With the rise in the African American unemployment rate from 15% to 16.5% over the past year—6.8% from professional and managerial positions—it seems that diversity is no longer the “business imperative” that a multitude of corporations professed over the past two decades. The Great Recession particularly challenged the value of inclusion as corporations restructured operations, slashed budgets, and laid off thousands of workers. “This is the time when companies have to manage diversity,” says Marlon Cousin of The Marquin Group, an executive recruiting firm that places minority talent. “Many are focusing on the bottom line rather than focusing on diversity, but you want to continue to appeal to your loyal customer group. You don’t want to lose them because you’ve decided to cut back and stop investing in them or advertising to them. Diversity should be intertwined with the overall business strategy.”

The corporations on this year’s 40 Best Companies for Diversity list fully embrace that philosophy. Although they have been forced to make organizational changes in the current environment, these companies have maintained their commitment to such practices across the board. The policy of inclusion can be found among recruitment and retention of rank-and-file employees, the expansion of senior management, composition of corporate directors, and development of the supplier pool. In each of the aforementioned areas, however, you’ll discover that some companies performed better than others.

Although the companies on our list have instituted and fine-tuned diversity initiatives, that’s not the case with much of corporate America. A considerable number  of the companies be Research contacted failed to complete surveys or admitted to not having any such policies or programs and, as a result, were not considered for our roster. On the other hand, in reviewing this year’s list, you’ll find that a number

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of our corporations have job openings where they’re actively seeking diverse talent. They realize that they will be rewarded by a pool of employees of different races, genders, and sexual preferences that can offer a range of perspectives, experiences, skills, and strategies. In a business environment that has become increasingly multicultural and global, companies like those on our list that invest in the development and expansion of such human capital will emerge as today’s winners and tomorrow’s leaders.

Choosing Our Best ­Companies for Diversity
To select our 2010 Best Companies for Diversity, our editors and BE Research sent surveys to the top 1,000 publicly traded companies as well as the 100 leading global companies with strong U.S. operations. BE’s survey focused on activities related to the participation of African Americans and members of other ethnic minority groups. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the term “ethnic minority” applies to individuals from the following backgrounds: black/African American, American Indian/Alaska native, Asian, native Hawaiian, and Hispanic/Latino. Information provided by companies on diversity efforts on behalf of other groups, such as women, gays/lesbians/bisexuals/transgender, and the disabled, was used as a secondary, supporting criterion for inclusion on the list.

BE performed a quantitative assessment of all corporate respondents in each survey category. Based on the analysis, each company was given a score per category, which was compiled into a final survey score. Because of the high number of job losses since the recession, a heavier weighting was applied to scores in the senior management and supplier diversity categories. The final scores, along with the results of reporting and research conducted by the BE editorial staff, were used to determine the 40 Best Companies for Diversity. (See the 2009 Best Companies for Diversity article and list.)

Our survey measured companies against four key categories:

Employee Base: the percentage of African Americans and members of other ethnic minority groups represented in a given company’s total workforce.

Senior Management: The percentage of senior management positions held by African Americans and members of other ethnic groups.

Board of Directors: The percentage of African Americans and other ethnic minorities represented on corporate boards.

Supplier Diversity: the percentage of total procurement dollars spent with companies owned by African Americans and members of other ethnic minority groups.

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General Mills: Getting the Support to Make a Career Switch

Burress

For nearly 18 years, Sean Burress has worked for General Mills in a variety of areas including information systems, brand marketing, and now consumer insights. With a degree in computer science, he began his career at the firm as an intern in 1992. “What I really enjoyed was the idea of rotating,” Burress recalls. “Our information systems department allows new hires to rotate through a variety of positions supporting different businesses.”

But after 10 years in IS, Burress developed an interest in marketing and wanted more management responsibility. He pursued an M.B.A. part time at the University of St. Thomas, in Minnesota, with 100% financial support from the company. “I wanted to be at the table when business decisions were made,” says Burress. “That’s what drove me into marketing.”

Today, the 37-year-old consumer insights manager, whose team researches consumer behavior and applies strategic insights to retail partners, credits his advancement opportunities to several factors, including support from the company’s African American affinity group called the Black Champions Network, of which he is a former president. The affinity group focuses on areas of retention, development, recruiting, and mentoring, the latter of which, Burress says, is very much part of the company culture. “If you are here and have been retained, there’s someone who reached out to you,” he offers. There is also the individual development program, a yearly exercise in which all employees formally detail development goals as well as a plan to fulfill them with support from their managers. “Through the development program, you have the opportunity to expose your passions and skills,” Burress explains. “General Mills has an environment where you are constantly trying to make yourself better by learning and developing.”

