WON Meeting Highlights April 2011- Vets Hiring and Recruiting, New HRC Rating Criteria 3.0 and Diversity at Mattel

Workforce Opportunity Network member company Sony hosted the April 12-13 meeting at their San Diego headquarters. The two day meeting was attended by participants from 30 organizations from a variety of sectors including financial, automotive, defense, insurance, hospitality, manufacturing, construction, media, health care and pharmaceutical, technology, government and non-profit. It was an opportunity for rich dialogue and collaborative networking and we are so thankful to Sony, particularly Cathy Wozney and Diedre Avery, for hosting such a wonderful meeting. We are also pleased to welcome our new members Ronita Griffin and Lisandra Mioni, from Life Technologies, whom many members met in San Diego!
Issues at the EEOC
Anna Park, EEOC Regional Attorney for the Los Angeles District, , spoke to WON members about the agency’s agenda for 2011. Park explained that the EEOC’s mistrust of employers’ using credit checks to make hiring decisions is based on the disparate impact the practice has on minorities, particularly African-Americans, for whom the rate of bad credit is 21% higher than for whites. The disparity may be due in part to lending discrimination and to circumstances unrelated to how responsible the individual is, such as medical problems or family breakups. Accordingly, the EEOC will expect that companies using credit checks have undertaken “a meaningful study that validates that credit records bear a demonstrable relationship to successful performance.”

Another area of growing interest to the EEOC is human trafficking and forced labor. Employers who would never directly participate in such practices may still be liable if workers hired through an employment agency are subject to abuses. In the case of EEOC v. Trans Bay Steel, for example, 48 welders were brought from Thailand by an agency to work for Trans Bay Steel on the East Bay Bridge in San Francisco. The workers came to the US with legitimate visas through a recruitment agency, but their passports were withheld and they were forced to work 14 hours a day, 6 days a week for no pay, living with no electricity, water or beds. After several workers escaped and contacted the EEOC, the commission recovered over $1 million for the workers from Trans Bay, as well as housing stipends, training, guaranteed wages, and monitoring and reporting.
Park covered other areas in which the EEOC is finding discrimination such as against working parents and people with caregiver responsibilities because of the increased participation of women in the workforce. Individuals with disabilities or who care for individuals with disabilities are being discriminated against based on employer stereotypes about an employee’s ability to perform his or her job duties and care for a person with a disability in violation of the ADA. With nearly a third of families having at least one family member with a disability, Park encourages employers to educate workers about their rights and responsibilities and to avoid inquiries about marital, parental or caregiver status.

Veterans Hiring and Recruiting

Qualcomm's "OPERATION Hire-A-Warrior" helps affected veterans make the transition to civilian life. The intent of the program, as described by Lee Wills Irvine, Qualcomm's head of Global Diversity Inclusion, and Gerry Borja, the company's staffing liaison for military and diversity recruitment, is to expose the former and in some cases still active military to the corporate environment, help them transfer their skills to the private sector, and provide technical training and professional development.
The company matched positions within its corporate IT and engineering services groups with veterans who have been physically or emotionally injured in Afghanistan or Iraq. During the 10-week program, participants spend five hours a day gaining technical experience and attending workshops. The workday is structured flexibly so it can be scheduled around medical treatment, rehabilitation, and other appointments.

Veterans in the program are provided with additional support to facilitate their entry to the corporate world. Each is paired with a mentor from Qualcomm's Military-Veterans employee resource group. Management lunches, executive breakfasts, and after-hours social events help them build their personal networks. The company also provides training on resume writing and interviewing, professional communications and job search skills. At the end of the 10-week period, participants are better prepared to compete for jobs, whether in Qualcomm or the external job market.

The "Hire-A-Warrior" initiative is just one aspect of Qualcomm's strategy for supporting military veterans. The company also featured "Into the Fire," a program by Had To BE Productions that uses interviews of real veterans, both men and women who have returned from war zones, to create an original workshop experience. Attended by employees of Qualcomm and representatives from other companies, performances help audiences understand the veterans' struggles with disabilities and combat-related trauma as they try to re-integrate into their families and the workforce. Qualcomm's Mil-vets ERG reaches out to veteran employees to engage them in activities and help them acclimate to Qualcomm culture. Other activities support community efforts on behalf of veterans in the US and overseas. Wills-Irvine and Borja credit the Department of Labor's America's heroes at work toolkit with helping them develop their veteran's initiatives.

Future of Play at Mattel

Vice President, Global Diversity at Mattel and WON member, Graciela Meibar, spoke to participants about Mattel’s diversity journey. To continue to inspire children and parents alike, the company’s vision is clear: to create the future of play by inspiring and motivating employees to take action. Leaders take responsibility for communicating and driving the company’s vision, business strategies and values that guide its almost 30,000 employees globally. Meibar shared how Mattel engaged the CEO and senior leadership team to develop a diversity and inclusion strategy aligned with and focused on those business strategies to drive lasting success.

At Mattel, diversity and inclusion is aligned with the workforce, work environment needs, the business strategy and their corporate values. Mattel fosters employee engagement with their Employee Resource Groups and Community Engagement, partnering with organizations such as the Los Angeles Urban League and the Crown Jewel Club. Meibar said she has learned that leadership support is critical, and to achieve it you have to engage them on what matters to them. According to Meibar, it is important to be strategic and deliberate in your initiatives, to educate and develop yourself and to incorporate diversity and inclusion into your cultural norms--but be original, don’t copy another organization.

Update on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index version 3.0

At the WON meeting in San Diego, Daryl Herrschaft, director of the Human Rights Campaign's Workplace Project, provided WON members an update on the 2012 Corporate Equality Index (CEI). The CEI 3.0 criteria was scheduled to go into effect for this year's survey, which would require among other things transgender-inclusive insurance and equal partner spousal benefits. Daryl attended the February 2011 Miami WON meeting to speak about the 2012 CEI and discuss with members their companies' concerns about the new criteria (Members can see Daryl's presentation to WON members in Miami in February 2011).
Members in attendance at the Miami meeting will recall that both Daryl and his colleague Dina Fidas were very interested in members' comments, criticisms and concerns, and seemed to understand the legitimate challenges for companies aspiring to get 100% on the CEI. The thrust of the feedback members provided to HRC in February was that companies will need more time to implement some of these changes.

According to HRC's original timeline, the 2012 survey was supposed to launch last in March 2011, but it did not in fact go out at that time. At the April meeting, members heard from Daryl that the survey launch would be delayed until June 2011 so that HRC can re-visit two areas of the new criteria that seem to be posing the greatest problems for employers: (1) insurance coverage for everything required by World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) standards, and (2) pensions.
The 2012 survey is now scheduled to be launched around June 6th. Participants will still have three months to complete the survey. HRC is still planning to publish the report in September/October 2011, and has been communicating out to all CEI participants about the new timeline and possible revisions to the survey. WON member companies that have been participantswill likely have received notification from HRC already.

Members that have any feedback for HRC on the new criteria or any aspect of the survey can contact Daryl Herrschaft at HRC.

The Workforce Opportunity Network will meet again on July 13-14 in Washington, DC at the National Geographic Society. If you are responsible for EEO/compliance and/or diversity and inclusion in a US company and are interested in learning more about WON, please contact Bonnie Arrix.