A 288-page directory that contains over 650 career-focused media targeting minority media.
The National Industry Liaison Group (NILG) meeting was held in Phoenix, Arizona in September. Senior officials from the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) were on hand to make presentations and answer conferee questions.
Human resource executives say that diversity in the workplace can have a number of benefits, including improved understanding of the marketplace, enhanced creativity and problem-solving ability in teams, and better use of talent. But social science research is mixed on whether diversity does indeed have a positive effect on work-group performance or not. So what’s the story?
Last month, the President announced that intends to nominate David Palmer, of Maryland, to be a Commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, for the remainder of a five year term expiring July 1, 2011. Mr. Palmer currently serves as Chief of the Employment Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. Prior to this, he served as Acting Special Litigation Counsel in the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices at the Department of Justice. Earlier in his career, he served as a Senior Trial Attorney in the Disability Rights Section of the Department of Justice. Mr. Palmer received his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and his JD from Case Western Reserve University. The other members of the EEOC are Republican commissioners Naomi Earp and Leslie Silverman, and Democrat commissioners Stuart Ishimaru and Christine Griffin.
Beginning in 2007, employers, including Federal contractors, will collect and report data about the racial, ethnic, and gender composition of their workforces on a revised Standard Form 100, Employer Information Report EEO-1. The revised EEO-1 report must be filed for the first time in calendar year 2007 by September 30, 2007.
Last month, AARP released its Annual Best Employers for Workers Over 50 list. AARP Best Employers for Workers Over 50 is an annual recognition program that acknowledges companies and organizations whose best practices and policies for addressing aging workforce issues are roadmaps for the workplaces of tomorrow. Now entering its seventh year, the program launched in 2001. In order to recognize the important role that government employers play in the U.S. workforce, AARP has now opened the program to government employers, including those at the local, state, and federal levels.
Using personnel data from a large U.S. retail firm, Laura Giuliano, David I. Levine and Jonathan Leonard recently published a paper that examined whether the race of the hiring manager affects the racial composition of new hires. They exploited manager changes at hundreds of stores to estimate models with store fixed effects. They found significant effects of manager race and ethnicity. First, all non-black managers—i.e., whites, Hispanics, and Asians—hire more whites and fewer blacks than do black managers. The differences between non-black and black managers are especially large in the South. Second, in locations with large Hispanic populations, Hispanic managers hire more Hispanics and fewer whites than white managers. Go to The Berkeley University web site to view Manager Race and the Race of New Hires
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced recently that it filed a federal discrimination lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) against Denny’s, Inc., which operates more than 500 corporate-owned restaurants in 30 states, on behalf of disabled employees nationwide who were not provided reasonable accommodation and were fired after being denied medical leave needed in connection with their disabilities.In its suit, the EEOC charges that Denny’s refused to provide one of its restaurant managers in Baltimore with legally-required reasonable accommodations for her disability, a leg amputation; prohibited her from working in its restaurants because of her disability, despite her desire to return to work; and fired the employee because of her disability. EEOC further charges that Denny’s violated the rights of a class of workers with disabilities by maintaining a maximum medical leave policy that automatically denied additional medical leave beyond a pre-determined limit — even when additional leave was required by the ADA as a reasonable accommodation for those workers — resulting in their unlawful terminations.
Regional Directors of the OFCCP in Phoenix at the recent National Industry Liason Group Meeting made it clear that the agency is going to be looking closely at the qualification hurdles contractors place on job candidate selections. Qualifications can include such things as:
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender political organization, hails the introduction of the bipartisan Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act introduced by Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Gordon Smith, R-Ore. The act would provide all federal employees with equal pay for equal work by extending family benefits to employees’ same-sex partners.“We urge Congress to provide its gay and lesbian employees equal pay for equal work, which is not only the right thing to do, but good business,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “Leading U.S. companies are instituting equal benefits policies and sending a clear message that corporate America is a place of fairness for all Americans. We thank Senators Joe Lieberman and Gordon Smith for their leadership in this effort.
Contrary to popular thinking among some diversity consultants, employing workers of many different races has little effect on average turnover in a retail workplace, although employees do quit more often if fewer colleagues are the same race, according to a recently published case study by two professors at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business.In one of few studies to explore how workplace demographics affect employee behavior, Haas School Professors Jonathan Leonard and David Levine examined more than 70,000 employees at more than 800 workplaces of a national retailer. They outlined the results of their study in an article titled “The Effect of Diversity on Turnover: A Large Case Study” in the July issue of the journal Industrial and Labor Relations Review.
