“We are an increasingly global company. Our next major growth opportunities are not going to come from the countries that have gotten us where we are.”

Demographics in the U.S. labor pool will begin to naturally change in the near future. In the past, the workforce has been traditionally dominated by the Caucasian males. Companies are seeing, however, that the typical job candidate is beginning to change.

“Seventy percent of the incoming labor in 2008 will not be white males,” said Doyle.

However, as Doyle consistently points out, Aon is not gathering a diverse, cultured workforce just for the sake of corporate responsibility or because it is convenient. The initiative is actually a business decision as well.

“One of the things that has derailed a lot of companies is that they have simply focused on what’s called ‘representation’ and that is making sure you have more women and people of color,” she said. “My focus was talking about the talent issues and saying, this is not a right thing to do; this is not a compliance issue. This is simply looking at the numbers and saying if we don’t do something we are going to lose our competitive edge.”

Doyle said that the proof is in examples at Aon, where teams of multi-cultural employees typically outperform homogenous teams.

If different cultures are blended on one team, differences and barriers are dealt with in a much more constructive manner. Team members have the unique insight as to how their culture works and how best to approach it with the product or service being offered. “Diversity becomes a short hand way of identifying diversity of thought regarding how to approach problems and product development. Sales will be more successful this way.”

While this approach will allow companies to remain competitive in the future, it will not be the only solution. With a smaller workforce, retention will become as important as recruiting. Potential employees will have many options to choose from. Companies that provide benefits such as flex-time hours will be able to compete for top-tier talent.

“I think that the companies that are in the best position to facilitate workforce time-place flexibility coupled with career growth opportunities, coupled with strong knowledge transfer strategy, have a real edge.” said Doyle. “If you get the best, and even if you can’t keep them, if you make sure that you institutionalize the knowledge, we’ll create an opportunity for competitive advantage.”

---