is expected of managers in today’s global environment. In its “Shades of Blue” class, the company teaches managers about different cultures and values.
• Pepsico. So many things to note about the beverage giant, run by Indra Nooyi, one of the most powerful women in business. In 2007, PepsiCo’s revenue grew 12%, to $39.5 billion. For the past six years, PepsiCo has focuses on multicultural hiring and retention through its Women of Color Multicultural Alliance. In addition, the company’s “Power Pairs” mentoring program creates relationships between employees and their managers; the turnover rate for women who participate in Power Pairs is half the rate of those who do not.

One of the specific challenges recruiters face is how to translate a candidate’s qualifications from their military job, Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) or Military Occupational Classification (MOC), to the civilian title.

It takes some education and understanding of the military lingo, occupational specialties, and career progression within the military structure to fully understand whether this person can fill your specific need.

Here is the scenario:

You’ve posted a position that will require, from the best-qualified candidate, a demonstration of their ability to lead diverse teams of people. The technical aspect of this role is easily taught in this situation and it is a mid-level management role with four to seven years of management experience expected from your candidate.

Before we look at a sample military/veteran resume, let’s clear our minds of the following recruiter inner voices:

Why didn’t this candidate translate their skills for me? Why does this candidate use all the acronyms? I don’t like the format. They misspelled a word. Why don’t they just tell me what I am supposed to be looking for from their last 20 years in the military. This is too much work!

First, take a deep breath. Second, take a look at this resume:

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS 1985-2008

Deputy Training Support Officer, 2003-2008

Navy School of Music, Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Norfolk, Virginia

Managed 14 personnel in the daily operations of the school’s facilities, technical training equipment, safety programs, and security. Responsible for developing, evaluating, monitoring, and analyzing military training support programs, interpreting results and publishing written reports. This position also included the development, supervision and management of a $400K annual budget, including procurement of supplies and training materials valued at over $10M

Drug and Alcohol Program Advisor, Substance Abuse Prevention Specialist 2001-2008

Navy School of Music, Marine Detachment, NAB Little Creek, Norfolk, Virginia

Responsible for drug and alcohol abuse case management, treatment referral, and aftercare monitoring. Developed, evaluated and implemented drug and alcohol abuse prevention programs and education. Provided classroom training, needs assessment, program analysis, and collaborated with community leaders

Head Library Media Division 2001-2005

Navy School of Music, Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Norfolk, Virginia

Supervised library staff and the daily operations of three separate libraries, the Media Library, Text Library and Music Library. Developed, supervised, and managed the libraries annual budget including procurement of computer software, training material, and supplies

Professional Training

• Alcohol Tobacco and Other Drug Abuse, Prevention Specialist Course, US Navy
• Alcohol and Drug Management for Supervisors Facilitator Course, US Navy
• Drug and Alcohol Program Advisor’s Course, US Navy
• Strategic Management Overview, US Navy
• Staff Non-Commissioned Officers Academy Advanced Course, US Marine Corps
• Ceremonial Conductor/Drum Major Course, US Navy
• Staff Non-Commissioned Officers Academy Career Course, US Marine Corps
• War Fighting Skills Program, US Marine Corps
• Simplified Acquisition Procedures, Defense Acquisition University
• Basic Musicians Course, US Navy

As a recruiter who routinely deals with active and prior military, my first thought is that I have a seasoned leader who may just fit the profile I am looking for. This person has a diverse and multi-faceted background in the Marine Corps outside of their MOS, which was playing in the Marine Corps Band. If I wanted to translate a position title from this resume, such as Ceremonial Conductor, or their collateral job assignment, Training Support Officer, where would I go?

There are resources out there to assist in skills translation for the recruiter without the background and understanding of military career progression through the ranks. One such resource, HireVetsFirst.gov, is funded through the U.S. Department of Labor and The President’s National Hire Veterans Committee. The website offers an Employer’s Zone that takes the recruiter or hiring manager to the Department of Labor’s Occupation Network, O*Net OnLine.

Additionally, a simple Google search (keywords: military skills translation) brings back several sites that also focus on assisting the veteran and the employer.

A recent article in the Los Angeles Times said that 76% of military service members did not know how to translate their own skills in the military into civilian positions. That is a staggering number and one that transition-assistance-program managers for the military should note.

But as recruiters we have a unique opportunity to bridge this gap and really provide value to these men and women who have so unselfishly served our country.

Those recruiters who are up for the challenge and can see the long-term benefit of such a strategy for their business will find value in this extra effort through a network of men and women who value relationships and camaraderie.

Military and veteran candidates are often diamonds in the rough. They have leadership skills in diverse, fast-paced, stressful environments along with being able to adapt to an accelerated learning curve in various environments. The resources are out there, the candidates are out there, and the next step for companies who will truly take the lead in innovative recruitment will be to go after this candidate pool.

