LORDSTOWN Business leaders promote diversity in the workplace

Employing a diverse work force can help reach diverse customers, leaders said.
By MARALINE KUBIK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
LORDSTOWN -- Diversity works.
It is a competitive edge that helps businesses build better products, better serve customers and grab more market share. So says Maureen Midgley, manager of General Motors Lordstown Assembly Plant.
The Partners for Workplace Diversity, a consortium of some 30 local businesses and organizations dedicated to promoting and capitalizing on diversity in the workplace held a Diversity Works celebration breakfast at the assembly plant Wednesday. The event marked the start of Diversity Awareness Month and, according to Midgley, provided an opportunity to "share best practices" that the partners have put into motion.
About 110 people, representing manufacturing, health care, education, finance and social services turned out for the event.
Important process
"If this didn't affect our bottom line, we wouldn't do it," Midgley told the group. "We do this because this will help us grow our quality and quantity of market share."
However, rather than treat diversity as a separate initiative at GM, Midgley said, it is incorporated into the way business is conducted throughout the year. Two-way communication and input from those with different perspectives is consistently encouraged, she said.
In the Lordstown assembly plant, workers represent more than 20 ethnicities, said Jim Graham, president of UAW Local 1112, which represents workers in the plant.
Despite the differences, he said, "We work as a family. That's the biggest reason we got this new car."
The Lordstown assembly plant was recently designated the manufacturing facility to build GM's new small car, the Cobalt.
"We get ideas from one another, learn work ethic from each other. When you learn from one another, that's a beautiful thing," Graham continued. "That produces one thing: success."
Different look
"My wish is that some day when you come to hear a speaker discuss diversity, you would see a white man," said Quinn A. Carter, diversity/human relations manager for the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission, and a black man who served as keynote speaker.
"You can have just as much diversity in a room full of white men as you have right here," he said, surveying the mass of faces belonging to men and women of many different ages, social, ethnic and work backgrounds.
"You'll be surprised what you find if you trace your roots," he said. "I have Greek, Indian and Irish in my roots. What you see is not always what you get."
Although employing diverse work forces to help reach diverse customers has been a formal initiative at many companies for almost 20 years, Carter said, not all companies have made the most of it.
"What gets measured gets done," he said. Mandatory initiatives to build diversity in the workplace must be tied to measurable performance, and managers must be held accountable, Carter said. "Every staff meeting should include diversity, and employers should try to create opportunities for employees to interact."
Some of the activities he suggested are diversity discussion circles in which employees meet during their lunch breaks to explore and discuss stereotypes. During such discussions, he said, co-workers also have the opportunity to discover their similarities.
kubik@vindy.com