Aetna: Finding the Right Opportunity

Kidd

When Chekesha Kidd decided to switch industries—moving from finance to healthcare—she says that Aetna Chairman and CEO Ron Williams and Senior Vice President of Human Resources Elease Wright strongly appealed to her sense of how to conduct business. “When I came in for interviews, the culture of the company was overwhelming,” remembers Kidd. “‘The Aetna Way’ is something that Ron brought to fruition in terms of how he wanted his company to be run with ethics and integrity.”

A former director within the investment banking department and a healthcare equity research analyst covering medical device companies at UBS Investment Bank, Kidd joined Aetna as a director within the company’s Corporate Development team, where she was responsible for identifying, negotiating, and executing transactions for the company’s global business units. But within just a year, the 33-year-old was promoted to the position of chief of staff and head of business development for the Local

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Employer and Consumer Segment. In this position, Kidd, and her team of 15, manages the development and execution of the segment’s mergers and acquisitions, alliance strategy, and governance structure. “This was a completely different path than I thought I was going to be taking in terms of my career.  I’ve always been deal-focused, financial-focused; I’d never really thought about getting on the P&L [profit and loss] side of the business and actually helping to run the business,” Kidd explains. “I never thought about that as an option for me. But it was an incredible opportunity.”

Kidd feels optimistic about future opportunities at Aetna. The average tenure for senior-level executives is 20 years. Plus the company offers talent development programs as well as succession planning to help employees grow and advance throughout the organization. “To come here and work with people in senior-level positions that look like me is a big deal to me,” says Kidd. “There is much more of a meritocracy. You come in, you work hard, you deliver in terms of results, and you are rewarded.”

WGL Holdings:  The Right Contact Equals Big Contracts

Biggs

Carl Biggs advises suppliers to forget about being a minority firm and focus on being the very best company. Biggs, 57, believes that even though minority status might help you get in the door, your services have to be top-notch to stay there. “What we sell is being a very strong small business. You’ve got to be faster than the larger businesses or you really don’t have anything to offer,” says Biggs, president of Chemical & Engineering Services (C&E), a water engineering company, and supplier to Washington Gas and Light (WGL Holdings) for more than a decade.

Their relationship began in the early ’90s after WGL accepted C&E’s business proposal to provide water treatment products that protect and keep pipes clean for more than 50 years. The company was granted the contract for 15 commercial and industrial locations throughout the Washington, D.C., area. “In the beginning we had a relationship because they liked our product better than anyone else’s and it did the job,” says Biggs. “From that relationship, we have grown.” In 1995 WGL asked C&E to provide 24-hour-a-day engineering services to operate its equipment. Today Biggs’ engineers, many of whom he recruits from the government or the military to stay competitive, are also responsible for temperature regulations for heating. He also focuses on hiring young engineers to help develop their talent.

WGL represents roughly 9% of C&E’s annual revenue of approximately $15 million.  C&E has received a number of awards including a performance award from WGL and a Small Business Administration Award for Excellence.

“Washington Gas has played a vital role in our company’s success and image in our community,” Biggs believes. “Our relationship has allowed C&E to expand into new areas and expand company capabilities.”

Click here for the complete 2010 Black Enterprise 40 Best Companies for Diversity list.

Sonia Alleyne is the Lifestyle editor at Black Enterprise and Annya Lott is the careers editor at Black Enterprise.

But even as corporations continue to lay off scores of workers, we’ve learned a couple of seemingly incongruent facts—worker productivity is up and companies are hiring. Although hires fell to their lowest rates in eight years nationwide, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are close to 3 million jobs available in the U.S. And approximately 40,000 of those positions are available among the companies that made Black Enterprise’s list of the 40 Best Companies for Diversity this year.

So how can it be true that companies are actually hiring employees in the midst of an economic crisis marked by rising unemployment, multibillion-dollar bailouts, and record bankruptcy filings?

“Many companies are using the new opportunities to retool their workforce and bring in the skill sets they feel will be most needed going forward,” asserts Joe Watson, CEO of Without Excuses and Strategic Hire in Reston, Virginia. “This is simply about hiring the best. Talented people who possess tremendous skills are currently in the market. Many companies are using this time to upgrade their workforce. In the world of capitalism, it is all about competitive advantage, and that begins with the talent level of your people.”