The International Herald Tribune recently published article, A Door Opens in France for Minority Employees, by Katrin Bennhold, paints a hopeful picture of change within the corporate hiring practices of important French Corporations benefiting disadvantaged minority groups. It focuses on a selection of specific examples of outreach and hiring that is aimed at increasing the numbers of Arab and black French citizens in areas in which they have been severely under-represented. These anecdotal cases are laudable in and of themselves and they do give a feeling that the largely un-addressed yet formidable systemic discrimination that prevails within French society may finally be showing some signs of being addressed. Unfortunately the article fails to back up the few examples of outreach that it speaks about with any more supporting data that indicates that this is indeed a growing trend. One cannot conclude that there is indeed a growing trend of hiring qualified minority candidates solely on the basis of a handful of anecdotal cases. This article would have been more convincing if it had provided a supporting statistical backdrop.
The United States population is diverse. It’s no longer a question of when the workforce will change. It already has. There has been a huge increase in women, people of color and immigrants in the workforce in the last twenty-five years. Diversity is not just a “good idea”, today. it is a business imperative if you want to stay competitive, innovative and secure a larger market share.
Postmaster General John E. Potter told a conference of Hispanic postal employees over the weekend that there has never been a better time to prepare for future career opportunities at the Postal Service. The Postal Service will soon experience more turnover than ever before due to the baby boomer generation reaching retirement age. Potter said attracting qualified people from diverse populations—including Hispanics—and promoting them based on performance is important because “it’s our goal to continue to look like America, even as the face of America continues to change.”
Last month, LATINA Style 50 was published for the ninth consecutive year. Since its launching in 1998 as a special report recognizing corporate America’s diversity initiatives and commitment to advancing the careers of professional Hispanic women, the report has become a prestigious analysis of corporate America’s efforts for promoting diversity and providing career advancement opportunities for Hispanic women.
Late last month, Working Mother Magazine named its 21st annual 100 Best Companies. There were 18 new companies added to this year’s list and only three of last year’s Top 10 winners returned to take a place among the elite. The list of companies selected for the 2006 Working Mother 100 Best Companies was based on an extensive application completed by each company. The application includes detailed questions about the workforce, compensation, child-care and flexibility programs, leave policies and more. The application checks the usage, availability and tracking of programs, as well as the accountability of managers who oversee them. That means it’s not enough to have a great program if no one is using it. Seven areas are measured and scored: workforce profile, compensation, child care, flexibility, time off and leaves, family-friendly programs and company culture
The following is from a discussion thread that took place on September 15, 2006 on the American Affirmative Action Association in which the author solicits the opinions of other participants on what they think are the skills EEO practitioners need to survive.
The OFCCP recently published a FAQ on its new systemic compensation discrimination standards and Voluntary guidelines for compensation self-evaluation.
It answes the following questions:
In a closely watched case brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against the international law firm of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, the U.S. Supreme Court last week issued a written order denying Sidley’s petition for high court review of the EEOC’s ability to pursue monetary damages and other individual victim-specific relief in EEOC’s ongoing age discrimination suit against the firm. (EEOC v. Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, N.D. Illinois No. 05 C 0208.)The decision by the Court to deny Sidley’s request for review means that the question of EEOC’s ability to seek such relief will continue to be governed by the Feb. 17, 2006, decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Seventh Circuit on the issue. In that decision, the Seventh Circuit confirmed the EEOC’s authority to seek individual relief such as money and reinstatement for partners who were downgraded from partner status by the firm in 1999 and others forced out because of an age-based retirement policy. (EEOC v. Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP, 406 F.Supp.2d 991 (N.D. Ill. 2005), 437 F.3d 695 (7th Cir. 2006), cert denied No. 05-1481 549 U.S. ___ (10/2/2006).)
According to research done by the Human Rights Campaign, over half of all Fortune 500 companies have a non-discrimination policy for sexual orientation and over 100 private employers protect gender identity in their non-discrimination clause.
Click here to read Part I the Interviewing for Cultural Competency series.