“We’re trying to offer more choices to investors,” says Price Woodward, principal of Financial Advisor Recruiting and Hiring at Edward Jones. “A growing number of our investors are Asian, black or Hispanic and many are females. The investment advisor profession has been very white and very male dominated. Not only do we want to diversify because we think it’s the right thing to do, by the same token, we need to offer greater choices to our investors.”

In addition to the partnership pilot with 100 Black Men, the firm is using outside recruiters to meet its hefty diversity applicant requirements and has recently moved a tenured female financial advisor into a dedicated recruiting position in an effort to boost the strategic recruitment of female financial advisors.

Woodward says that Edward Jones employs more than 11,200 financial advisors. In 2007, the firm had a goal of hiring more than 300 new advisors each month which included 250 new advisors in the U.S. and 25 in Canada and the United Kingdom. For 2008, the firm has a goal of hiring 275 U.S. financial advisors each month along with another 30 in both Canada and the United Kingdom on a monthly basis. Because the firm only hires 8% to 9% of the people who apply, the firm processed 42,000 applicants last year which translates to 175 to 180 applicants on a daily basis.

Being a diversity recruiter must feel like being in an M.C. Escher drawing. Just when you think you’re getting ahead, you realize you’re heading back to where you started.

Success is elusive because diversity recruiting goals are poorly defined and one-dimensional. Your goal is to increase the proportion of women and other minorities in the candidate pool. But whatever success you achieve is blunted by a failure to support integration with special efforts. Most employers that commit to diversity recruiting do little to ensure that managers devote the time and energy necessary to ensure that diversity hires fit in with the organization and receive the support they need to succeed. It’s not that diversity hires are singled out for this treatment. The same is true of most hires in most organizations, but that’s another article. In this article, we’ll focus on how diversity recruitment can be a success.

Changing the Definition

After my recent article on diversity, we placed a question on LinkedIn asking people who were familiar with diversity programs to tell us what value they thought these provided. Mary Jane Sinclair, SPHR, president of Sinclair Consulting, summed it up best: “A ‘good’ initiative is one that is tied directly to the business plan, goes beyond being an extension of affirmative action, and sets a culture that accepts everyone not because of who they are but rather what they bring to the table. Instead of ‘diversity training,’ organizations that are high performers recognize that this is a change initiative aimed at promoting RESPECT!!!” This succinctly describes what diversity initiatives need in order to succeed: a solid business case, which is usually most conspicuous by its absence.

Another response that provided an excellent example of when diversity really made a difference was taken from a Joel Barker program on innovation and diversity. In 1986, Ford was faced with an onslaught of high quality Japanese models. The company brought together the following diverse group: management, laborers, designers, car lovers, Ford lovers, Ford haters, soccer moms, and others. The outcome was the tremendously successful Ford Taurus that saved Ford from a disastrous loss of market share. The new door design came from a line worker who made suggestions that resulted in a better door, easier installation, and a seven-figure savings for the company. This was a group that was unified in purpose, be it like or dislike of Ford cars. They also had a vested interest in the outcome.

Barry Goldberg, principal at Entelechy Partners, Inc., puts it well: “The TRUE value of diversity is in getting differing points of view and skill sets involved in finding new solutions. Teams with diverse skill sets, points of view, and even cultural backgrounds have access to a broader level of thinking than those that are made up of more similar associates.”

Contrast that scenario with the typical diversity initiative that has no discernible outcome associated with it. Limiting diversity to race and gender defies logic. There has to be some unity of purpose and an outcome the diverse group cares about. Otherwise, as another respondent told us, you might as well believe that bringing together Michael Jordan, Hugo Chavez, a pimp, a high-school dropout, Claudia Schiffer, and a pygmy onto a team will improve output. The range of diversity has no impact on results. There are limits to how diverse a group can be and still work together.

Requirements for Success

Some organizations compensate recruiters based on successful hires, often defined by job performance. While performance on the job is proof of a successful hire, as most of us know, a new hire’s success or failure has little to do a recruiter’s efforts. What managers do to help a new hire fit in and the work environment they create is ultimately what makes the difference. The number one reason employees leave is because of their supervisors. Diversity hires are no different in this respect.

The problem starts with how diversity programs are implemented. The goals are set at the organizational level, usually by HR. Recruiters are assigned diversity targets without any consultation with managers. Hiring managers, either for a lack of process or the availability of a business case, don’t direct recruiters as to how to integrate diversity goals with job requirements. That leaves recruiters serving two different masters that don’t have much to do with each other. What a manager values is diversity in skill sets, but what the organization directs a recruiter to do is find diversity in race and gender. Further, managers get little support or incentives for integrating diversity hires.

