Lesley Slaton Brown
HP Inc. Chief Diversity Officer
HP Inc.
Headquarters: Palo Alto, CA
Business: Technology
CEO: Dion Weisley
Employees: 48,000
Website: www8.hp.com
HP INITIATIVES SPANNING THE WORLD – ‘EVERYBODY IN!’
Diversity is at the core of HP Inc.’s global reach and its calling for “Everybody In!”
HP Inc. has more than 60 Global Employee Resource Groups located in14 countries and is in the midst of appointing business and site-based diversity leads across the company to provide guidance and sponsorship.
“Diversity and inclusion is embedded into everything we do. This means everyone at every level is accountable for our diverse and inclusive culture,” said HP’s Chief Diversity Officer Lesley Slaton Brown.
Under Brown’s direction, the company is re-inventing its culture by infusing energy into its company values, enabling dialog and continuous learning, emphasizing business outcomes, and empowering creativity and innovation in fun and unique ways. “We’re shifting the mindset of leaders and employees to understand the way for us to win as a company is to have everyone take a participatory role in increasing diversity, fostering inclusion, and impacting our business bottom-line,” Brown said. She emphasizes the opportunity for the HP Inc. D&I organization is to rally to get “Everybody In!”
COMPANYWIDE ACCOUNTABILITY
The diversity of the company’s nearly 50,000 employees reflects the diversity of its customers and partners. “By celebrating our differences, we bring unique experiences and perspectives to bear on our capabilities and expertise. This helps us deliver products and services that work for everyone, everywhere. We engineer experiences that amaze our customers and our employees” Brown said.
The company demonstrated its focus by first starting at the top. It has one of the most diverse Boards of Directors in the United States, including 33 percent women and 17 percent African American. The company plans to continue growing its diverse representation on the board as well as at all levels of the company, according to Brown.
While diversity and inclusion is lauded the right thing to do for businesses, Brown emphasizes that research shows it’s the best thing to do to increase innovation and have greater impact to the business bottom-line.
OBJECTIVES, OPPORTUNITIES, SYNERGIES
The objectives, opportunities and areas of synergy for HP’s Global Diversity & Inclusion organization are to:
- Integrate diversity & inclusion across functions and businesses for greater impact to business results;
- Ensure a mindset of accountability by all exists to transform the culture;
- Creatively broaden the diverse talent pool;
- Empower individuals to participate and contribute to their full potential;
- Introduce new and progressive D&I policies to support business needs.
MEASURING PROGRESS
HP takes a structured approach to measuring, tracking and improving employee engagement. About 80 percent of its employees share feedback on its annual survey and their input is used to measure engagement levels and focus areas for improvement. In the last three years, engagement has increased 23 percent, according to Brown. The company also benchmarks results against other companies in the IT industry and global, multi-nationals as an external reference point.
In addition to the structured measurement, HP includes monthly “Quick Click” polling on hot topics and scans internal blogs and public comments from its workforce to identify in “real time” any concerns, trends and reactions to ongoing programs and initiatives that may need attention.
“Our goal is to connect all of our employees worldwide to internal communities that help them contribute to the conversations, learn, thrive, and grow, and that each and every employee plays a role in weaving diversity and inclusion into the fabric of who we are,” Brown said.
HIGHLIGHTS OF HP INC.’S MOST RECENT RECOGNITION INCLUDE:
- Recognized as the most diverse board of any technology company in the United States. businessinsider.com/hp-will-have-the-most-diverse-tech-boards-in-the-us-2015-8
- 1st rank in German Women Career Index by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Family Affairs
- Working Mother – 100 Best Companies
- National Association of Female Executives – Top 50 Companies for Executive Women
- Victory Media – Military Friendly: Top 100 Employers List
- Black Data Processing Associates – Top Company For Blacks in Technology Epsilon Award
- Corporate Equality Index Human Rights Campaign – 100% Best Places to Work for LGBT
- Equal Opportunity Publications: Top 50 Careers – Disabled Magazine, Top 50 Employers – Workforce Diversity, Top 50 Woman Engineer
