One World One Company: Global Diversity and Inclusion Strategy

Global business is an established fact of life for many companies, but most find themselves struggling nonetheless to manage people optimally on a global scale. Pushing corporate ways of doing business without cognisance of local customs is a sure route to poor productivity and sales. At the other extreme, companies that give up all central control in the interest of local autonomy may sacrifice the added value that can come from a global organisation. But managers who learn to embrace commonality and difference simultaneously are at a great advantage in the competition for talent, customers, and innovation. Those managers position their organisations to deploy talent around the world with greater flexibility, to reach local markets and manage local operations more effectively. And to release the creative potential inherent in heterogeneous teams on a global scale. Taking the diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiative global, however, presents a variety of challenges, including:

• Developing a vocabulary to support worldwide discussion of the D&I concept
• Identifying what matters to people at the local level
• Setting D&I goals that support corporate and local business goals
• Erecting a diversity infrastructure that ties together local and global interests and activities
• Measuring results in ways that capture local achievements but are comparable across the organisation

Balancing emphasis on common global D&I concerns with issues of local concern This ORC Worldwide guide offers a practical approach to planning and executing a global D&I strategy that responds to these challenges.