Category: PDJ

With more than 800 members, National Grid’s Women in Network resource group plays a key role in the professional development of the company’s women employees.

On the hit TV show Mad Men, the office is largely white and largely male, and those who don’t fit that profile are largely left out. Though today’s workplace is infinitely more diverse than what we see on Mad Men, it’s still true that homogeneity can limit inclusivity.

In this issue, we complete our tour of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) with which we’ve kicked off the “Culture Matters” column. We have suggested that for a variety of reasons—their natural resources, their human resources, their potential as markets—these four nations loom large in almost everyone’s future. They will be key players in the global arena, and if you too aspire to play in that arena, knowing more about the cultures of these four nations will give you a leg up.

Businesses throughout the United States are facing a crisis: Many of today’s youth are unprepared to enter the workforce and our current educational system is overburdened and unable to bridge the gap between education and workforce readiness.

Swan has served as president and CEO of Lansing, Michigan based Sparrow Hospital and Health System since 2005, and has served as a member of the organization’s leadership team for nearly three decades. In that time, he has witnessed many changes in health care and in the Sparrow organization, and since becoming CEO has been a change agent for some of the most significant improvements in the 114-year-old organization’s history.

One Project with which I was involved as director of finance was a contract renewal for IT support with an outsourcing vendor. The challenge was to lead a team in structuring a deal with pricing, terms, and conditions that were in line with the company’s expectations.

Pitney Bowes has a long history of encouraging volunteerism to help build healthy communities. Volunteering in the communities we live and work in offers an opportunity for employees to develop technical, leadership, and team-building skills.

For the first time in American history, four different generations are working side-by-side in the workplace.

Although many businesses understand that their media advertising needs to include a diverse range of ethnicities and genders, I think there’s less acknowledgment of the importance of the staff mirroring the marketplace. And that’s a shame, because marketing is not confined to media. Diversity is not just about more representations of people of color; it’s about ensuring that all of our employee constituents are represented.

Do you know what you need to create an action plan for shifting from diversity management to inclusion?

As a start, a common definition of “diversity” and “inclusion” is needed. Diversity means all the ways we differ. Some of these differences we are born with and cannot change. Anything that makes us unique is part of this definition of diversity…