MANAGING TALENT: General Motors’ Commitment to Diversity Back in the 1980s, valu
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MANAGING TALENT: General Motors’ Commitment to Diversity
Back in the 1980s, valuing diversity was far from the minds of the leadership at General Motors. True, GM had established a program to promote minority-owned dealerships, but there were problems within the company. Women and minorities complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that the carmaker was discriminating against them. In 1984, the EEOC and GM reached a $42.4 million settlement in which GM promised to promote women and minorities into management positions. Since then, the company has never swerved from that effort at inclusiveness. Today GM garners praise as a company that far exceeds legal standards for equal employment opportunity.
For GM, this commitment to diversity is a way to better serve its customers in the United States and around the world. A diverse workforce, supplier base, and dealer network show GM how to serve a diverse marketplace. And openness to diversity—what GM calls a welcoming Workplace of Choice—gives the company access to the best talent in the world, without regard to such differences as race, sex, and nationality. In the words of Alma Guajardo-Crossley, director of GM’s diversity initiatives, recruiting and hiring minorities is “business sense,” because in the United States, minority groups “are pretty much going to be the majority here pretty soon.” They have an impact because the company does not merely hire minorities, but also develops them, trains all employees to value diversity, and expects all its people to be fully engaged in helping GM “design, build, and sell the world’s best vehicles.”
Guajardo-Crossley is just one member of a team of managers dedicated to promoting diversity at General Motors. She reports to Eric Peterson, GM’s vice president of diversity. Others on the team include managers of diversity communications, diversity advertising, minority dealer development, and supplier diversity. In addition, employees are welcome to form employee resource groups, which bring together employees with shared backgrounds or interests to support one another’s career development and be available to consult with others in the company. GM has employee resource groups for women, Asian Indians, Chinese, people of African ancestry, Hispanics, young employees, Native Americans, Mideast and Southeast Asians, people with disabilities, veterans, Vietnamese, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees.
One sign that GM is succeeding in its commitment to diversity is the representation of various groups in leadership positions. Among public companies in Michigan, for example, boards of directors average about 10% women. But at GM, over one-third of the directors are women.
GM managers who have benefited from the company’s attitude of inclusiveness assert that this environment frees them to contribute fully. Sabin D. Blake, a dealer organizational manager, said seeing gay and supportive straight employees in the executive ranks gave him the courage to reveal to his colleagues that he is gay. (Courage is necessary because no national laws prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.) Coming out, in turn, freed up a lot of energy Blake had spent on hiding his identity at work. Diana Tremblay, GM’s vice president of manufacturing and labor relations, is sure that her experiences as labor negotiator, wife, and mother have together shaped her into a woman who succeeds both at work and in family life. For example, after three decades of marriage, she had a deep reservoir of experience in talking out issues rather than letting the conflict drive the couple apart. That same attitude has made her a successful negotiator with the United Auto Workers. In fact, Tremblay has found an advantage of being a woman in a male-dominated industry: when she succeeds, people notice her.
QUESTIONS:
Read the vignette “General Motors’ Commitment to Diversity” at the end of Chapter 3. Imagine that you are a consultant to GM and have been asked to help them identify ways to avoid discrimination. Write a 500-word business memo to GM leadership answering the questions found in the Assignment Rubric below (not the questions at the end of the case study). Follow the memo format found in the Business Memo example provided. APA style is NOT required for business memos.
Explanation / Answer
Discrimination at the workplace might come in various forms. This includes discrimination based on caste, religion, race and that includes also sexual discrimination. The employer has to take definite steps against discrimination. If the employer is not taking definite steps towards discrimination, it will turn harmful to the entire organization. As a consultant of GM here are some of the ways to prevent discrimination at the work place.
First the employer must be well versed with all the discrimination laws. The employer and the employee will have to come to a firm understanding as to what are all the discrimination laws that are applicable to them. Employers often believe that compliance with a certain set of anti discriminatory laws at the central level are sufficient. But in most of the cases that is not the case. The employers will have to be compliant with all the state and local laws of where their organization is being located. And those laws might differ from place to place and might offer greater protection to the employees in the organization. For example some of the state will have state anti discrimination laws, which prohibit employers from discriminating against the sexual orientation of its employees. If the employer terminates the employee based on his sexual orientation, which is well within the central law, but in some of the state level laws, the employer will be violating such laws to terminate an employee based on the sexual orientation.
The expert in the field of handling discrimination must be employed in the organization. A comprehensive manual in the field of discrimination must be developed in the organization. All the employees must be trained in the policies of discrimination and nobody has the chance to say that I am innocent about certain policies.
On the part of the management it is imperative to encourage equality practices in the organization. This will be very helpful for the organization which are dealing with such kind of work group.
Various means should be available for the employees to report discrimination activities that they face within the organization and serious actions must be taken against them. Fear has to be instilled in the minds of the employees who involve in the act of discrimination.
To have an effective compliant handling system in place while handling such complaints within the organization. A meeting has to be scheduled between the person who has raised the complaint of discrimination and the person against whom he has raised discrimination complaint. Opportunities must be given to both of the people to put forward their views. All these things must be happening in the presence of the management representative. The points discussed by both the people must be considered and appropriate action must be taken in this regard. The punishment levels also must be decided in the meeting itself, if it is decided by the management representative to punish any employee on the basis of racial discrimination.
At the end note disciplinary action that is taken on the employee regarding the compliant of discrimination and have the file closed one in for all.
By doing so the act of discrimination will come to an end in the organization.
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