scotzshweta
5

Hi friends, just go through these ppts i have prepared on ""managing diversity in an organization.""
From India, Mumbai
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scotzshweta
5

As requested by you, i'm attaching the case studies for

"manageing diversity at workplace" practiced by IBM and American Express.

Hope u find them worth..

Shweta Jha

MBA 3rd SEM

HEY WAS UNABLE TO ATTACH THE COPY SO JUS PASTING THEM HERE ITSELF..

CASE STUDY 1

Diversity and Talent Management Practices at IBM

The case examines the diversity and talent management practices of the US-based IBM, the leading IT Company in the world. IBM figured in the Fortune magazine's list of "America's Most Admired Companies" in the year 2004. It was appreciated for recruiting and retaining the best talent across the world. IBM actively encouraged recruiting people from various social and cultural backgrounds irrespective of their age, sex or physical status. In the same year, IBM had developed a talent marketplace to effectively manage its workforce. The marketplace supported employees to find the most suitable job across different organizational units within the company.

Experts felt that the talent management initiatives of IBM would help it to gain competitive advantage in the long run as talent is the key differentiator in the IT industry.

Introduction

In the year 2004, IBM was listed among the top 10 companies on Fortune magazine's list of "America's Most Admired Companies." The ranking was based on eight variables like employee talent, innovation, use of corporate assets, social responsibility, quality of management, financial soundness, long-term investment value, and quality of products/services5.

Fortune was appreciative of IBM for recruiting and retaining the best talent across the world. Analysts attributed IBM's success to its skilled diverse workforce that included people from almost all the countries in the world.

The history of diversity at IBM dates back to 1953 when the then Chairman and CEO, Thomas J. Watson Jr. (Watson Jr.), issued a letter to the management team in which he stressed equal opportunity of employment. In the late 1950s, that letter was used as a foundation of company policy in negotiations to establish IBM subsidiaries in Southern US.

In 1964, Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) became a legal obligation as per the Civil Rights Act, passed by the US government. During the 1970s, IBM actively recruited women and minorities in the company. It formed a well-structured career development plan for them.

Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, as IBM started operating in other countries outside the US, it actively promoted diversity. The company developed a well-structured diversity policy and implemented it within the organization. During the 1990s, diversity council and network groups were formed to promote diversity

In the early 2000s, a skilled workforce was one of the key differentiators for a successful IT company. IBM gave importance to not only recruiting and retaining the best talent but also to managing them in such a way that wastage of skills was reduced. In 2004, IBM developed Human Capital Management Services software to implement a talent management model within the organization. According to analysts, IBM's focus on talent management enabled the company to utilize its workforce properly and also to assess its future talent needs. They felt that the best practices in talent management could be further used to formulate and implement succession planning and leadership development strategies.

Background Note

The history of IBM dates back to the early 1900s. In 1911, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) was founded in New York, US, by merging the International Time Recording Company6, Computing Scale Company7, and the Tabulating Machine Company8. In 1914, Thomas J. Watson Sr. (Watson Sr.), who had earlier operated an agency for selling cash registers, joined CTR as a general manager

In 1924, CTR was renamed as International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and Watson Sr. took over control of the company as its President. Since its inception, the top management of IBM had been giving importance to employee-friendly practices. Watson Sr. concentrated on developing ‘self-respect' and ‘self-confidence' among IBM's sales force. He said, "I want the IBM salesmen to be looked up to. Admired. I want their wives and children to be proud of them."9 To promote teamwork, Watson Sr. formed sports teams among its employees. He tried to inculcate a sense of pride and loyalty in them toward the company. He valued his employees as he believed that the people were the biggest assets of the company.

Work Force Diversity at IBM

Diversity at the work place in the US originated from the concept of EEO in the 1940s. At IBM, Watson Jr. issued the first equal opportunity policy letter in 1953. Later, it came under government compliance under the Civil Rights Act of the US in 1964.

With the onset of ‘globalization' in the 1980s, organizations initiated efforts to broaden

their marketplace. In an attempt to sustain themselves amidst the continuously increasing competition, they started doing business across the world. This trend made it important for them to focus on diverse cultures across borders in order to offer products and services that suited the specific needs of different markets...

Recruiting People with Disabilities

IBM had a well-structured plan in place for recruiting and training people with disabilities. The recruitment specialists and hiring managers were specially trained for this purpose. In each business unit, IBM had ‘line champions' - the managers experienced in hiring and working with people with disabilities - to facilitate the recruitment process. The company also worked with various educational institutions for campus recruitment of such candidates (Refer to Exhibit III for various programs conducted by IBM to recruit people with disabilities). Besides, IBM had a diversity website where prospective candidates with disabilities could submit their resumes directly...