The end result is a process that’s being done backwards; instead of starting with a business case and working to define the diversity requirements from it, organizations start with the diversity requirements with the hope that a business case will emerge. It’s no surprise then that most people are skeptical of the value diversity programs provide.

Research in social psychology has established certain fundamental principles governing human behavior that influence the level of success individuals find in the jobs. This is why a manager’s role and the organization’s culture are critical determinants of the success of a diversity effort. The following fundamentals are of special relevance to diversity programs:

• All human behavior is goal-directed, with the primary goal being to belong and feel significant. No one will do anything without a purpose. That much is true of any act from breathing to launching a rocket to the moon. Most people’s behavior is directed at belonging and feeling significant. Since much of that flows from a person’s work, in situations in which a person is hired without much thought to meeting these needs, it’s not likely that he or she will want to stay or be able to succeed. Diversity introduces people into an environment that has not seen much of them (that is the primary goal after all). Given the need to belong, it would take a very special person or a major effort on the part of the organization to ensure that this need is dealt with.
• People are creative decision makers and want and need to make decisions that affect their jobs and the manner in which the work is performed. That means people want to use their skills to help solve problems. But when candidates are hired for their diversity alone without any thought to what problems their skills will address, then we have another point of failure. You can’t very well make an omelet without any eggs or solve problems that you have no skills for. As mentioned above, diversity recruiting divorced from business needs makes no sense.
• Human behavior occurs in a social context; the cooperation and contribution of people solve problems. Cooperation requires having something to cooperate on, i.e., a shared need or purpose. As the Ford example above illustrates, diverse viewpoints and skills solve problems when one exists.
• The strength of a person’s intention to perform the behavior corresponds with the likelihood of the behavior, but individuals have incomplete control over intended behavior and are influenced by their environments. A person having a strong intention would persist in goal-directed behavior for a longer period of time than a person with a weaker intention. Intent is largely motivated by the direction and support offered by a person’s supervisor and the work environment. Organizations are collections of individuals, not skills, races, genders, etc. An inability to motivate employees to get behind a specific goal or purpose weakens the intention-behavior link. Diversity hires need to know what links their skills and experiences to the goals of the organization.

Some 50 years of research show that programs related to employment will not find success if they violate or ignore these principles. And diversity is no exception.

A Mosaic Isn’t Random

Recruitment efforts aimed at increasing diversity need to be revised if they are to find success, which will then lead to broader acceptance. We’re decrying the lip service to diversity when the effort is made only on the hiring side. It results in only half of a program that needs a greater commitment on the management side to make it a value-adding effort for the company.

We must first accept that a broader definition of diversity is required, one that goes beyond race and gender. Second, diversity recruiting efforts need to be based on a business case that addresses a specific business problem. Even a social cause must lead to some tangible benefits or else it will never gain widespread support; in business, the benefit should be an improvement in company performance. Last, diversity programs must involve managers in both defining the requirements and deciding how to integrate diversity recruitment with business needs.

The first time many people became aware of diversity programs was when SHRM started passing out lapel buttons with lots of little squares of different colors. They called it a mosaic. Look up the definition of a mosaic and you’ll find that it is “a picture or decoration made of small, usually colored pieces of inlaid stone, glass, etc.” A mosaic is not a random collection of diverse elements; it has to form a picture. If we can get around to accepting that, then perhaps diversity programs will show some promise.

As practiced today, diversity is chiefly about improving the ratios of gender and race among applicants and hires. In a recent article, I discussed that while this may appear to be a worthwhile goal, the evidence from multiple studies demonstrates that this limited view of diversity is actually counterproductive. Instead of delivering any significant business benefits, employers experience mostly negative effects, such as higher turnover.

Achieving a net positive from diversity requires a strong emphasis on assimilation. An organization must actively work at ensuring that all candidates come to accept and share its values, mission, and purpose. If diversity recruiting is to be effective, it needs to be done differently.

The Hood Ornament

Diversity programs exist to advance the acceptance of minorities in organizations while providing those organizations with higher productivity, innovation, and a host of other benefits. But we already have affirmative action to cover the former, and there’s no evidence that any of the latter actually occurs. This does not mean that diversity is a bad idea, but that there’s no proof that it’s a good one.

The business case for diversity is very weak. No evidence exists to show that organizations that embrace diversity, as currently defined, perform better than those that don’t. The goal of diversity (i.e., hiring more women and “people of color”) is worthwhile only if one assumes that not enough are being hired in the first place and that it’s needed to counteract the effects of discrimination. But preventing discrimination is why we have laws that explicitly address it.

