The brand from within

Diversity is a term that used to be bandied about with little credence; mocked as an HR fad that would disappear as ‘real business’ remained the name of the game. Employees built their own culture with a like it or lump it ethos that, more often than not, meant that the most talented didn’t necessarily become the most successful. Companies tried to change the lay of the land but without any real understanding of how to do so – leaving those that needed help the most, isolated and disconnected.

“Diversity, ultimately is about how we build an organization with talented individuals from very different backgrounds.”

Fortunately times have changed exponentially since then. Demographics in twenty-first century business have flipped: decision-makers are grasping the advantages of a diverse workforce; employees are encouraged to drive their "personal brand" with confidence; and companies, as a generalization, are holistically involving their respective HR heads to secure a future with "embedded diversity". A leader at doing precisely that, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) has priceless experience under its belt when it comes to educating, implementing and progressing diversity within its workforce - epitomized by its Chief Diversity Officer (CDO), Niloufar Molavi.

Having grown up in Tehran, Iran, before moving to France and finally settling in the US, Molavi knows first hand the importance of diversity within a company's culture. Her experience in traveling between different business cultures has without doubt enabled her success at PWC - tagging herself as a "change agent". "I've had to navigate different cultures, which come in many different shapes and forms; every organization has a different culture," begins Molavi.

"You have to make sure you understand what that culture is and how you fit into it. I think those experiences have definitely allowed me to help others in my role as Chief Diversity Officer. When I think of identity, I think I have many different identities. I'm a wife; a mother; a tax professional; a mentor; a teacher. It's how all those identities intersect with each other that ultimately build my experiences. If I can bring that unique experience to work, then that's when we are going to be able to see innovation. We're going to be able to have people with different perspectives to solve all kinds of problems that our clients may be looking for us to solve."

And when it comes to clients, the bottom line remains that keeping them happy equates to bigger profits, which is why Molavi sees diversity as a "business imperative" that offers a competitive advantage to win in the marketplace. "As a professional services firm, our clients expect that we're going to bring the highest quality client service teams to their accounts to serve them. The way we can do that is by having a diverse team that has complementary skills that are serving the client," she says.

With US demographics changing and women being noted as the fast growing population in the workforce today, ensuring you can attract and retain that best possible talent to meet client needs comes down to ensuring the right environment is built within the company where the talent can succeed, bring unique values to the table and achieve the highest potential possible. Of course, inherent within that is the need for innovative talent - something usually driven by a background of vast and different experiences. But how do you build a program within your company to identify, nurture and fight for these talented employees?

"I really do believe it starts with the commitment at the top of the organization, not just the tone at the top, but the actions at the top," reveals Molavi. At PWC, Molavi reports to her CEO, but she also sits on the US leadership team, making it quite obvious that diversity isn't just a program for PWC  - it's embedded in its strategy. "When we talk about our growth strategy, when we talk about our strategy to serve clients, diversity is embedded in everything we do. So we want to make sure it's embedded in our corporate culture, as well as the experiences our people have at PWC". While one would presume that embedding diversity within a business strategy would encourage a conflict of interest with regards to business needs, the reality is that it actually further ignites business interests.

"For example, we are not competing internally with respect to how we develop our people. We think about how we develop every individual within the organization. How do we make sure that everybody's getting those opportunities to be successful in the organization? It's all embedded; whether it's our learning and education curriculums that we have or how we sell and deliver to our clients. What I don't struggle with is being at a lower level trying to drive a strategy that's not consistent with the broader strategy.

"Sometimes you can have mixed messages and find yourself asking 'which priority do you want me to focus on?' Maybe someone higher up the organization is going to be heard louder than someone further down the food chain," she continues. "We don't have that issue at PWC, which is why we've designed our structure in the manner that we have. In addition, I'm a tax partner as well as a CDO, so I understand our business. I know what it takes to serve clients and what it takes to develop people. So I also bring that perspective to the table with respect to our diversity strategies."

As a general rule of thumb, diversity programs that tend to fail, according to Molavi, do so because they're not aligned with the company's strategy. If anything, diversity related or otherwise, has to be crow barred into an organization, it's quite clearly unnatural and not aligned with the current success of the company and should be avoided accordingly. Another important lesson from PWC's CDO is to engage everyone when discussing diversity. That means including men in talks about women-related issues, the majority when discussing the minority and to generally explore the overarching experiences prevailing across the spectrum. However, it's easy for companies to fall into the trap of engaging this notion a couple of times a year and calling themselves diversity-orientated, when the reality is that they're anything but.

As Molavi explains, to know you're diversity-orientated is to know that, yet again, diversity is ingrained into the company structure. "It has to become part of the fabric of our culture in order for us to ultimately be able to reach our goal of an extremely diverse organization. If we're not achieving that goal, then we're going to have people who will become disconnected. Sometimes that's the danger that you run into when you talk about programs. Now, I'm not suggesting that you don't need programs, as they have worked phenomenally well for us. For example, flexibility is a big issue with a lot of our people - certainly with our women," she says.

The flexibility program Molavi alludes to is PWC's 'full-circle program', in which parents within the company are offered the chance to "off-ramp" for the first five years after their children are born, allowing them to be parents while still staying connected to the company, continuing to grow and maintain their respective disciplines. Within that five years, at any point in time, they can come back to the organization without having fallen out of the loop.