[size=24]Work/Life Balance[/size]

As one of its major employee retention strategies, IBM offered a comprehensive work/life balance program based on the following seven principles:

• Employees must take responsibility for their own work/life balance needs.

• Work/life balance should have a positive impact on all employees involved.

• Quality of output is more important than the amount of activity.

• Teams should be flexible when balancing working and personal needs.

• Employees must be treated as individuals.

• Ongoing performance and contribution are a prerequisite.

• Achieving work/life balance is hard work and ongoing...

Women in the Workforce

IBM started recruiting women professionals well before the Equal Pay Act, 1963. A letter issued by Watson Sr. in 1935 stated, "Men and women will do the same kind of work for equal pay. They will have the same treatment, the same responsibilities, and the same opportunities for advancement." IBM's management made efforts to find out what the specific needs of its women employees and provided women-friendly facilities accordingly. This helped the women in increasing their productivity while maintaining a proper balance between work and family life. The women networking groups in IBM actively promoted female mentoring, assisted women to achieve a better work/life balance, and also conducted programs to encourage girls to seek careers in the IT industry (Refer to Table I for ‘Filling the Pipeline' programs)...

Talent Management

To achieve a balance between talent supply and demand, IBM often redeployed its workforce. The internal redeployment process was designed to minimize loss of productivity of skilled employees. Each of IBM's business units had its own resource board that reviewed and approved external job postings on a regular basis. In case the company had employees with skills matching the criteria, they were redeployed on the new job instead of recruitment being done externally...

The Road Ahead

IBM treated diversity as a part of its business strategy. Having employees from different social and cultural strata helped the company understand and serve its customers better.

It also helped the company expand its market by obtaining business from small and medium sized enterprises owned by the women and minorities (Asian, Black, Hispanic, etc.). In the early 2000s, the executive diversity task forces were encouraged to develop business relationships with the leading women and minority-owned businesses in the US...

Case study 2

Promoting Diversity - The American Express Way

American Express was well known in American corporate circles for its commitment to diversity. The company not only made a conscious effort to recruit a diverse workforce, but it also created a work culture where diversity was valued and promoted. This case discusses the diversity initiatives of AmEx. It talks about how the company partnered with several profit and non profit organizations to ensure that it had access to a diverse pool of candidates in its recruitment efforts. It also talks about the culture and policies at AmEx that ensured that diversity was promoted in all parts of the organization. The case concludes with a commentary on the extent to which the diversity initiatives were successful at the company, in the light of a law suit filed by some women employees against the discrimination they faced.

Introduction

In January 2006, the American Express Company (AmEx) was featured on Fortune's 3 list of the '100 Best Companies to Work for' in America. AmEx was ranked ninth among large companies, and 37th in the overall ranking of the list of the best employers in the US. AmEx had been one of the regulars on this list in the early 2000s, and the company stood ninth in the overall ranking the previous year as well.

Fortune said AmEx's diversity initiatives, especially its policies related to women employees and minorities, made the company one of the best places to work for in the US. AmEx's commitment to minorities was also saluted by Black Enterprise, a magazine committed to the business and consumer issues of the African-American community, in July 2005.

The magazine included AmEx in its '30 Best Companies for Diversity' list. The 30 best companies were selected after the editors of the magazine conducted a detailed survey of more than 1,000 publicly traded American companies and 50 global companies with significant operations in the US.

Companies which showed a significant representation of African Americans and other ethnic minorities in four key areas - corporate procurement, corporate boards, senior management, and the total workforce - were included in the list.

AmEx was also appreciated by other mainstream magazines as well as those catering to minority groups and special interests such as Hispanic Business and Working Mother, for its diversity related policies (Refer Exhibit I for a list of the awards AmEx received in 2006 and 2005).

In the 1990s, diversity issues came to the fore in corporate America. Not only had a large number of women and minorities entered the workforce, but markets had also rapidly expanded beyond national boundaries, compelling companies to adapt their operations to diverse cultures and societies. In light of these developments, analysts suggested that for companies to continue growing, they would have to take full advantage of all the human resources and intellectual capital available to them.

Background

AmEx was originally set up in 1850 as an express company that forwarded freight and valuables across the US.

In the mid 1800s, the US postal system was not very well developed; not only was the service slow, but many far flung areas did not have any service at all. Besides, it was extremely unreliable and very often documents were lost en route.

