Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com • September 7, 2020 • Hartford Business Journal 17 By Sean Teehan steehan@hartfordbusiness.com A couple decades ago a new position began to pop up in corporations: chief diversity officer. Some businesses went with the CDO moniker, others called those holding the position vice president of diversity and inclusion. But whatever the title, the person holding it was largely focused on compliance with nondiscrimination laws, said Tina Shah Paikeday, leader of the diversity and inclusion advisory practice at management consulting firm Russell Reynolds Associates. "Companies are [now] stepping back to say, 'What is the [CDO's] man- date?' And it's quite often far beyond the HR mandate, and I think we'll see that pendulum swing," Shah said. Since those early days, the de- mographic trajectory in the United States trending toward an increas- ingly ethnically diverse popula- tion and a recent social movement promoting racial justice is altering attitudes about the business com- munity's role and responsibility regarding inclusion, for both large companies and small businesses. These factors are leading compa- nies to bolster efforts to hire and pro- mote minority and women employees, and in some cases to include the CDO role in external decision-making. Diversity professionals at some of Greater Hartford's most prominent companies say there's a long way to go in achieving representation in corporate America that better resembles America's popu- lation. But they also say initiatives like employee resource groups and an increasing focus on fostering diverse talent after employees are hired have created an infrastructure that has pushed some companies in a direction more capable of grap- pling with the current zeitgeist. The scope of a chief diversity of- ficer's job largely depends on what a particular company needs, said Sha- ron Hall, the longest-serving Black partner at Chicago-based leadership advisory and executive recruiting firm Spencer Stuart. The role At its most basic level, a CDO usual- ly advocates for hiring and promoting minority and women employees, and organizes employee resource groups — support systems for workers who belong to ethnic or other minority groups like Blacks, Hispanics and LGBT. From there, Hall said, CDOs can work to entrench the diversity platform in the company's operations, and over time strategically leverage its diversity for recruiting employees or to bolster its branding. But companies that establish a CDO role don't always provide diver- sity professionals with the resources they need to enact change, Hall said. "It has been more than 20 years [since the CDO position has ex- isted] and very few companies have achieved the kind of progress that they would have thought," Hall said. It seems like every four years or so something sparks a conversation about diversity in corporate Amer- ica, and executives release state- ments and sometimes new company policies meant to boost diversity, Hall said. But then it fades. That's not necessarily indicative of indifference to CDOs, Hall added. Oftentimes the business environment shifts, changing the company's priori- ties, and sidelining diversity initiatives. But with demographic changes shifting ever quicker — Census data shows whites making up about 60% of the U.S. population last year, compared with 69% in 2000 — and more public attention to racial dis- parities, Hall sees that changing. "Nobody is going to be able to get away with not managing diversity effectively," Hall said. "Since the George Floyd murder [in Minneapo- lis] that function is taken evermore seriously and is elevated … and I do believe that there is more opportu- nity for sustainability [in diversity policy] then there ever has been." CT companies weigh in Gail Jackson has been involved with diversity issues in the cor- porate world since the mid-1980s, when she ran the HR department for Stratford-based Sikorsky. It wasn't long before executives began seeing the business advantag- es of expanding their recruiting to attract employees from a wider pool, Chief diversity officer role takes on greater importance amid racial justice movement Continued on page 18 >> Demographics of chief diversity officers in the U.S. Gender % Generation % Race % Male 56 Gen Z (age 20–22) 3 White 60 Female 43 Gen X (age 39–54) 30 Black 10 Millennial (age 23–38) 57 Asian 6 Boomer (age 55–73) 10 Hispanic 24 Source: Chief Diversity Officers Today: Paving the Way for Diversity & Inclusion Success 2019 survey Synchrony Financial Chief Diversity Officer Michael Matthews (far right) speaks on a panel during the company's 2019 Diversity Symposium. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED operations meeting where the first topic discussed is employee safety, followed by a review of diversity hire and promotion metrics, which are tracked closely and published in an annual corporate social re- sponsibility report. For example, the 18,500-em- ployee equipment rental company hired 1,549 diverse employees in 2018, up from 694 in 2015, and pro- moted 600 diverse employees, who include women and minorities. The company also reported near- ly 2,000 diverse employees in sales and management roles in 2018. "From the board to the senior execs all the way down to our employees, diversity is a key focus for us that will make us a better company and a better partner with customers," Pintoff said. "You measure what you want to accom- plish so this shows how important diversity is to us." United Rentals currently doesn't have any Black people among its top 13 named executives, but it does have two African Americans on its 11-member board. Other Connecticut companies have made new diversity hires in recent months, including Stam- ford technology company Pitney Bowes, which just named a Black woman (Sheila A. Stamps) to its board of directors. Meantime, Bridgeport-based People's United Bank has had a job listing on LinkedIn that seeks a new chief diversity officer. Young, the Franklin & Mar- shall College professor, said it's a positive step that many compa- nies are putting a focus on racial diversity right now, but efforts must go beyond simply making public declarations. And that won't be easy. Many companies that have focused on the issue for years have struggled to make real change. For example, according to a 2019 report by Stamford global research firm Gartner Inc., only 36% of diver- sity and inclusion leaders reported that their organization had been effective at building a diverse work- force, while 80% of organizations rated themselves as ineffective at developing a diverse and inclusive leadership bench. Young and others worry compa- nies will throw money at the issue short term, without making a long- term commitment to the issue. "I'm hopeful that when compa- nies decide to make any kind of change they are thinking about this long term and not going to sit back in three to six months and say this isn't going to work," she said. Tina Shah Paikeday, Leader of the Diversity and inclusion Advisory Practice, Russell Reynolds Associates

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