Some make the case that it’s important that an organization’s workforce reflects its customer base. But this is rarely relevant. Customers don’t make buying decisions based on the composition of the workforce of those providing them with goods and services. Can you imagine patients traveling to the Mayo Clinic because of its diversity instead of its expertise? For that matter, would anyone refuse to be treated at a hospital where the workforce was not representative of them? Customers usually have no way of knowing this. Product labels do not mention the composition of the workforce, and even when people do know, they don’t care. A lot of products sold in the United States are produced by workforces that are 100% Chinese, but that doesn’t hurt sales.

If this argument had any substance, we wouldn’t be seeing the continual increase in outsourcing of services to India. The composition of the sales force may be relevant to the customer base of large retail stores; but, the staff in such stores generally does reflect the customer base because most employees live within a few miles of the workplace, as do the shoppers.

Diversity is like an expensive hood ornament, out there for everyone to admire but serving no practical purpose. This is why so many organizations are not sold on diversity and do little more than pay lip service to its goals. Much of the reason for this is because the diversity movement has promoted it as a cause that should be taken on faith as a good thing, not to be questioned. It’s hard to take this seriously when the goals appear to be nothing more than diversity for its own sake. A recent article on a prominent diversity website mentions that companies should keep a watchful eye on managers that don’t care about getting diversity awards. Why that will help an organization do better at achieving its objectives is anyone’s guess.

This example is a perfect illustration of the problems that the diversity movement has created. Not embracing diversity is the equivalent of opposing it, with appropriate consequences for those who don’t. It would make more sense to find out if those who do collect such awards perform better than those who don’t. So, instead of a solid business case for advancing a social cause, we have fearmongering. No wonder that most companies do just enough to stay off the radar of such self-appointed watchdogs.

Improving Diversity Recruitment

If we’re serious about diversity, then we need to focus on what will make diversity programs and recruiting more effective. The research evidence shows that for diversity to work, assimilation is critical. That is, the workforce must be aligned with the values of the organization. Writing in “Good to Great,” Jim Collins makes the case that companies that do not hire people that share their values are not likely to succeed. Collins also writes that companies need a set of core values in order to achieve the kind of long-term, sustainable success that may lead to greatness. The leap from good to great occurs when employees are equally dedicated to the same set of values.

Recruiting processes should include a values assessment using a standard inventory such as the Lennick Aberman or others. The extent to which alignment with values should influence a hiring decision should depend on the impact the job has on the organization and the likely tenure of the incumbent. A major gap between a candidate’s and the employer’s values should be a reason to consider if the candidate could realistically achieve the results expected of him in a manner acceptable to the organization. At a minimum, there should be a discussion of values as part of the hiring process.

Metrics should also measure the extent to which candidates and hires share the organization’s values. Starting with the recruiting process, employees should be apprised of the organization’s values. This is rarely done in a meaningful way, and it is certainly not a component of diversity programs. Assimilation does not mean that individual employees need to lose their identities, but it does mean that they need to accept and support their employer’s purpose and values. Obviously, this is easier if an employee’s values do not conflict with those of the employer.

Diversity recruiting should be part of an overall program designed to ensure that an employer’s core values are supported by the workforce. If diversity recruiting just continues to be about improving the proportion of minorities in the applicant pool instead of selecting those aligned with values, then it’s not likely that employers will move beyond paying lip service to the concept.

Conclusion

Whatever happened to not being judged by the color of your skin but by the content of your character? Diversity programs turn that one on its head.

Defining diversity in terms of race and gender trivializes the concept. Diversity certainly has value in an organization in which different points of view and experiences can generate new ideas, challenge old ones, and provide a richer experience for all, but there is no logical reason to limit that to race and gender. If we continue with this, then let’s add a category to diversity recruiting for people weighing over 300 pounds (people of weight). That makes about as much sense.

As I mentioned above, since we already have EEO and AA, what value does diversity provide as currently defined? If the laws don’t work, then diversity isn’t going to do much to help. If they do work, then what is the point of race- and gender-based diversity?

I received a lot of e-mail after my last article, some of it very supportive and some highly critical, including some rather colorful remarks of a personal nature. Apparently, when it comes to diversity, a diversity of viewpoints is not welcome.

Interestingly, none of those that chose to dispute what I wrote provided a shred of evidence in support of their arguments other than to make rhetorical and morally posturing statements while claiming that any studies cited must be biased. I would wager that none of the people who opposed them have read the studies.

I am not opposed to diversity, but I don’t see it working as it exists today, which is a huge disservice to all concerned. If this particular emperor has no clothes, then he deserves to be called out. As a recruiting professional, I’d like to see diversity recruiting deliver results that matter. If it’s a program that many would like to support, then let’s do what it takes to make it genuinely effective.

The state will offer up to 10 contracts of up to $200,000 each.

An 85-page PDF file about the program is available.

