Changing Demographics

The changing demographics of our nation has had a tremendous impact on our country's economy and the way businesses approach their bottom lines. Among Americans 70 and older, the ratio of majority to minority is 5.3 to 1. For Americans below the age of 40, the ratio is 2 to 1. For children under 10, the ratio is 1.5 to 1. Moreover, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce in the year 2000, minority consumers spent $1.3 trillion in the marketplace. That number will nearly double to $2.5 trillion in the year 2020. To be competitive, businesses must recognize this trend and take action to invest in and support the needs of its most important resource-their workforces.

The businesses represented in this paper have developed best practices that promote, achieve and value workforce diversity at the core of their business structure. Diversity improves recruitment, retention and morale; increases employee relations and productivity; improves customer relations and brand loyalty; enhances relations with key community leaders and external audiences; and increases minority and female market share.

Companies are beginning to adopt a broader concept and definition of the word "diversity" to include most characteristics that individuals possess that affect the way they think and perform tasks. Traditionally, diversity has been defined to include characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, and disability. Today, diversity also includes less conventional traits such as cultural background, sexual orientation, class and marital status.

The Career Advancement Subcommittee has compiled this report to serve as a tool to later develop a universal set of guidelines detailing the "best of the best practices" in achieving diversity in the workplace. These guidelines will be designed to promote opportunities for minorities and women to advance to managerial positions in the communications sector as well as other related sectors of the economy. Career advancement in this context means attracting, retaining, mentoring, developing and promoting minorities and women in the workplace.

The best practices highlighted in this report illustrate how companies are much more strategic in their effort to achieve a diverse workforce. Of the 18 respondent companies, there are some significant findings.

The Role of the CEO in Promoting Diversity

A company's diversity efforts must start at the top. As the company head, the CEO must play an active and visible role in enforcing diversity initiatives throughout the company. Twelve of the 18 respondent companies indicated that their CEO had a fairly significant role in personally championing diversity efforts by actively participating in the companies' diversity efforts through:

* Presenting an annual report to the company's Diversity Committee and to the Board of Directors

* Meeting with the Diversity Council quarterly to ensure that the company's diversity strategy is on track

Seven companies, however, did not clearly articulate their goals and objectives on diversity initiatives. The remaining 11 companies either had a formal written diversity plan or informal