Industry Perspective
Make Diversity A Priority At Meetings
By Pegine Echevarria
Can meeting planners be held accountable if an employee feels disenfranchised because he doesn’t see himself reflected in the speakers and presenters meeting planners choose?
Recently, during a meeting of senior level expertise panelists in Diversity and Employment Law, this subject was discussed. Because companies are reaching into ethno markets, global markets and are increasingly communicating at all levels, a clear diversity policy provides tremendous ROI. Research has proven that profits and productivity increase when diversity is a priority.
Diversity Statement
As a meeting planner are you being strategic and aware? Does your company have a diversity statement? Are your superiors rated on their diversity initiative? Are you sure that your conferences and meetings are meeting your company’s diversity policies, goals and incentives?
Employee recruitment, leadership development and consumer marketing are all reflecting this push. How about your meetings? You may be using women-owned and minority suppliers, which is great. However, people talk about what they see, or don’t see, and your choice of presenters can be communicating a different story.
Look through your speaker roster for the last few years, ask the HR department to share the demographics of your company’s employees, and ask the sales department for the demographics of clientele and potential customers. Do your speakers reflect your company and clients?
Beware. Even if your presenters’ backgrounds are similar to your internal customers, do they have backgrounds similar to the communities your company serves?
Think. What would a journalist say about your company’s policy based on your speaker roster?
Education is a key component of conferences and meetings. Let’s say your company has a diversity policy and ethno marketing initiative. Your audience members (employees) haven’t been exposed to many different groups. You as a meeting planner can provide that experience. How? You provide the experience by bringing in an African American who is a sales expert, a Hispanic who is leadership expert and an Asian who is a marketing expert and, if you must bring in a diversity expert, bring in a white male who is a diversity expert.
“When we organize a conference, providing quality speakers and true experts is always priority,” said Marna Hayden, president, Hayden Resources Inc., an HR consultancy. “However, balancing the roster to reflect the audience and company goals is also a priority. On one hand we try to have a balanced program, but on the other hand if the best speaker is a white male, we will select him as we owe our attendees the best possible program.”
Often planners will work hard to bring in a diverse keynote slate. Yet the rest of the program, the seminars, workshops and breakouts, tend to be experts who are recommended by other experts who are similar. Referral sources may not have a diversified referral network.
“Sometimes it just takes a little extra effort to find a female, minority or someone with a different background to cover a topic and it makes a much more interesting program,” continued Hayden
As you begin to plan your meeting be aware as you attend conferences, read books and literature. Start collecting names and recommendations of experts who come from different backgrounds. Ask speakers bureaus to recommend a varied selection of experts from diverse backgrounds.
“Of course meeting planners should be concerned with providing a balanced program,” Hayden explained. “The worst thing to do is put someone in who is not qualified, just like hiring an unqualified person in a job; it is unfair and hurts everyone.”
Meeting planners are leaders and are responsible for implementing diversity policies. They communicate the values, culture and policies of the company through conferences and meetings. Have you reviewed your company’s Web site lately? What is your company communicating to the world about their goals and initiatives?
An anonymous senior level executive from a Fortune 500 corporation who is charged with diversity shared, “We have an internal meeting planning area, so the planners are our corporate employees, and diversity is a key component to our company values, and something that our employees really work at keeping front and center. All our company employees’ performance plans have a diversity component, which challenges the employee to determine how, within their role, they support the company’s diversity goals/initiatives.”
You are the driver of your meeting planning domain. Are you prepared and are you taking action? You can earn significant kudos during your annual review if you can show how you tied your conferences to your company’s diversity initiatives and goals.
Revealing Research
Recently, I reviewed more than 300 U.S. organizations with a minimum of six workshops listed on the Web, and discovered that more than 81 percent had predominately male presenters, there were less than 120 female speakers, five speakers had Hispanic surnames, none had Asian surnames. Out of 210 photographs, there were 21 women, six African American, no Asian, and the rest were white male. Remember that women account for 52 percent of the U.S. population.
Here are simple questions to ask yourself when preparing for your meetings and events:
Do your expert presenters reflect your employees? Are your diversity presenters the only people of color? Do you have a statement that communicates your company’s diversity goals in your speaker selection proposals? Have you asked all your presenters to include diverse anecdotal information or pictures in their slide presentations? Are your keynotes the only African American, Asians, Hispanics, women or disabled on the roster?
Where To Look
The Fortune 500 source continued, “Planners (particularly in large companies) should seek the input of the Supplier Diversity area, which, at our company, is a part of procurement. These are people who are skilled at identifying and working with minority vendors and have great contacts. In many cases, meeting planners are probably already working with procurement, so ask them for sources. Also, companies who track their supplier diversity spend may see this as an additional opportunity to improve in that area.”
In addition you can contact:
- Your diversity initiative liaison within the various professional associations
- Your internal diversity affinity groups
- The National Speakers Association
- National Black MbA Association, National Association Of Black Accountants, National Bar Association (African American Lawyers), National Black Business Trade Association
- National Asian American Society of Accountants, National Asian Pacific American Bar Association
- The Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting (ALPFA), National Society of Hispanic MBAs (NSHMBA), Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA), United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
To date, none of the Diversity and Employment Law experts on the panel were aware of any cases that have been brought against a meeting planner by a disenfranchised employee, and they concluded that such a case would have no merit. However, that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t happen. As one lawyer remarked, “It only takes one complaint.” C&IT