Section SixEqual Employment Opportunity and
Management of Diversity
The relevance of the management of diversity to the topic of
evaluating human resource effectiveness is that effective
management in this area enables organizations to tap the
potential of their workforces. Thus, management of diversity
can be related to the effectiveness with which companies avoid
labor shortages. For example, African-American employees tend
to have higher turnover.^75 By correcting those factors leading to
the turnover of African-Americans, companies should be able to
reduce their shortages of labor. Evaluations of effectiveness in
this area should measure turnover of minority and female
employees.
Corning, Inc. provides an example of a company that has
had considerable success in this area. The company has made
remarkable progress in increasing the number of African-
American and female managers, both in total numbers and in
their representation in executive positions. This
accomplishment is all the more impressive when it is noted that
the company is located in a small town in upstate New York.
One specific example of Corning’s approach was to take a lead-
ership position in making the local area more attractive to
African-American managers and professionals. Attrition of
African-Americans declined from 15.3 to 11.3 percent over a