On October 16, Silicon Valley’s San Jose Mercury News reported that Silicon Valley ranks last in promoting women to senior-level positions. In fact, only 9% of companies in Santa Clara County, which is home to Silicon Valley, have promoted a woman to a top position. And hip Apple has no women at all in its executive ranks.

This sad story is repeated all over the country, despite the fact that women are an emerging powerhouse of talent.

The facts speak loudly. It should be the dawn of the age of women if you look at the impressive statistics and trends. The supply of skilled men is aging and fewer men are entering colleges and universities.

On the other hand, women in the workforce are younger than the men and more of them are going to college and are getting the skills organizations need.

Over 77% of women between the ages of 35 to 44 are working today, versus about 39% in 1950. Similar increases are found at every age level.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says, “Women accounted for 51% of all workers in the high-paying management, professional, and related occupations. They outnumbered men in such occupations as financial managers; human resource managers; education administrators; medical and health services managers; accountants and auditors; budget analysts; property, real estate, and social and community association managers; preschool, kindergarten, elementary, middle, and secondary school teachers; physical therapists; and registered nurses.”

A 2001 Current Population Survey showed that one out of 10 employed engineers was a woman, and that two of 10 employed engineering technologist and technicians were women.

Women represent over 51% of medical scientists, and according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, women made up the majority of medical school applicants for the first time ever in 2003. Black women applicants increased by almost 10%.

The Massachusetts General Hospital reports that, “The number of women with leadership roles in research studies published in major medical journals has increased significantly over the past three decades.”

But looking at this from the perspective of a Silicon Valley executive or anyone seeking technical skills, things don’t look as good. While the percentage of women who are entering engineering is rising, it is not a dramatic increase and aging men continue to dominate almost every engineering discipline. This may explain in part why Apple has no executive women, but it doesn’t explain why Hewlett-Packard, just down the street, has plenty.

What it may underline is that few organizations have done very much to promote technical careers for women or to showcase those women who have chosen a technical career. Few firms take an aggressive approach in encouraging women to enter engineering majors in university and simply wait to reap the men who primarily choose those majors.

Women are not getting the same pay as men and this may also influence their career choices. Women in general tend to earn less than men. Even though the gap has decreased since 1979 with women earning 14% more and men 7% less, it remains an issue. Women overall make only 76% of what men earn. Women find it hard to get hired into management positions and hard to be treated equally.

Women and Education

It is becoming imperative for organizations to ramp up their support for women and focus on women as a source of talent. For reasons not yet fully understood, far more women than men are entering colleges and universities and completing four-year degrees.

Since 1982, women have outpaced men in college graduation rates and in 2004, women received 58% of all bachelor’s degrees in the United States. They are projected to receive over two-thirds of all degrees by 2012.

The New York Times reported in July 2006, “. . .men now make up only 42 percent of the nation’s college students. And with sex discrimination fading and their job opportunities widening, women are coming on much stronger, often leapfrogging the men to the academic finish.”

“The boys are about where they were 30 years ago, but the girls are just on a tear, doing much, much better,” said Tom Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education in Washington.

It looks obvious that the majority of college graduates will soon be women, and they are getting better grades and going on to graduate school in record numbers, as well.

Women and Recruiting

Organizations need to develop specific strategies for attracting, promoting, and retaining women. As men retire and fewer graduate from universities, organizations that have focused on creating a culture and building recruiting practices that attract women will enjoy a substantial lead over their competition who have not.

What would your answers be if I asked you these questions?

• Does your organization focus on hiring women?
• Has it designed human resources policies that will keep women in your workforce?
• Do you know what women are seeking from an organization?
• Is your company promoting women to senior-level positions?
• Are you working with women in high school and in their first years of university so that they have an appreciation of technology and are getting the math skills they need to enter engineering professions?
• Do your recruiting practices encourage women to apply for jobs?
• Are women really given the same opportunities as men?

If your answers are not so good, here are some specific things you can do to attract and retain women.

