Scenario: Congratulations, you have just been promoted to the position of Team USA Diversity & Inclusion Manager at Facebook, working with Maxine Williams, the company's Global Director of Diversity!
Facebook has been wildly successful. However, the Silicon Valley based business continues to be in the News regarding its challenges with not having enough of a diverse workforce. According to an article from Fortune Magazine in 2015, women hold 16% of the tech jobs. The company is about 55% white and 36% Asian and all other ethnicities total to 9%. However, other companies such as Patagonia, eBay, and Indiegogo hire and maintain a culturally-diverse staff.
According to the Fortune article, Williams has identified some projects Facebook has been involved with to help bring more women and minorities into the company. These include: "to present hiring managers in certain parts of the business with at least one diverse candidate for each open job, reworking the company's training course on managing bias, and increasing the number of college students from underrepresented groups that it invites to participate in its paid training program." However, Williams wants to do more. She has decided to hire several Diversity & Inclusion Managers, and you lead Team USA (fictitious position for this scenario)!
- Empower diversity and inclusion groups across the business
- Effectively build and manage diversity and inclusion initiatives globally
- Coach leaders across the business on progressive ways to enhance diversity and inclusion on their teams
- Create a new organizational design as well as programs to strengthen the organizational culture.
In addition, the Facebook executives are concerned with the development of their leadership team. Since they are in it for the long-term, they want to continue building a sustainable organization. They have many questions as you begin your new role. For example, how do they continue to build out their business, so it remains flexible and adaptable? How do they do a better job of crossing into other cultures and hiring from other cultures around the world and remain inclusive? How do they develop a high performance leadership team and learn various communication tactics to move the organization forward?
At a minimum, recommendations should include:
- An illustration on a sustainable organizational design that engages diverse stakeholders around the globe, including a few high-level roles and responsibilities. Why should the leadership team consider this design?
- Description of a leadership development program that the Facebook leadership team should consider. Why should they consider it? How will it help the organizational culture of diversity and inclusion? Address power and communication as well as conflict and negotiation.
- Ideas on programs that strengthen the teams and organizational culture with regard to diversity. Describe the programs and explain the effect they could have on Facebook. What will it take to implement these programs on a global basis?
- Use examples on what other organizations do to help the leadership team better understand organizational culture, diversity, and inclusion with references.