Organizations are being forced to rethink their business models. The best among them will create a more viable technological and talent management infrastructure to propel growth and productivity. The leadership that presides over our 40 Best Companies for Diversity fully understands that inclusion is vital to achieving those objectives. And for those efforts, their corporations have been awarded our top distinction.

“It is more important than ever to truly be driving the notion of building a fully inclusive organization where everyone understands that the core mission of the diversity effort is to drive the business toward a sustained competitive advantage,” offers Watson. “Many companies still struggle with their willingness and their knowledge of how to truly measure diversity. [They] still have long conversations about exactly ‘what’ they should measure. If they would simply treat diversity like every other business imperative, you would have folks working hard to reach their goals and ensuring that their performance meets the standards of their business.”

The 40 Best Companies for Diversity offer a variety of opportunities in finance, marketing, human resources, technology, and sales. In light of President Barack Obama’s plans and priorities for industry, the future holds promise for opportunities in areas such as government and energy. As a result, African American professionals must become more strategic as well, aligning skills development with organizational goals and industry trends. For some it may require upgrading credentials and broadening experiences; others must engage in a total career overhaul. But opportunities abound for those equipped to handle today’s industrial challenges.

“Diverse candidates need to understand that the new environment is all about results and no longer about potential,” Watson insists. Trudy Bourgeois, head of the Center for Workforce Excellence, a national cultural change consultancy, agrees. “Diverse candidates should become students of the marketplace,” she says. “They should study the changing consumer and the companies that are trying to meet this consumer’s demands and look for specific employment opportunities within these companies.

“Diverse candidates should leverage their own diversity. By that I mean they should market the fact that they have a strong history of managing change, charting new waters, and learning how to connect with cultures that are different from their own. Organizations need leaders and employees who are flexible, adaptable, and willing to learn.”

Annya M. Lott co-authored this article.

This story originally appeared in the July 2009 issue of Black Enterprise magazine.

Every July, Black Enterprise magazine identifies the “40 Best Companies for Diversity” (on newsstands now). In addition, we compile sublists for the “Best Companies for Senior Management Diversity,” “Best Companies for Supplier Diversity,” “Best Companies for Workforce Diversity,” and “Best Companies for Board Diversity.” These “sublists” include companies that are strong in one particular category of diversity. It is possible that a company might make the sublist and not the main list.

On Wednesday, we highlighted the 15 Best Companies for Supplier Diversity, this time the 15 Best Companies for Workforce Diversity takes center stage. Recruitment, inclusion and retention of a diverse workforce often require a calculated and spirited campaign on the part of the employer. Whether tactics include increasing recruitment at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) or establishing a corporate scorecard measure to increase the pool of diverse candidates, the end result for the companies that invest in diverse talent, their employees, and their consumers, is always win-win-win.

The companies that made the Workforce Diversity sublist outperformed other corporations in the percentage of minority employees in the organization as a percentage of all employees. We will also highlight these companies in the Diversity Watch section in upcoming issues of BE. Check BlackEnterprise.com tomorrow for our 15 Best Companies for Board Diversity.

Click on the Job Opportunities column below for more information about workforce diversity at a specific company.

To see all 40 companies on The 2008 BLACK ENTERPRISE Best Companies for Diversity pick up a copy of Black Enterprise magazine’s July 2008 issue. —THE EDITORS

Our Methodology:
The 2008 BLACK ENTERPRISE Best Companies for Diversity were determined by analyzing the responses to a survey of major corporations to determine investments in key diversity activities. BE engaged in a comprehensive outreach effort to the CEOs and diversity executives of the top 1,000 publicly traded companies and the diversity executives for the 50 leading global companies with strong U.S. operations. BE’s corporate diversity survey focused primarily on activities related to the participation of African Americans and members of other ethnic minority groups.

Upon receipt of all surveys, BE performed a quantitative assessment of all corporate respondents in each survey category. Based on the analysis, each company was provided a score per category, which was compiled into a final survey score.

In addition, the editorial staff reviewed all surveys and performed follow-up validation including contacting corporate diversity officers, senior managers, minority suppliers, and third-party experts. The final scores, along with the results of reporting and research conducted by the BE editorial staff, were used to determine the 40 Best Companies for Diversity.