Incentive - March 2008 - (Page 20)

COVER STORY women’s initiatives at IBM and an IBMer for 29 years, says, “Where we originally defined diversity more as ‘equal opportunity’ and ‘affirmative action,’ it’s now very broad. It’s work/life balance and it’s the bridge to our marketplace. And so each and every one of our employees is embraced as being a diverse individual, everybody at IBM is considered to be a diverse individual and therefore everything we do, we do to make sure that we’re inclusive and that we’re addressing any needs or requirements of any single employee.” Rice, based in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., is not kidding when she says that inclusiveness and respect for diversity are entrenched in everything they do at IBM. Listed in the top 10 of Working Mother’s 100 Best Companies 2007, IBM has been on the list for 22 years, starting with the first in 1986. According to Rice, what makes IBM attractive for women, particularly mothers, is that there is a lot of flexibility and opportunity for working mothers to find balance in their home life and career. Says Rice, “There is also the opportunity to collaborate with other working mothers. Anything a working mother wants to do in terms of her career and advancing it is not limited by virtue of her being a mother. We take very seriously any opportunity to make sure that there are no barriers to women’s advancement.” When it comes to conducting employee polls and surveys for programs, Evans describes IBM as brilliant. Asked to expand upon the use of internal polls at IBM, Rice refers to a work/life survey that was conducted just recently and provided the company with valuable confirmation that the right initiatives are in place. New information gleaned from the survey revealed a dramatic increase in the belief among IBM employees that flexibility is encouraged. “We can see that people are feeling a lot better about that balance—I call it juggling, actually. But we’ve definitely made strides in that direction,” says Rice. Surveys are administered every three years across 75 countries, 10 languages, and with several thousands of people participating. Surveys are anonymous and taken by choice. Along with providing flexibility, IBM is very committed to developing each and every one of its employees. Rice describes how all IBM employees have the opportunity to have what is referred to as an individual, or development, plan. For the creation of this assessment plan, employees set short-term, mid-term and long-term goals. Then the management team, in conjunction with the organization, works with them to help them reach individual goals. Another key initiative at IBM is mentoring—something that experts point out as key to a successful commitment to diversity and inclusion. IBM employees interested in mentoring, or being mentored, can go to a Web site that has a list of mentors based on their interests, their background, who they are and what they’ve done. The site serves as a kind of networking platform for employees to seek out others at the company who share some commonality and can provide some guidance. One example, says Rice, is new mothers, who can sometimes be found on the site looking for a mentor who’s a working mom. “Our mentoring is very broad-based and very career-development-related,” says Rice, who herself is a mentor for 13 diverse employees, searching for help with their career development to find out what opportunities there are for moving into management or moving into software development when they’re now in HR. In addition to mentoring, maintaining diversity at all levels and departments throughout the organization is assisted through recruitment. Says Rice, “We do work very hard when we’re recruiting to make sure that our workforce is diverse.” That practice is spurred by the belief that people who work together gain knowledge as a team, and teams that are diverse are more creative. Asked what the biggest challenge for IBM is regarding a successful commitment to diversity and inclusion, Rice does not hesitate to say, “Communication. Making sure that every employee Carol Evans, CEO and founder of Working Mother Media Reasons to make diversity and inclusion a part of your company: The talent pool needs to be tapped as broadly as possible, to get the best people. The marketplace demands a kind of comprehensive understanding through diverse thinking inside our companies. We can’t understand the marketplace unless we have our diverse talent inside our companies. The global aspect. Companies are going global more and more, even small companies, because of the Internet. And so to understand how to be culturally knowledgeable outside our company we need to be culturally knowledgeable inside our company. To have a really productive workforce, utilizing the best talent, a company has to stand for diversity and inclusion in order to have happy employees. 20 | Incentive | March 2008 | incentivemag.com http://incentivemag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Incentive - March 2008

Incentive - March 2008 Contents Editor’s Note: Delivering on Diversity In The News Cover Story: Leveraging Diversity in the Workplace Incentive Interview: Paul Levesque on Why Awards Fail Case Study: AEIS’ Max!-imum Incentive Program Mine Employees’ Creativity with Innovation Incentives Incentive Must-Reads The Third Annual Gift Card Roundtable My Turn: Motivation or Bribery? Everybody Get Together In Her Shoes: Why Bosses Should Be Flexible Incentive Primer: Passport Problem-Solving potentials Here and Now Is CES Electronics Heaven? China and Crystal: More Than a Pretty Face Travel News Florida: What’s New on the Beach? Smooth Sailing for Incentive Cruising Come To Hawaii And Take It Fast Last Word: But Enough About You

Incentive - March 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.