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Throughout GM, our Diversity Initiative is the process of creating
and maintaining an environment that naturally enables our employees,
dealers, suppliers and communities to achieve their fullest potential.
We believe that diversity is the collective mixture of similarities
and differences. This recognizes that managing diversity includes
race and gender as well as the broader aspects of age, education
level, family status, language, military status, physical abilities,
religion, sexual orientation, union representation, and years of
service.
We believe that workforce diversity adds to competitive advantage.
As a global employer, we understand that working with a diverse
group of individuals with differing backgrounds and perspectives,
creates and maintains competitive advantage and assists in achieving
global success. Through our Diversity Initiatives we seek to create
an environment that optimizes the contributions of our diverse work
force, our suppliers, customers, and the communities where we work.
We recognize that it is essential that our work force structure
reflects both the marketplace and our customers.
This program made enormous strides in 2000 with a number of exciting
changes and improvements. With a new look, due to the development
and marketing of a brand for diversity, Diversity Initiatives
is fast becoming a very recognizable part of the corporation.
With the introduction of an additional core value — Individual
Respect and Responsibility — our goal in 2001 is to integrate
Diversity Initiatives further into the company and to engage
with management. Support for this sixth core value is demonstrated
on a Diversity E-card entitled, It's What's Inside that Matters.
Our Diversity E-card is a multimedia CD-ROM that provides an
overview of our current Diversity Strategies. The E-card was distributed
to all North American GM Executives in March 2001. Diversity is
also being aligned with the corporate "GoFast!" initiative,
and the "GoFast!" principle is expressed through the logo
with the words, "Many People, One GM, NOW."
In an effort to support the newly developed sixth core value of
Individual Respect and Responsibility, the "You Make A Difference"
Award has been designed to recognize employees who support diversity.
The award is "employee-to-employee" meaning any employee
at any level who takes action that supports or values diversity
in the work environment is eligible. The "You Make a Difference"
Award is now circulating throughout the corporation and is in popular
demand.
Diversity Vision and Strategy
 Our
diversity strategy is based on three guiding principles:
- Integration of concepts into other change processes in the corporation.
Current change initiatives with high visibility are identified
as initiatives that should include diversity concepts. Key stakeholders,
such as suppliers and our dealers, are also encouraged to support
our diversity efforts. The GM University (GMU) offers many courses
to employees covering everything from ergonomics to economics.
Such courses are being targeted as a perfect venue to spread the
diversity message and where appropriate, diversity concepts are
integrated into the curriculum. All GMU courses now begin with
a diversity protocol, which includes a review of diversity supportive
behavior or a videotape that emphasizes inclusive behavior. We
believe that focusing on individual behavior will help provide
an inclusive environment for all people involved with GM.
- Creation of a "one company" experience for all employees.
The thought is that regardless of diversity dimensions such as
race, age and gender, employees should experience "one GM."
Diversity Initiatives will monitor progress toward "one
company" through employee surveys and we are developing a
Global Diversity Action Plan identifying key values and attitudes
that are needed globally to help achieve this goal.
- Approaching diversity with "Big and Fast" in mind.
Diversity Initiatives aims to use the size of our company
to improve the speed with which decisions are made and change
is implemented, consistent with our corporate 'GoFast!' strategy.
Diversity Initiatives asks senior teams in business units
to address diversity gaps with their own teams and commit to immediate
change. This encourages employees to hold themselves and each
other accountable for action and to behave in a manner that will
contribute to our mutual success.
Equal Opportunities, Recruitment and Retention
Our greatest asset is the quality and capabilities of our diverse
work force. We strive to attract, retain, develop, nurture, and
advance our work force and aim to provide a supportive employee
environment, respectful and understanding of people's differences.
We believe in fostering an environment that offers the greatest
opportunity for everyone, helping to make us an "employer of
choice" among an increasingly educated and diverse population
and helping us to hold onto our existing workforce.
We remain committed to Affirmative Action as required by the Federal
law. As such, we monitor our programs to determine whether recruitment,
hiring and other personnel practices are operating in a nondiscriminatory
manner. This process includes outreach programs designed to identify
qualified individuals of any race or gender who are not fully represented
in the talent pools from which we select and promote employees.
All managers are expected to meet or exceed diversity goals set
through the Affirmative Action Program. Executive representation
goals have been set for each of our business sectors. We expect
to fully meet all of our targets.
