BIZ VOICES: The diversity business

Fayruz Kirtzman embodies diversity. She was born in Germany to an Iraqi-Jewish mother and a Muslim-Iraqi father. She moved to the United States after college and married her Jewish-American husband. “Now I have a more German name than I ever had when I was living in Germany.” (Her family name is Sattar.)

A diversity expert, Kirtzman is director of new business development for Global Lead Management Consulting. She spoke recently at a human resources conference at the Marriott Marquis hotel downtown. We asked her what diversity pros are talking about these days:

The ‘halo effect’ of the presidential election.

“Finally topics such as race and gender and culture and religion are being discussed as to how they impact leadership in general, and leadership in the presidency. But they are being so openly discussed, I think it’s also a challenge. For those who have never discussed them, they can get into hot water [laughs].”

What Barack Obama’s election could do for diversity.

“I believe that it will raise cultural dexterity, the ability to reach out and have a cultural IQ and deal with people who are different. It really is about stretching across culture lines, stretching across gender lines.

“As diversity advocates, we’ve been saying this forever: You can’t manage what you can’t talk about. And you need to be comfortable talking about issues of race and gender and all of the other diversity elements. Otherwise, how are you going to deal with this work force that is so multiethnic, so multicultural? And so, finally, [with the election] it’s elevated to a level where I’m hoping this discussion will trickle down.”

Recession refocuses business diversity.

“Six months to a year ago, we were talking about how to recruit the best talent. Today, the focus is possibly more on retention, retaining the best talent, because not many companies are hiring.”

The word ‘diversity’ is losing favor.

“A lot of companies are going away from calling it pure diversity. They’re calling it inclusion —- which mirrors the trend of going global with this whole notion of diversity. A lot of companies that are global don’t use the term ‘diversity’ because it has a U.S. ring to it. Initially, it was a U.S. race-gender phenomenon. So they call it inclusion. Inclusion strategies. Cultural strategies.”

Whatever it’s called, it’s not about political correctness.

“Political correctness has brought us to a point that we don’t dare to talk about things and issues. Again, we can’t manage what we can’t talk about. We want to be sure that our employees know how to feel comfortable around different people. So it’s quite the opposite of political correctness. To the naysayers, it’s neither about political correctness nor singing ‘Kumbaya’ together. It’s a business imperative.”

Generational diversity becomes a big trend.

“This is the first time in history where we have four generations at work —- people who were born before 1945 through people in their early 20s. All of these generations have grown up with a different value system, different things that happened during their lifetimes. They bring a different outlook to work and oftentimes it’s difficult to manage. The differences can be challenging, and they come with lots of assumptions. Just as there are stereotypes and assumptions for every ethnicity out there, there are stereotypes and assumptions for every generation. It’s [an] important [issue], especially as the veteran or older generation is not retiring because no one can afford to retire. So it’s not going away.”

Consumers are changing.

“Multicultural consumers are not that little niche market anymore. They’re keeping us afloat.”

Immigration has helped.

“In terms of talent management, the only reason why we don’t have an aging work force that’s going under is because of immigration. All other developed countries in the world, whether in Europe or Japan, they have a real aging problem. They don’t have the talent to grow organically, and they are going to have a work force that is skewed elderly. The only reason the U.S. doesn’t have that is because of immigration; [we have] these big immigrant populations from Latin America and Asia, and the birthrates among those are higher than among the white American population.”