1. Choose to focus on hiring women. Some of the reasons we do not have enough women in management and technical positions is that we have chosen not to focus on them. By saying positions are open to everyone, we automatically give men an edge simply because there are more of them in the workforce today. Given the same amount of effort, more male candidates will be identified than female for many positions. It takes a deliberate effort and a targeted strategy to find qualified women. Because organizations have taken a relaxed attitude toward hiring and promoting women, designate some positions as developmental and primarily available to women. Doing this fuels your future ability to find suitably experienced women for senior positions. It also sends a signal to the community of women that your company values their contributions and is prepared to invest in them.
2. Develop recruitment advertising that attracts women. Subtle messages are enveloped in every recruitment website and promotion. Many of these messages are more attractive to men because they picture successful men instead of women or because their message is more attractive to men than women. Research shows that messages that stress competition and winning are attractive to men, while those that stress collaboration and conversation may be perceived more positively by women. Experiment and focus on everything from the colors used on your website to the copy that describes your company.
3. Encourage HR to develop family-friendly work environments. Research shows that women are more likely to quit a job for their family and are still the primary caregivers to children. Surveys of women indicate they are looking for organizations that allow job-sharing and have other benefits that are family- and child-oriented. They are much less interested in jobs that require lots of travel or late-night meetings. Because of this, organizations that want to attract and retain women need to have attendance policies that allow flexible work schedules and telecommuting. The focus should be on asking all employees to achieve specific work goals, not on showing up at a certain time every day.
4. Provide good examples of leadership. Women are looking for organizations that have shown that they care about women, and one indicator is the number of women in key positions. Organizations that make it a visible priority to have women lead key projects and move women into management slots are far more likely to retain their best performers. Organizations like HP have spent years developing a corporate culture where women get developed and promoted. As a result, they have a large number of women in executive positions and have little problem attracting female graduates.
5. Offer developmental and educational opportunities. Women who already work for you are more likely to stay, especially if they are offered education. Encouraging formal education and building mentoring and rotational practices into your organization can significantly increase the pool of qualified women. Development is also a major way to attract younger women to your organization.

The risk to organizations in the United States and elsewhere is that women will choose not to join at all. Many women have already given up and feel that the only way to get the work flexibility, equal pay, and opportunity they want is to start their own businesses.

Women-owned businesses make up 26% of all non-farm businesses in the United States and the number is rising as more and more women feel ignored and left out of recruiting and promotion processes.

Apple and other organizations that have few women in key positions may be in trouble as time goes on. Unless organizations realize that women are the major source of skills for the next few decades and change their recruiting and pay practices, recruiters will be increasingly hard-pressed to find any qualified candidates at all.

Marvin Smith, project manager for Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division, co-wrote this article.

Diversity is a subject of great importance to recruiters. Most organizations have some stated diversity goals. Larger employers have director-level positions and even entire departments devoted to the goal of increasing diversity. Corporations are estimated to spend over $8 billion annually on diversity programs. This all has a purpose, presumably that more diversity is better.

The theoretical “business case for diversity” is that in a global and racially or ethnically diverse marketplace, a marketer that employs a racially or ethnically diverse workforce is better able to understand the demographics of the marketplace it serves and is thus better equipped to thrive in that marketplace than a company whose employee demographics do not match their market’s.

Sounds good. So recruiters must strive to create a diverse pool of candidates and deliver the same to their employers.

Now comes a study that establishes that efforts to improve diversity, instead of delivering the purported benefits, manage to accomplish quite the opposite. The study, by Robert Putnam of Harvard, establishes that people in ethnically diverse settings aren’t drawn together, much less work better. Across workgroups in the United States, as well as in Europe, diversity (in terms of ethnicity, age, and other factors) is generally associated with lower group cohesion, lower satisfaction, and higher turnover.

This is consistent with observed facts. There is precious little proof that all the resources and effort devoted to improving diversity does anything more than give some people a warm glow and diversity trainers a paycheck. Hard evidence that diversity produces a wonderland from which flow creativity, innovation, and all sorts of other good things, is not there.

An Expensive Distraction

The case for diversity has never been strong. First, unless an employer engages in active discrimination, its workforce should automatically be diverse, given that the population is diverse. So a diversity program is basically a stand-in for affirmative action.

Affirmative action, at least, is based on legislation with a clearly stated purpose of redressing discrimination, but diversity appears to be built on a foundation of nothing more than good intentions, lacking a clear end goal. Wikipedia mentions that “no objective research support has ever been found for the ‘diversity business case.’” The Putnam study expands on an earlier study by Thomas Kochan of MIT that found no positive effects of gender or racial diversity on business performance.

The trouble with programs driven by good intentions is that they tend to cause facts to be given short shrift. What is the rationale that leads to the conclusion that having a workforce that is racially or ethnically diverse automatically creates more innovation or productivity? Logic would suggest that should be a function of the skills the workforce possesses. We aren’t exactly short of assessments to measure skills, so why use race and gender as a proxy for these?

Advocates of diversity claim that a workforce represents more than just skills, but also includes the sum total of their experiences, which are more likely to be diverse when the members of the workforce are diverse. That may be true if there was any proof for this claim, and then it would only have relevance if the experiences are somehow able to impact the results that an organization expects of its workforce.

More important, this only matters if the organization is in a position to take advantage of the diverse experiences of its workforce. It might well be the case that a racially or ethnically diverse workforce is better than one that isn’t, but without proof, how can anyone know? In the absence of facts to support the benefits of the program, diversity is little more than an expensive distraction for recruiters.

