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Jeff Joerres |
Focusing on diversity and looking for more ways to be a truly inclusive organization – one that makes optimal use of the contributions of all employees – is not just a nice thing to do. It is good business sense that yields a competitive advantage.
This underlying belief is leading to changes in management practices, especially those relating to the recruitment, training and retention of employees who reflect the changing face of the American work force.
The philanthropic support of top-level executives for diversity initiatives underscores the point.
Jeff Bleustein, president and chief executive officer of Harley-Davidson Inc., and Jeff Joerres, president and CEO of Manpower Inc., proved this in 2002 when the two encouraged more than 20 Milwaukee-area CEOs to join them in raising $300,000 to create and fund the Milwaukee Center for Workplace Diversity.
“Milwaukee needs and is very active in improving its business environment,” Joerres said. “A key part of a successful business environment and a sustainable business environment is diversity…. It’s an imperative that we do this, and that we do it in a way that puts Milwaukee on the map nationally.”
Being “diversity conscious” reflects an attitude that businesses and organizations must adopt. It allows them to change their basic concepts about workers and converts the thought process from “them” to “us,” Bleustein and Joerres believe.
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| Jeff Bleustein |
“We understand that there can be some tension around the subject of diversity,” Bleustein said. “But, as a group, we are comfortable with it because we know it’s a good thing to do – not just the right thing to do. And we want to bring the rest of the community up to that level.”
Managing diversity is not just a business’s reaction to rapid cultural and sociological changes, Joerres added. It also means providing a climate where all employees feel that they are valued by and are contributing to an organization.
“I looked inside our organization and looked at our ability to recruit and retain and advance people of color,” Joerres said. “And, we couldn’t do it very well. When I looked around at the rest of the city there were a couple of good examples, but no one could do it very well.”
That’s when Joerres made a commitment to make a change both inside his own organization and in the community at large. The Milwaukee Center for Workplace Diversity is the best place to start, he said.
“UWM’s involvement is terrific,” Bleustein said. “It’s a great example of the university and the business community doing something together that neither one could do as well by themselves.”
At Harley-Davidson, a diversity program has been in place for several years. It strives to ensure that when individuals are hired, they should be able to trust that they have been selected for their unique qualifications, not because of gender or ethnicity.
Bleustein is hoping to share some of his company’s diversity successes with other organizations.
“I look forward to the day when diversity will become so ingrained in our business that it no longer requires a change process, but is simply the natural, self-sustaining order of things,’’ Bleustein said.