House panel solicits suggestions on increasing diversity in federal workforce

Leadership involvement, candidate development and strong performance metrics are key to fostering organizational diversity, industry and government leaders told legislators at a House Homeland Security Committee roundtable discussion on Wednesday.

"This issue is vital to the safety and security of the nation," said Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. "New demographics underscore the need to practice inclusion and to make everyone in this society a stakeholder by ensuring everyone a seat at the table. The failure to practice inclusion leads to isolation and mistrust."

Thompson is one of several lawmakers who have called for greater attention to diversity in the federal workforce. In March, his committee released a report on the diversity of the Homeland Security Department. Legislation to increase the diversity of the Senior Executive Service sponsored by Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill., and Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawaii, is moving through the House and Senate respectively.

Ellie Hollander, chief people officer at AARP, said the organization has adopted a holistic strategy. That includes requiring diversity education for all employees, offering training programs for minority candidates interested in leadership positions, encouraging the growth of employee affinity groups and relying on data from a regularly administered employee satisfaction survey.

"We look at diversity in the broadest possible sense," Hollander said, noting that AARP doesn't limit its analysis to race and ethnicity. "We look at age. We look at sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, location and tenure."

The National Education Association runs similar leadership development programs for minority candidates and offers training on everything from message control to developing a vision and creating community partnerships.

Hollander said it was important to train managers as well as employees to make sure strong minority candidates were hired, mentored and promoted.

Roderick Gillum, vice president for corporate responsibility and diversity at General Motors Co., said the company involves its affinity groups in business decisions, looking to them for suggestions on community outreach for GM's minority dealer program and effective marketing to racial and ethnic minorities.

Those efforts are important, but they can be bolstered with strong data that can help illuminate an organization's successes and failures in promoting diversity, said Belva Martin, assistant director for strategic issues at the Government Accountability Office. GAO has undertaken a number of diversity efforts since performance data released in 2007 revealed significant discrepancies between Caucasian and African-American analysts.

"The bottom line is that GAO is in the midst of transforming itself," Martin said. "That we would have performance discrepancies between African-Americans and Caucasians and need to have facilitated discussions around diversity in 2008 shows that we have not arrived."

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said it was time for the federal government to take a more aggressive approach to diversity and affirmative action.

"I would offer a suggestion that there needs to be a renewed spirit of affirmative action; we need an omnibus legislative action, frankly," Jackson Lee said. "Corporate leaders know we've been piecemealing legislation. That's how we've been able to do this concept of affirmative action....It's shocking, in our own backyard, in the federal government, we've got discrimination problems."