Accelerating Development of Diverse Talent
Challenge
Design programing and developmental opportunities to accelerate the development of our diverse talent, and position this talent for promotions and expanded roles.
Actions
Expanded our mentoring program from one exclusive to women to include a mentoring program for under-represented ethnic minorities. Both programs provide three formal leadership development sessions for managers and above. Additionally, each participant is partnered with an officer of the company to serve as a coach, advocate and mentor.
To offer leadership development deeper into the organization, we have introduced a Targeted Development for Diverse Talent initiative, which targets diverse talent at the manager-and-below level. Each participant is paired up with a senior leader to serve as a career guide to define developmental needs and resources to help participants achieve their career aspirations.
We have expanded our annual Women In Leadership Summit to now include under-represented ethnic minorities. The newly designed Diversity In Leadership Summit provides leadership development programming and networking opportunities for women and ethnically diverse employees at the manager-and-above level.
Outcomes
All participants in the mentoring and targeted development programs now have strong development plans to support their career aspirations. The actions we’ve taken and our intentional focus on our diverse talent when seeking candidates for high visibility assignments, expanded roles, and promotions have resulted in an increase in diverse talent promotion and strong retention rates. From December 2015 through March 2017, the percentage of promotions that went to women and minorities increased from 34.1% to 41.1%. At the manager-and-above levels it has increased from 39.8% to 48.1%. Retention rate for participants in the mentoring and targeted development programs is 95%.
Quote
A key part of it starts with inclusive leadership, ensuring that our leaders recognize that our first job is to create an environment where everyone is welcome to bring their best work. That means an expectation that we invite people’s best thinking – their best ideas. The communities we serve are diverse communities that are changing dramatically. Diverse in every sense of the word, with expectations around service, cultural background, the lifestyles that our customers enjoy. For our teams to understand that by representing that diversity is important. If we reflect it and understand it, we can deliver on the expectations of our customers. I think it’s fundamental to the customer service equation.