"Full circle is pretty unique," affirms Molavi. "We launched this back in 2007 and what we experienced is that we had plenty of talented women who were at the point in their lives where they felt they had to make some difficult decisions and felt they only had one option - to leave - then they would figure out at a later point what to do. We wanted to give them another option. We wanted them to come back, at any point in time, when they were ready to come back.

"Based on the exit interviews and experiences we had, we decided to launch this. I'm happy to say that this past November we've had a number of people who went off on the full circle program, who've now returned to the firm. We've already seen them; we've been able to work with them; we know what they're capable of; and we know what their potential is. So it's a win-win situation really."

While programs like full-circle have been a resounding success for both the company and its employees, there are many people in the wider context of the business world who look at diversity programs in the negative as a way to fill quotas and tick boxes. Indeed, some would most probably look at PWC's use of white men as "diversity champions" as doing precisely that. But Molavi asserts that part of the problem is overcoming this presumption and taking the necessary measures to ensure that everyone is engaged in the discussions.

"We want to hear everybody's point of view and our goal is for all out top talent to succeed in the organization. We're not looking at filling quotas or giving any particular group of individuals any type of advantage. What we want to see is that everyone who has high potential succeeds in our organization, regardless of his or her background or gender. That's where our focus is - and we're certainly not trying to arrive at any kind of forced or unnatural result. Our end goal is for the organization to be an inclusive environment where everyone can bring their unique experiences and be successful. So I do hope that there's a day that what we do is so embedded in our culture that we won't need somebody in my role sitting here thinking about it, because we're already there."

With 50 percent of new employees being women and a further 30 percent coming from minority groups, PWC has certainly found its feet when it comes to diversity. However, if Molavi's end goal is to be realized, everyone in the organization - from top to bottom - needs to understand what the "unwritten rules" of the company are. Of course new starters will be aware of the need for solid technical and communication skills as a rule of entering a company, but there are always those unwritten rules that no one tells them about. In Molavi's opinion, the most important of these rules relates to how approach your "personal brand". Questions like 'how do I want people to know me'; 'what experiences am I going to have to have to be able to build that personal brand'; and 'is my brand relevant to the organization' will all need to be confronted if an employee's personal brand is to become effective.

However, building a personal brand isn't something that can be done in a finite amount of time - it's something to nurture as it evolves through one's career. Once it's established, Molavi asserts that success will follow as the goal becomes an ability to fulfill that personal brand. With this in mind, Molavi has developed a program to provide African-American associates guidance in identifying these unwritten rules, providing immediate feedback and coaching around what it'll take for them to ultimately become successful and carry their brand. In addition, the same is being done within PWC for its more senior population.

"We forget that people have different experiences before they get to the organization," says Molavi, "therefore we make assumptions that they will know what those unwritten rules are. Alternatively, they may see it once they get here, but that's not always the case. So knowing that, we're focused on providing everyone with some of those unwritten rules."

"I think it comes down to a difference in cultures," retorts Molavi when asked about where an understanding of these unwritten rules comes from. "Another big part of it is the experiences you've had in life. Everybody has different experiences and it doesn't have to be based on your race or gender. It may have been the environment you were raised in. So what we're trying to do is make sure everybody understands that experiences will be inherently different."

Ultimately, for a company as big as PWC, if employees can't come into the workplace and feel comfortable as individuals then it's unavoidable that an artificial atmosphere will begin to emerge - the first signs of trouble for a company of any size, let alone that of PWC's. For those in a minority at work, not being able to be yourself has huge repercussions for both personal and organizational costs - which is exactly why PWC is launching its GLBT (gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender) strategy, focusing on the importance of being truthful, honest and transparent about who you are in your sexuality. The company even has an advisory board made up of gay and lesbian open partners who were pivotal in helping Molavi put together the GLBT strategy.

"Not only are they thinking about the strategy, but they're actually out in our markets meeting with our people and helping us roll out our strategy. But an important component of our GLBT strategy is our 'straight allies'. Again, it goes back to mentioning that we need to make sure we're engaging everyone in our organization in order for us to be successful with our overall diversity strategy. That is something very unique and our partners really serve as role models for a lot of our GLBT employees."

Whilst having existing employees to head a program to encourage minority employees to be secure in their sexuality in the foreground, the logical jump would be to presume that it leaves a gap in tolerance control of new recruits entering the organization that might not be as accepting. That would be the presumption, but as Molavi points out, if your organization is aligned to build on cultural dexterity, then the recruitment 'hole' ceases to be.

"We recognize that everybody comes down to PWC with a very unique skill set, with unique experiences and we're not all alike - and don't want to be alike - because there's value in that. It's about learning how to work across those differences. As we look at who we're hiring, we do look at individual elements and their ability to work across them and learn cultural dexterity, because that is something that you can actually learn over time."

For an industry that thrives on impressions, opinions and solid communication, overcoming the hurdles to securing diversity within any organization comes down to one thing: education. People aren't naturally resistant to diversity - they're educated to do so. "Sometimes it's about providing people with tools that can help them help others be that champion, be that coach, be that mentor, put themselves in somebody else's shoes," says Molavi. "Diversity, ultimately, is about how we build an organization with talented individuals from very different backgrounds. So I don't think diversity is ever going to become passé, unless we believe that managing talent is no longer relevant. Certainly, I know in my organization that we don't manufacture a product. Our people are our product."