Diversity metrics are not much use either. They are primarily process metrics that focus on items like the proportion of candidate pools that are diverse and how well an organization has met its diversity goals in terms of recruitment, promotion, and turnover.

Redefining Diversity to Deliver Value

Diversity programs will not be abandoned as a consequence of the Putnam study. It would be the rare head of HR who has the courage to do so. Questioning the benefits of programs like diversity (which is really more of a cause) is generally not well-received.

Like with most good causes, calling them into question is typically interpreted to mean that the challenger is opposed to them. In the case of diversity, one risks being labeled as ignorant and narrow-minded at best or bigoted and implicitly racist at worst.

A critic of the Kochan study said the conclusions could only have been reached if those doing the study were not diverse (which was not true) since the results “defied logic.” No evidence to refute the results was offered.

These studies are not poorly conducted efforts with weak results; the Kochan and Putnam studies build on earlier studies and are the results of years of effort and draw on vast amounts of data.

Challenging a position is not the same as opposing it. If diversity is an organizational goal, then organizations should do what it takes to make diversity programs effective (i.e., deliver value). The first step should be to recognize what value diversity can deliver.

It’s a great vehicle for building trust between people. Trust is a necessary precondition for people to work effectively together. That is a desired business outcome. For organizations that are global, because of where they do business, diversity can help foster a greater understanding of other cultures and that in turn can promote trust.

This is not a contradiction of what was written above. A diversity program must have building trust as its focus, not some meaningless goal of building a diverse workforce for its own sake. How can this be accomplished? The Putnam study suggests that for a diverse group to be more cohesive requires assimilation. The group must have fewer differences and more in common with each other. It must become less diverse in terms of its values, purpose, and goals. That’s a tough pill to swallow; the core of most diversity programs has been the promotion of differences and the necessity of accepting them.

Some organizations have managed to do so. The Army is one such example. Admittedly, the Army is different in many respects from other employers, but much of the success of diversity in the Army has to do with an emphasis on shared identities and clarity of purpose. Contrast that with the typical company where it’s estimated that fewer than 5% of employees even know the mission statement (quick: what is your employer’s mission statement?).

Having a diverse workforce can also make it easier to recruit talent that is increasingly drawn from a diverse, global pool. A diverse organization is more attractive to potential employees. This has the value of addressing a real economic problem (limited supply), not a social one. But for the full value to be realized, the program must include a dedicated and focused effort at assimilation.

The evidence is overwhelming that promoting diversity without emphasizing assimilation is counterproductive. The Putnam study includes another interesting example. During the Civil War, the Union Army noted that among its units the greater the diversity (in terms of age, hometown, occupation, etc.), the higher was the desertion rate, that is, turnover. Given that the risks of punishment for desertion were very low and the casualty rate was very high, the only powerful force preventing desertion was loyalty to one’s fellow soldiers.

This fits well with present-day research by Gallup that shows that organizations where the proportion of employees who have a close friend at work correlates negatively with the level of turnover. That is, the higher the proportion of employees who have a close friend at their place of work, the lower the turnover for the employer.

What has this to do with diversity? The majority of a person’s friends tend to be from within their own racial or ethnic group. The exception to this is the Army, where the average soldier has many closer interracial friendships than the average civilian of the same age and social class. Clearly, shared purpose and identity are a factor in making diversity work. That doesn’t happen on its own. It requires an organization to dedicate itself to the goal of getting a diverse workforce to share and accept its values and purpose.

This does not mean employees need to be clones of some corporate ideal, but that they share the employer’s goals and not elevate their differences above it. It also means that employers also need to expand the definition of diversity to include people who have diverse viewpoints and experiences, regardless of race and ethnicity.

Sticking to a definition of diversity that is limited to demographics only betrays a lack of understanding of what being diverse means. The result of diversity should be different decisions that could change outcomes of business decisions. Diversity can result in better business decisions.

What Works

Diversity programs can deliver some value, but the programs need to adopt a different perspective and goals and explicitly recognize that without a focus on assimilation, they cannot succeed. Despite all that spending on diversity programs, the number of racial harassment cases filed with the EEOC has increased by 500% in the last decade. Given the weight of the evidence, employers would do best to rethink diversity and expanding the scope of the programs beyond just improving the recruitment numbers.

For recruiters, it means changing diversity recruiting to include some screening of applicants to assess whether they either share the identity and purpose of the workgroup they will join or demonstrate a willingness to do so.

The prescription for making diversity work has been known for a long time. E Pluribus Unum can apply to companies as well. The author wasn’t referring to employers but certainly had diversity on his mind.

Cindy Mayer, the company’s executive director of staffing, easily rattles off a laundry list of statistics about how quickly the workforce is aging and how a crisis is impending because of too many jobs for too few people.

