GovernmentExecutive.com

Leadership involvement, candidate development and strong performance metrics are key to fostering organizational diversity, industry and government leaders told legislators at a House Homeland Security Committee roundtable discussion on Wednesday.

"This issue is vital to the safety and security of the nation," said Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. "New demographics underscore the need to practice inclusion and to make everyone in this society a stakeholder by ensuring everyone a seat at the table. The failure to practice inclusion leads to isolation and mistrust."

Thompson is one of several lawmakers who have called for greater attention to diversity in the federal workforce. In March, his committee released a report on the diversity of the Homeland Security Department. Legislation to increase the diversity of the Senior Executive Service sponsored by Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill., and Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawaii, is moving through the House and Senate respectively.

Ellie Hollander, chief people officer at AARP, said the organization has adopted a holistic strategy. That includes requiring diversity education for all employees, offering training programs for minority candidates interested in leadership positions, encouraging the growth of employee affinity groups and relying on data from a regularly administered employee satisfaction survey.

"We look at diversity in the broadest possible sense," Hollander said, noting that AARP doesn't limit its analysis to race and ethnicity. "We look at age. We look at sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, location and tenure."

The National Education Association runs similar leadership development programs for minority candidates and offers training on everything from message control to developing a vision and creating community partnerships.

Hollander said it was important to train managers as well as employees to make sure strong minority candidates were hired, mentored and promoted.

Roderick Gillum, vice president for corporate responsibility and diversity at General Motors Co., said the company involves its affinity groups in business decisions, looking to them for suggestions on community outreach for GM's minority dealer program and effective marketing to racial and ethnic minorities.

Those efforts are important, but they can be bolstered with strong data that can help illuminate an organization's successes and failures in promoting diversity, said Belva Martin, assistant director for strategic issues at the Government Accountability Office. GAO has undertaken a number of diversity efforts since performance data released in 2007 revealed significant discrepancies between Caucasian and African-American analysts.

"The bottom line is that GAO is in the midst of transforming itself," Martin said. "That we would have performance discrepancies between African-Americans and Caucasians and need to have facilitated discussions around diversity in 2008 shows that we have not arrived."

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said it was time for the federal government to take a more aggressive approach to diversity and affirmative action.

"I would offer a suggestion that there needs to be a renewed spirit of affirmative action; we need an omnibus legislative action, frankly," Jackson Lee said. "Corporate leaders know we've been piecemealing legislation. That's how we've been able to do this concept of affirmative action....It's shocking, in our own backyard, in the federal government, we've got discrimination problems."

COMMENTS

• It seems that every time the issue of diversity at the top/senior levels comes up, agencies and departments point to a segregated population of individuals as overrepresented. The issue is diversity at the senior levels of the government and what can and should be done to make those positions more inclusive. The question becomes, what are the qualifications for the senior level positions? Are there individuals within the federal government who already meet those qualifications but are not being considered for those positions? A Federal Government Wide study conducted by OPM should reveal the statistics. The survey could also ask the demographic questions to determine how many in a certain demographic category meet the qualifications but are not considered for the senior level (SES) positions or candidate programs. The survey could also reveal that the population of potential senior level candidates are just not there in the diversity numbers. Are we afraid to know the truth? Vivian Hill Posted June 30, 2008 9:45 AM
• They have the cart before the horse. You can't start with the adult workforce and cry that it should represent the population as a whole. How many black engineers do you know? Have you ever tried to hire an east asian tug boat captain or deckhand? How about a female mechanic? You have to start encouraging and educating people earlier in life to seek out certain career paths before you can achieve diversity in the workforce. And that requires changes in cultural mindsets, because the educational and training opportunities are there for the taking. JT Posted June 30, 2008 7:56 AM
• Perhaps we should re-focus on what we're doing to attract high quality candidates and not get distracted with diversity/quotas/affirmative action. We'll spend all our time arguing these items and lose the opportunity to grab bright young people to continue the important public service work. Our government can't run without dedicated employees. Let's focus on marking our recruitment and hiring processes more user-friendly and inclusive (not bureaucratic and off-putting). PJ Posted June 27, 2008 5:29 PM