Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Talk about juxapostions: The birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with the inauguration of Barack Obama. From being hosed in Selma, Alabama, to taking the oath of the Presidency. We all applaud this progess. From a macro view, it gladens my heart. But I am an employment lawyer, and the micro view saddens me. […]
A Q & A with Georgetown University’s Christopher Metzler In a way, Christopher Metzler is responsible for diversity increasingly being taken seriously as an integral part of any organization’s business strategy. After all, while at Cornell University, he created the nation’s first certification program for diversity professionals. And as associate dean at Georgetown University’s School […]
When Tanuj Gupta joined AstraZeneca in 2006, he didn’t know many of his coworkers. “When I found out there were Employee Network Groups, I thought it was a great way to meet more people within the company,” says the executive director of external medical relations. And it was: “I met a fantastic group of people […]
Margaret Rivera, AstraZeneca’s senior manager of diversity, helps oversee 16 successful employee network groups. Here are her tips for making such affinity groups work: 1. Don’t force it. “Companies . . . should understand that the most successful employee groups often start out as grassroots organizations — they are volunteer organizations,” she counsels. 2. Make […]
The December Dilemma: practicing inclusion during the winter holidays. The top religious accommodation companies have made in the past 12 months? Considering different religious beliefs of employees when planning holiday-related events, according to the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) “Religion and Corporate Culture Accommodating Religious Diversity Survey.” Taking differing beliefs into account is never […]
A federal jury in Portland recently awarded $19 million to four African-American former employees of Asbury Automotive Group, LLC ? the former corporate owner of Thomason Toyota in Gladstone. The workers alleged they were forced to endure a hostile, racially charged work environment. Four salesmen, Carlos Barfield, Marcus Arnold, Jahaeel Hardy, and Kent Paul, sued […]
Christmas Day — 99% Christmas Eve — 44% Good Friday — 29% Easter — 19% Yom Kippur — 2% Ash Wednesday — 1% Passover — 1% Hanukkah — 1% Rosh Hashanah — 1% Other — 4% Source: Religion and Corporate Culture Survey Report (SHRM, 2008)
The early bird catches the worm — and the best employees. At least that’s the thinking of the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Street Law organization, which are working together to encourage young people of color to extend their educations and consider law-related careers. Among other things, their Corporate Legal Diversity Pipeline program pairs […]
Diversity programs have moved beyond sensitivity training. A new survey of more than 2,500 senior HR and training executives revealed a wide variety of diversity initiatives and program elements. The most common? Leadership development. “Just a few years ago, diversity programs usually meant just awareness training. Those programs were separate from other hard and soft […]
November is anchored by the Thanksgiving holiday, but it also contains the United Nations’ International Day for Tolerance making it the perfect time to thank your diverse group of employees, and celebrate their differences. That’s what Henry Schein’s Indianapolis Distribution Center does every year around this time. “In 2004, in part arising out of a […]