Paul van Rijn will begin, followed by John Crum, Karen Gard, and Charles Friedman. The audience may raise questions at the end of the presentations. Our group thought that the business of diversity should be brought to program managers, not just to EEO and personnelists who already understand the issue's importance. We need to get managers more involved and perhaps have a conference, such as this one, with them as invitees. Also, when we talk about managers, we need to talk about managers at all levels and not leave out the mid-level managers.
Middle managers are especially important to the success of the program.
The group thought that diversity programs should be implemented within existing programs, rather than as separate programs. We also discussed the need to clearly articulate the benefits of diversity to the organization. Organizations should understand that diversity is an economic issue, that a bottom-line gain can be achieved by having a diverse workforce. For example, we have diverse customers, and the more diverse we are as a servicing organization the more attuned we can be to their needs. We need to not just get diversity but to develop it and use it.