Employment decisions are based solely on the match of a candidate's
qualifications with the organization's requirements. We do not make
employment decisions, or place employment related advertisements,
on non-job-related criteria such as age, race, sexual orientation,
color, gender, religion, or national origin.
More
information on equal employment.
Integration Systems
Diversity in the workplace and in our business relationships helps
enhance our effectiveness in the global marketplace.
To achieve our diversity goals, we do not tolerate discrimination
or devaluating behavior under any circumstance.
While we continue our commitment to Affirmative Action, we are
simultaneously widening the diversity agenda and moving towards
the broader concept of managing diversity. Our aim is no longer
to simply satisfy legal requirements, we are creating an employee
environment that optimizes the performance of every employee in
pursuit of their business objectives. Additionally, Jack Smith states,
"Having people of different ethnic, racial, and social backgrounds
in our corporation has not slowed our pursuit of excellence —
it has accelerated it."
We are developing systems and initiatives to effectively manage
diversity in our company and we are placing these at the center
of our continued pursuit of global excellence.. These initiatives
aim to support our diverse and capable workforce, so that it is
ready, willing, and able to respond to the challenges and opportunities
that we will face in the new millennium.
As part of our diversity initiatives, we have reached out to other
people. For example, we are prominently involved in and support
Catalyst, a non-profit research and advisory service organization
that works to advance the role of women in business and industry.
Catalyst's mission — to enable women to achieve their full
potential and to help employers capitalize fully on women's talents
and abilities — is reflected in our own programs and initiatives.
More information:
Supplier Diversity
We value the importance of our diverse supplier base and for nearly
30 years we have been at the forefront of minority business development.
Supplier diversity activities are a part of our overall corporate
strategy and our Minority Supplier Purchasing Policy forms a strong
part of our traditional support for minority business development.
With a total spending of $2.4 billion in 2000, we exceeded our $2.1
billion financial commitment .
This year we also established a Mentorship Program, allowing for
16 mentored suppliers. We have identified 53 minority owned suppliers
to mentor. Each supplier has a GM executive champion that is in
place to help grow their business.
Marketplace Diversity
Marketplace diversity has become one of our key priorities. In
May 2001, we announced the formation of a diversity marketing and
sales organization, the Center of Expertise on Diversity, to focus
on the women's market and the growing markets for African American,
Hispanic American and Asian American consumers. The new Center is
designed to enhance cross-divisional planning and execution, capitalize
on our scale and share of voice, increase understanding of multi-cultural
consumers, support and leverage local dealer efforts, and disseminate
experience through the corporation.
Dealer Diversity
For almost 30 years, we have been committed to growing a diverse
and financially successful dealer network. We were the first U.S.
automaker to institute a structured minority dealer initiative in
the industry. By today's standards, minority-owned dealerships are
becoming more prominent. The path, however, was completely uncharted
for those early pioneers who faced incredible odds in obtaining
a retail automotive dealership. Those pioneers found that owning
a piece of the "American Dream" and running it successfully,
presented an even greater challenge than imagined, but it laid the
groundwork allowing us to realize the significant growth today.
Since 1972, we have been providing industry-leading training opportunities
to minorities to prepare them to become future dealers and to help
them succeed once they become dealers. We are now beginning to see
second generation minority dealers in their own stores. GM has increased
the number of minority-owned dealerships to the highest number since
the program began. Today, of the 361 minority dealerships GM includes
in its ranks, more than 75 percent of the dealerships are privately
owned. Our numbers are increasing, and the profitability of our
minority dealerships is performing at a level consistent with the
overall General Motors dealer portfolio.
In January of 2001, we announced the Women's Retail Initiative
to attract more women into our retail dealer network as owners and
operators. Again, General Motors is the first automobile manufacturer
to develop a structured program aimed exclusively at placing more
women into automotive retailing. The program mirrors our Minority
Dealer Development Initiative. Currently, GM has 219 female operators
in our dealer network.
To support our goals of increasing minority and women representation
in our dealer network, we formed Dealer Development, a new umbrella
organization that is the centerpiece of the dealer development diversity
effort within General Motors. GM Dealer Development includes Minority
Dealer Development, the Women's Retail Initiative and Candidate
Development. Through this effort, we are creating an arena through
which potential minority and women dealers can be nurtured to success
in the retail network. Support for minority and women dealers is
provided from candidate selection through dealership operations.
The result is a "win-win" combination for everyone because
managing dealer diversity increases opportunities and economic empowerment
for others while strengthening GM's competitive global advantage.
More information:
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