The Commission looked for the channels of change that must occur to break glass ceilings and reported on strategies for success. It found that corporate initiatives are most likely to succeed when they are comprehensive and inclusive, and when investment is made in "human capital."
"A Solid Investment: Making Full Use of the Nation's Human Capital" is the recommendation report that was presented to President Clinton and select committees of the Congress, and is designed to pick up the pace of change.
The recommendations build upon strategies that companies and government are already using to end discrimination. They must be seen as a beginning, not an end. The recommendations address ways in which business, government, and society at large can act to bring down the glass ceiling.
For the business community, corporate citizenship is about treating employees as important assets to be developed and as partners on the road to profitability. It is an idea that business leaders, investors, academics, and government representatives believe will lead to bottom-line success for America - its businesses, its workers, their families, and their communities.
True leaders recognize they have no resource to waste and that maximizing their greatest asset, their human capital is just good business and a solid investment.
Recommendations for business include:
1) The CEO must communicate visible and continuing commitment to workforce diversity. This in turn can influence the culture of the organization by creating an atmosphere that fully utilizes the talents and capabilities of a diverse workforce .
2) Efforts to achieve workforce diversity should be an integral part of corporate strategic business plans. Competitive employers measure and monitor key business areas such as profits, capital investment, productivity, market share, and quality. Setting goals and timetables for work force diversity is an extension of this business practice which helps organizations measure their progress and growth. Additionally, line managers must be held accountable for progress toward breaking the glass ceiling. That may mean tying their pay and rewards system to accomplishments of diversity objectives.
3) Businesses should use affirmative action as a tool to help ensure that all qualified individuals have equal access and opportunity to compete based on ability and merit. Affirmative action is the deliberate undertaking of positive steps to design and implement procedures that ensures the employment system provides equal opportunity to all. Properly implemented, affirmative action does not mean quotas, allowing preferential treatment or employing or promoting unqualified people. It means opening the system and casting a wide net to recruit, train, and hire people who may not look like what corporate executives have traditionally looked like; who may not think like corporate executives have traditionally thought.
It means promoting opportunities for advancement for people who can contribute effectively to a corporation and, consequently, the nation's economic stability. It means making full use of the rich talent this nation has to offer.
4) Business must expand their traditional executive recruitment networks and seek out candidates with non-customary backgrounds and experiences. They must go beyond the old school network and seek talent both inside and outside the corporation, by looking to employee sponsored networks and affinity groups, or at women's colleges, or universities with historical ties to ethnic groups.
5) Companies must prime the pipeline by: identifying objective performance, skill and knowledge criteria for advancement; instituting formal succession planning; and providing rotational and non-traditional job assignments that broaden the base of a candidate's experience and visibility. Mentor and be mentored. Many successful business persons have identified mentoring as a critical factor in their career advancement due to its function as a means of networking, socializing and forming ties with influential corporate leaders.
A brief aside, did you know that the first mentor was actually a woman? In ancient Greek mythology, the goddess Athene (also known as Minerva) advised and guided the young Telemachus in Homer's classic The Odyssey. Disguised as Mentor, a man, Athene skillfully set Telemachus on his course for discovering the fate of his father. Even in mythology, a women could not be seen as a leader.
6) Business must train the entire workforce in the strengths of ethnic, racial, and gender diversity. Educating your employees means creating a workplace that is welcoming and open to all. Diversity training debunks myths about the suitability and capability of women and minorities for executive careers.
7) Work/life and family friendly policies should be adopted. These include flexible hours, daycare and elder care programs, telecommuting, and job sharing. Family friendly policies improve productivity and reduce costs by relieving workers of non-job related worries and allows them to focus on business objectives.
8) Companies must implement high performance workplace practices that include employee participation, innovative compensation policies, employment security, information sharing, and continuous learning. There is strong evidence that doing right by employees is also good for the bottom line. Companies with well respected employee practices that invest in their workers see a positive impact on measures of long-term corporate performance such as utilization of capital and total returns to investors. One study found companies that introduced formal training programs experienced a 19 percent larger rise in productivity than firms which did not train their workers.
Government has a role to play in breaking glass ceilings. Government must lead by example and make equal access and opportunity a reality for all. It can not mandate and require private sector to pursue and value diversity, if it is unwilling to do the same.
