If your diversity initiatives are crashing before they take off, you might want to take a look at middle management. According to a recent report from The Conference Board, managers play a key role in hiring, development, and promotion decisions, but they're often at odds with diversity proponents, who, by definition, challenge the status quo. Members of The Conference Board Diversity Business Council offer soem tips for beating this common diversity roadblock:
• Executive leaders must champion diversity. They should model ideal behaviors to middle management, such as attending diversity training and mentoring diverse employees.
• Require all minority "affinity groups" at your company to have executive sponsors who come from the middle-management ranks.
• Enhance education and awareness through relationships. One way to do that is through reciprocal mentoring between two people of differing backgrounds.
• Encourage middle managers to participate in local diversity councils. They could participate in diversity events as speakers, panelists, or hosts.
• To make diversity sustainable, embed it in your performance management system. Conduct a 360-degree feedback to gain input and observations about inclusive behaviors.
• In talent reviews, include diversity/cross- cultural competency as a valued competency for the advancement of managers.
• Create a diversity index—a series of diversity-related questions asked of all employees through an existing employee engagement survey, or as a stand-alone effort. Track trends over time.
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