Category: PDJ

While there has been an evolution in the kinds of roadblocks and shortcuts that accelerate or hinder diversity management, there have also been some consistencies across organizations and over time that we can share.

I was brought up to think of “going to work.” This mindset, which had been around since the dawn of the Industrial Age, was based on the essential ingredient of “face time.” If I have not seen you do the work how will I know you have done it? When employees might make one or two visits to the office per year, judging performance-based “face time” proves to be an untenable management model. What was the option?

The disparities in healthcare are one of today’s hot-button issues, with everyone from political pundits to major hospitals weighing in on the subject. Some experts have suggested that increasing the diversity of the healthcare workforce will close these gaps and produce more innovative approaches to diseases. This is the goal of Mentoring in Medicine, a non-profit organization founded in 2006 by an ER doctor.

Hispanic mobile usage is growing four times faster than the general population. The demographic currently represents twenty-five percent of total U.S. iPhone ownership. Two tech entrepreneurs have attempted to capitalize on these demographic changes with a new “lifestyle” mobile application that caters to the Hispanic business and consumer market.

One of the most fundamental steps towards diversity and awareness is simply knowing the proper pronunciation of co-workers, clients, and potential customers. A new technology, called ANTs, or audible name tags, was designed to aid in correct articulation.

Train! specializes in skills development training and coaching negotiation techniques to Spanish speakers at many of the leading companies across the U.S. and Mexico. Rafael González Montes de Oca, the company’s founder and CEO, presents workshops at companies to provide the Spanish-speaking employees with knowledge that will allow them to improve their professional development, both in management abilities and in relation with others.

One of the thorniest issues in cross-cultural communication is the question of making judgments. It is important to be careful judging across cultures because you are, of necessity, judging other people according to your standards. If those people don’t happen to have your standards, you might judge them incorrectly.

The brainchild and namesake idea of CEO Roger Ailes, the Ailes Apprentice Program reaches out to minority journalists, in college or already working for FOX, to participate in a year-long, paid apprenticeship program. Currently in its ninth year, the program offers apprentices the opportunity to learn the corporate culture, and provides them with individual mentors and one-on-one time with FOX CEO Ailes.

The lack of minorities receiving graduate degrees in business is a growing problem, affecting the number of qualified candidates in the corporate job market. The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management works to increase the presence of African American, Hispanic, and Native Americans in MBA programs and the corporate world.

It has been much publicized within the past few years that the U.S., once dominant in all aspects of education, has been lagging behind other nations in terms of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. The Obama administration, specifically, has tied STEM with innovation, and thus competition, on the world stage. In other words, STEM is no longer an educational lapse—it’s a national security issue. And while growth of STEM overall is encouraged, it has been specifically targeted at underrepresented minorities (URMs) and females.