Enforcement agencies must increase their efforts to enforce existing antidiscrimination laws, strengthen interagency coordination, and update regulations and policies to keep up with the changing workplace environment. Additionally, government - federal, state and local - must ensure adequate resources in funding and personnel, which are essential for enforcement agencies to fulfill their legislative mandates.
Improved data collection can give a clearer picture of the progress women and minorities are making by pinpointing areas where improvement is needed, and increased disclosure of diversity data is an incentive to develop and maintain innovative, effective programs to break glass ceiling barriers, while beginning a process of positive social change through corporate employment policies. Doing right is consistent with doing well.
Initiatives for society at large include:
Glass ceilings in the business world are not an isolated feature of corporate architecture; rather they are held in place by the attitudes of society at large. While the Commission recognized that attitudinal changes cannot be dictated, mandated, or legislated, it did put forward initiatives that address the difference barrier and can reduce stereotypical thinking, prejudice, and bias which can be absorbed and become the beliefs upon which we act.
The media plays a critical role in developing and eliminating stereotypes and biases that affect the way minorities and women are viewed in society at large and in the workplace. The Commission recommends that media organizations examine closely their diversity demographics at all levels; review their coverage for accurate diversity portrayal and possible distortions; and establish an award for the media organizations that consistently puts forth accurate and positive reflections of women and minority groups.
The education community can develop positive images of diversity through cultural awareness programs. Schools must open the dialogue on diversity. They should acquaint students to the wide array of career opportunities through school/business partnerships that provide better career counseling by bridging the gap between the world of work and the world of education.
The education system and society must recognize the potential of non-traditional achievers by expanding traditional core competencies to include leadership, teamwork, and strong analytical, communication and interpersonal skills.
Language is a key competitive tool, and multilingualism is necessary including a familiarity with the language of computers. As more and more business is conducted via electronic commerce, those with skills and competence in computers and technology can command "employability" security - the security of being reasonably sure that if they lose their job they can get a new one that's as good.
"The language of international trade is not English ... it is the language of the customer" according to the president of Estee Lauder. The Commission recommends that students and those who wish to advance acquire proficiency in a second language.
Building on the success Ms. Foundation's "Take Your Daughter To Work," the Commission recommends establishing "Take A Child To Work Day" that would allow American business to provide leadership and commitment to generations of youngsters searching for role models in the corporate world.
According to a poll sponsored by Business Week, 95 percent of Americans believe companies have responsibilities to their employees and their communities that go beyond making profits.
It was the Commission's hope that businesses would take these recommendations, build upon them, and encourage their employees, clients, and vendors to work within their organization and communities to implement them.
Science is potential energy and technology is kinectic energy that can help break glass ceiling barriers. For as more work is transacted on-line, we will rely less on visual cues like the shape of a body or the color of the skin, and judge a person's capabilites on the content of the communication as a function of mind, ability and merit.
Women and minorities are plagued by negative stereotypes. By being concerned, industrious and committed, we define ourselves in positive terms, and affect the lives of those who know us. All of our achievements have merit.
As people of all races and both genders enter the work force in increasing numbers, we will transform the character of corporate structures and that change is as inevitable as it is beneficial.
It is my hope that the convergence of business, government, and society at large, to fully utilize all the people, will create a cohesive, inclusive society where ethnic and gender strengths are valued, and our differences contribute to the common good.
California has been a laboratory for the country and the home for some of the great chroniclers of these changes. One of my favorites was Dorothea Lang, who was a portrait photographer in San Francisco.
During the Great Depression, she forsook the safety of her studio and took her camera, cris-crossed the country, and documented the nation's torment in thousands of stark and poignant snap shots. She needed to make a statement about people who were alienated, denied, dispossessed, but never quite defeated.
The findings in the Glass Ceiling Commission report is a snap shot of corporate America in the 1990s as a precursor to the new millenium. It contains, albeit less dramatically than Lang's photos, stories of women and minorities who are alienated, denied leadership opportunities, dispossessed of their employment potential - but never quite defeated.
When glass ceilings are forever shattered, we will have suceeded in using our greatest asset - the people - to their fullest potential. And we will have come a long way to achieving the full promise of our society by making its bounty equally available to all.
Thank you.