You’ve seen them in a suburban mall near you– the company hired about 6,500 to 7,000 retail sales consultants last year. It has been trying to increase the number of Spanish-speaking employees in order to better serve Hispanic customers, and is increasing the numbers of part-time employees. All the while, it’s trying to reduce time to hire and increase productivity.

Mayer, speaking at the Human Capital Institute conference yesterday in Phoenix (at the dreaded pre-cocktail-hour timeslot), is aiming for 30% store attrition. Her company gets about 15 applicants per hire, or about 100,000 candidates annually for those 6,500 or so hires.

These candidates are high-school grads, college students, and college grads. They’re not in it for the long haul; average tenure is about 2.8 years, she says. What’s more, “there are markets where there are just not that many 20-somethings.”

With that in mind, her team’s recruiting mature workers, veterans, military spouses, and as mentioned prior, Spanish speakers.

Among her sources of candidates: niche sites such as iHispano.com and salesjobs.com; ads on portals/engines such as Yahoo and ask.com; ads on news sites (as opposed to career pages); direct marketing by email; Facebook university usergroup sponsorships (targeting schools with appropriate coursework, such as on network technology); and high school coop programs.

In Florida, “I can’t compete with Disney” for young people, she says. The alternative is, alas, old people, and Cingular is using less-technical recruitment advertising to reach them. “They aren’t as nimble when it comes to understanding how cell phones work, on average,” Mayer says, saying that there are many exceptions.

Back to the high-tech: Cingular (a Peopleclick and TMP customer) is starting employee blogs for employees to write about their experiences working at the corporation. “We’re on the tight control side,” she says, so a blogmaster will be making sure posts are appropriate before the rest of the planet sees them. “This is viral,” she says. “That’s part of the beauty of social networks, that’s part of the beauty of the blog.” Customers, she says, will likely use the blogs to ask questions about their cell phones, which is fine.

“ROI is the key,” she says, saying that she’ll update her recruiting regularly when various sources of candidates don’t pan out. Cost-benefit isn’t just about quantity, but about quality. She wants to know what the cost per hire with, say, Monster and HotJobs, was, and then to renegotiate her contracts with these candidate sources based on what the vendors are delivering to her. “I can see why you don’t want to spend so much with us this year,” one vendor told her, agreeing that rates should be lowered.

Using the vendor PreVisor, Cingular’s applicants are assessed and categorized into three groups: red (not recommended); yellow (recommended) and green (highly recommended). As it turns out, about a third of candidates fell into each of the three categories. In other words, about two-thirds of candidates can be hired; a third can’t be, even if the manager thinks they’re, as they say, all that.

DDI’s behavior-based interviews are used on candidates (after candidates are screened on the phone by recruiters), and if all this goes well (PreVisor assessment, recruiter screen, DDI-based interview, etc.) you get an offer. Eighty percent of the people offered jobs say yes.

Eventually, Cingular will tie the red-light, green-light system to store performance. If you put the greenest of the green-lighted employees — the best candidates — in a certain store, will that store sell the most phones, headsets, and carrying cases? That’s to be determined.

Cingular is piloting its assessments (which are in Spanish, too, by the way) for call center jobs, with the goals of improving customer service, reducing customer churn, and reducing call time, and more.

Thirty days after hire, Cingular will ask candidates how their experience was and is with the company. Cingular will drill down into how they heard about the company, what their media habits are, and while Cingular’s at it, it’ll find out what “retention issues” may be about to bubble up.

At Cingular, you can make some healthy commissions if you upsell customers on extra services like music downloads and roadside-assistance plans. With more text messages, more cell phones than old-style phones nowadays, more music, and, sadly, far too many car accidents, there are lots of upsell opportunties, and it seems that Cingular will find a way to calculate employees’ role in that sales, and to compensate them accordingly. Cingular, after all, seems to love metrics: Mayer can even explain, for example, that older employees at its call centers tend to stay on the phone longer than younger workers. Like many companies, it’s refining its quality-of-hire metrics. Says Mayer: “It’s data we need.”

You may be wondering why I am qualified to write an article on diversity sourcing.

My buddy and diversity recruiting guru Martin de Campo and I discussed this at length, in a dark dining room in downtown San Jose surrounded by rich hardwood paneling and more multicultural influences than you can shake a stick at. It became apparent that not only did we both share a passion for this topic, but we approached it from two very different yet complementary and equally successful angles.

So I asked Martin, “Why me?” Is it just because I was raised in Colombia, South America, and like many other Latin Americans, immigrated to the United States in 1989? Nope. Is it because I once ran a passive candidate diversity-sourcing team for a well-known software company? No, that wasn’t it either.

That fateful day Martin