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Employee Feedback to Business Case for Diversity
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Introduction
By Cover letter dated September 19, 2000, Center Director Al Diaz invited comments and feedback to the GSFC Business Case
for Diversity. Further, members of the Diversity Council were encouraged to hold sessions in their staff meetings and
Directorate Diversity Focus Groups (Deputy Directors of), or with their Advisory groups (Chairs of the Employee Advisory groups).
By the end of the feedback period (October 13, 2000), approximately 40 employees had responded (24 individuals and two group
comments).
Summary of Feedback
Employees offered many positive comments regarding Goddard's diversity efforts. Examples include:
- Employees feel the Center is making some strides in addressing diversity issues.
- Business Case is a step in right direction by addressing business advantage of diversity.
- Defining diversity to include everyone is the right thing to do.
In addition, employees orffered comments for consideration in the following three major areas: **
- The difference between Affirmative Action/EEO and how it relates to Diversity is unclear to many employees.
- Employees are concerned with the recruitment and retention of the best and brightest
- Management responsibility and accountability for diversity is unclear.
Special Assistant for Diversity Sharon Wong contacted individuals personally and responded to every individual who
volunteered comments and discussed their reaction to the Business Case. In some cases, a dialog was continued with
respondents who desired further correspondence, either through continued email communication or by telephone. The
comments and discussion points raised were reported to the Diversity Council. A summary of the three areas of concern
was reported to the Executive Council.
**Please Note:Some individual issues were raised but these were discussed with the individual employees.
Despite our best efforts to listen to what employees had to say, sometimes we did not always come to agreement on how to
resolve the issue.
Efforts to Address Issues:
- The difference between Affirmative Action/EEO and how it relates to Diversity is unclear to many employees.
The Q&A provided with the Business Case sought to differentiate between Affirmative Action/EEO and Diversity.
Continued dialog with employees and increased conversation on the topic will help in the clarification. In addition, the
Special Assistant for Diversity will continue to work with senior management, the Diversity Council and through the
directorates to champion activities and systems necessary to develop, emphasize and institutionalize workforce diversity
as a key value and integral strategy for the achievement of Goddard's mission for the inclusion of all employees.
Affirmative Action, whose responsibility resides with Center management, will remain under the auspices of the Office of
Equal Opportunity Programs. Diversity expands on the concept of Affirmative Action by incorporating it as a very necessary
element to achieving a diverse workforce but also reaching beyond numerical representation of specific underrepresented
minority groups:
- to include the quality of inclusion as well as quantity of inclusion for EVERYONE
- so that we can maximize ALL employees' potential
- leading to processes that embrace fairness and merit and allows Goddard to attract and retain the most
qualified workforce.
- Employees are concerned with the recruitment and retention of the best and brightest.
Just as employees are concerned with the recruitment and retention of the best and brightest, so is management.
The work environment and overall civilian labor force has changed and to remain in the game at all we must pursue
employment practices that contribute to the Center becoming an employer of choice. We need to create a
workplace environment that:
- enables and encourages all employees to contribute their best efforts towards achieving the Center's mission
- to aggressively recruit from both traditional and non-traditional sources and in non-traditional ways to locate
and attract good talent wherever they can be found,
- and when we lose valuable employees, find out why they really left so that issues can be addressed, where appropriate.
Part of our response is to expand our Quality of Work Life program at the Center within our diversity management efforts
in order to help employees handle work and family issues, develop a friendly workplace/work life, and provide a well-balanced and
stress-reduced environment.
- Management responsibility and accountability for diversity is unclear.
Managing diversity is a comprehensive strategic and tactical effort to effect an organizational environmen/culture
change that works for everyone. Because changing environment and culture means changing attitudes and behaviors
as well as managerial systems and practives, it is a multifaceted and long-term effort requiring participation from all
parts of the organization, but particularly management. To facilitate this kind of change,
- The Deputy Center Director (and Chair of the Diversity Council) William Townsend, and the Special Assistant
for Diversity will be meeting with supervisors in small groups over the coming months to engage supervisors in
a dialog of our diversity efforts.
- The Executive Council (consisting of the Directors of) has been engaged in efforts over the past two years, which
led to the creation of the Diversity Council and the Special Assistant to the Director for Diversity at the Center,
specifically charged with bringing focus to diversity management.
- The Executive Council and the Diversity Council have been obtaining the assistance of leading diversity
management experts, including Marilyn Loden and Trevor Wilson, in charting a course for the Center to achieve
progress in improving diversity, including the development of the business case and the beginning of a seven
step process for implementing diversity-enhancing employment practices.
- Directorates (through the Deputy Directors of) will report to the Deputy Center Director on Diversity activies.
At the level of individual managers and supervisors, all supervisory performance plans contain a critical element on human
resources management which consists of a commitment to "...Foster [an] organizational climate based on mutal respect
in which employee diversity is valued and all are treated fairly and equitably."
In addition, all Senior Executives at the Center include a diversity and affirmative action critical element in their
performance plans which they tailor to incorporate a personalized commitment to make a difference in these areas during their
performance period.
We thank you for your feedback to the Business Case and look forward to continuing the dialog!
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