The earliest forms of diversity education arose soon after President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order in 1961 that required federal contractors to "take affirmative action" to avert discrimination based on race or national origin. By 1963, government contractors such as Western Electric provided two days of lectures and discussions about prejudice to leaders of all their locations. During the 1970s when the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission gained the power to bring lawsuits against private companies, training sessions proliferated to help employers avoid litigation. These compliance sessions evolved in the 1990s into training that used broader definitions of diversity, including factors such as sexual orientation, religion, communication styles and tenure. Now, companies are increasingly looking for quantifiable returns on their investment. They're tracking employee engagement to see whether the training translates into higher scores and looking at 360-degree evaluations to see whether managers gained skills. "The expectation is more than a good experience," says Michael Hyter, president of diversity consultant Global Novations. "It's real, measurable learning. It's a measurable outcome. There is a specific skill that ought to be obvious for the investment that we're making in this person's development experience." Hyter says that he holds his firm to a different standard than he did a decade ago, emphasizing to clients how his firm's training builds competencies and enhances employee engagement. In one instance, a client had become alarmed about turnover among women of color. Hyter's firm conducted a cultural audit, which suggested managers were weak at providing developmental feedback across the board, not only to women of color. The firm identified competencies, trained managers and embedded behavior into 360-degree evaluations every 90 days. Within 18 months, turnover decreased and more women and minorities had risen within the organization. "If we talked 10 years ago, I would have said we gave 5,000 people diversity training and left, and they loved it," Hyter says. "But nothing much would have changed. There was no real measurable change in behavior or skills." Nowadays, he asks specifically what outcome clients seek and looks at what skills drive those results. In 2010, 68 percent of the member organizations surveyed by the Society for Human Resource Management indicated that they have practices in place to address workplace diversity compared with 76 percent of organizations surveyed in 2005. But of companies with diversity practices, 71 percent say they provide training compared with 67 percent in 2005. "The organizations that were really invested in diversity and inclusion work before the recession hit remain so," says Eric Peterson, SHRM's manager of diversity and inclusion. "Those who were getting started, it was an easy cut to make when they needed to cut back."
2011 Media Report Villanova School of Business Page 152