Therefore, people were reluctant to send valuable papers and articles by post. Henry Wells, William Fargo, and John Butterfield recognized that the shortcomings of the US postal system provided a good business opportunity. When AmEx was started, it provided a service that was not only fast, but also reliable.

Consequently, it earned a reputation as the best express company in the country at that time. In 1882, AmEx launched a money order business to compete against the money order service of the US Postal Department.

Around the same time the company also expanded into Europe with the same product. In Europe, the concept of money orders was still new and AmEx gained the first mover advantage. In 1891 the company created a new product known as the 'American Express Travelers Cheque' as a substitute to the traditional letters of credit people used when they traveled abroad.

The Travelers Cheque was launched in denominations of $10, $20, $50, and $100, and soon became popular with international travelers.

The Travelers Cheque triggered off AmEx's international expansion in a big way. In 1895, the company opened its first overseas office in Paris. This was followed by a London office in 1896...

By the early 1990s, AmEx had offices across Europe including Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. In the early 1900s, immigration into the US was at a high. In 1905 the US Immigration Department appointed AmEx to provide official currency exchange services to these immigrants. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 brought in new business opportunities for AmEx.

Diversity at Amex

Diversity was an integral part of the culture at AmEx. AmEx believed that focusing on diversity was one of the ways to gain competitive advantage in the rapidly expanding global markets.

Having a diverse workforce allowed AmEx to obtain a better understanding of the varied markets it operated in. Diversity has been defined in various ways by experts. The narrow definition, the one pertaining to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the US, defined diversity in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, age, religion, and disability. However, over the years the concept of diversity widened to include parameters like marital status, language, sexual orientation and tenure with the organization. AmEx embraced and promoted diversity in the broad sense, and its diversity initiatives covered a large number of groups including women, minorities, senior employees, people with disabilities, and homosexuals...

Diversity Eyewash?

Despite AmEx's commendable diversity initiatives and the testimony of several satisfied employees, the company did not escape criticism. Over the years, AmEx had become involved in a few controversies related to discrimination

One of the biggest controversies that the company faced was a class action gender discrimination lawsuit in 1999. During the late 1990s, several female advisors at AEFA complained to the EEOC that the unit's managers discriminated against them on the basis of gender, and showed preferential treatment to white males in terms of assignments, mentoring programs, promotions and compensation. They also said that they faced a sexually hostile environment at AEFA. Although the complainants were from different locations, their complaints were similar. Shirley Krieger from AEFA's New York office said that although she had worked at the unit for more than 13 years, her superiors had been trying to get her to resign saying that she was 'too old'...

From India, Mumbai
mehek
1

Very Informative PPt shweta,though as an area of improvement i wud suggest tht such beautiful things look even more enticing if u present them more appealingly...... just a thot......

scotzshweta
5

Anything for you guys anjali...
And Mehek, thanks for the feedback, i wud certainly improvise on what u have suggested. I thought its the matter which matters.. bt yes presentation of the matter does matter coz it enhances u to atleast have a look at it.. thanks for the suggestion dear..

From India, Mumbai
scotzshweta
5

Thanx raghav.. infact i have video on diversity but it got infected and thats the reason its nt gtng uploaded...
From India, Mumbai
mal aditi
hi shweta..the ppt wsa really nice.. i am doing a project on work place diversity only..can u plz tell me what questions to include in the survey which i have to do at the co. and also how to formulate those.. i mean like can u plz suggest wording of the questions..thanxs a tonn
From India
anithas
This is awesome and am looking forward to implement a diveristy inclusion program for my company.
From India, Mumbai
Excelsanky
Tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Gud!!! Rgds Sanketh
From India
svsrana
41

i would like to addon a few examples from Industry standards:
a) SA 8000: location of ITC's first plant in india was dictated by the rehabilitation of a criminal tribe.
b) rehabilitation of convicts too figures amongst the same standard.
c) RCI/ CPWD norms for barrier free infrastructure
d) even a simple thing like providing creche at workplace helps in ensuring gender equality.
e) CII has set up a cell too for industrial placement for challenged/ vulnerable sections of the society

From India, Delhi
ethanjagmag
Truly a stupendous ppt. In India, this is really called for, as we are dealing with diversity day in and day out.
I am a professor in a hotel management institute and in order to prepare my students to face globalization and its challenges, which means diverse cultures, diverse customs, etc. I am constantly asking them to interact with each other, as all of them come from diverse states, religions and languages.
This ppt is indeed something I can use in my lectures, so thank you and hope to hear from you again.
Ethan

From India, Coimbatore
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