In Trump Age, Taking a Different Tack on Workplace Diversity

By John Simons 

A new political era has corporate diversity chiefs rethinking their roles.

Donald Trump's upset election victory caused shock waves among many traditional politicians who realized that a swath of American voters -- many white, working class -- felt left out. The same realization is causing companies to re-examine what they do to ensure an inclusive workplace, from incorporating white men into their diversity efforts to looking for bottom-line evidence of the benefits of such programs.

"The discourse in the U.S. presidential election, even though rancorous, was a sharp reminder that we need to address a broader set of diversity dimensions, in particular, socioeconomic opportunity," says Kara Helander, a former diversity chief for Blackrock Inc. who continues to advise the firm.

She says leaders must recognize that some workers may resent or feel excluded by diversity efforts focused on opportunities for workers from under-represented ethnic backgrounds, or those who identify as lesbian, bisexual, gay or transgender.

Many executives who run diversity programs also worry that the policy momentum that helped fuel their efforts is set to fade. Former President Barack Obama pushed through a series of rules rewarding diversity in the workplace, including through executive orders that set guidelines for pay and hiring and that addressed workplace protections for gay and transgender people. The Trump administration hasn't detailed proposals on these issues but the president has pledged to deregulate and vowed to rescind many of Mr. Obama's executive orders.

In the wake of the election, some diversity professionals felt the need "to scramble to have conversations and put together positions" defending their work, says Mary-Frances Winters, a consultant who has advised American Airlines Group Inc. and Walt Disney Co. on diversity issues.

Some diversity chiefs have taken on new roles as peacemakers, attempting to maintain workplace harmony after an election that divided employees along race, class, gender and ideological lines.

On the day after the election, Ms. Winters held an online seminar for diversity executives and heads of corporate ethnic- and gender-based employee groups. She encouraged the participants to help employees talk about their differences while seeking common ground.

Ms. Helander now encourages Blackrock's leaders to cultivate teams by recruiting from an expanded pool of colleges and universities or focusing workforce development efforts on regions that have lost manufacturing jobs, she says.

Executives say they are looking critically at how they go about their work, "hearing from white men the same way you'd hear from a woman or someone who's LGBT," especially if they feel they're missing out on career development or other workplace opportunities, says Janese Murray, vice president of diversity and inclusion at energy giant Exelon Corp.

Rather than simply instructing white male middle managers on the proper ways to conduct themselves in a diverse workplace, Ms. Murray suggests inviting them to round-table discussions with women and minorities and encouraging them to air concerns.

"We have to be much sharper at our game than we've ever been, and make sure that we don't give back the progress we've made," says Rohini Anand, global chief diversity officer at food-services and facilities-management firm Sodexo SA.

Dr. Anand says that in the current environment executives in her position should collect, analyze and share data validating their work. She points to a study she conducted of 50,000 of the company's managers, partly to demonstrate to her bosses that gender balance on teams correlated with improved financial performance, employee engagement and client retention. Her study found that teams with a male-female ratio of between 40% and 60% deliver optimal results.

As a result, Sodexo Chief Executive Michel Landel has set a goal that women will represent at least 40% of Sodexo's senior leadership -- its top 1,400 executives -- by 2025. Ten percent of senior executives' annual bonuses are tied to their progress toward that goal, Dr. Anand says.

Worried that federal guidelines on hiring diversity and inclusion could be weakened in an overall deregulatory push, Allison Green, chief diversity officer at Lincoln Financial Group, called an informal meeting with the company's in-house employment attorney in the days following the election.

Portions of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul, which Mr. Trump and the Republican congressional leadership have vowed to roll back, encourage companies to create voluntary standards for diversity in employment and in suppliers. Lincoln Financial's policies mirror the tenets of the Dodd-Frank guidelines, and Ms. Green says she wanted to ensure that her colleagues remained committed.

At the meeting, Ms. Green got straight to the point: "Even if Dodd-Frank goes away, I think this is a good policy to keep and leverage," she told the attorney. He agreed, she says.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 14, 2017 09:14 ET (14:14 GMT)

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