Raines International

Talent Is Everything

diversity and inclusion

What Should Be on Your Radar During Women’s History Month

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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Wall Street Journal management news editor Joann Lublin’s book Earning It builds upon the fundamental idea that women can make strides in their careers by learning from the experiences of women who have already broken through the corporate glass ceiling. After all – women get further when they work to build each other up. In keeping with that spirit as we reach the final weeks of Women’s History Month, we spent time diving into the best content recently created by, for, and about women. Read on to see our list of resources to help you win in your own career.

 

Earning It by Joann Lublin

Joann Lublin uses interviews with more than 50 executive women to outline key lessons and insights for women navigating work issues and climbing the corporate ladder. Read her book to learn how women can handle obstacles ranging from compensation negotiations to unconscious bias.

 

Harvard Business Review Podcast: Women At Work

In this six-episode podcast, hosts Amy Bernstein, Sarah Green Carmichael, and Nicole Torres explore what it means to be a woman in the modern workplace. Each episode examines a prominent issue that women have to deal with on the job. Listen for tools that will make a difference in your workplace.

 

Harvard Business Review Study: Do Women’s Networking Events Move the Needle on Equality?

Major businesses, universities, and other organizations routinely organize female-focused events ranging from hour-long networking discussions to highly specific weeklong conferences. In this Harvard Business Review study, Shawn Achor finds that attending the Conference for Women increased a woman’s odds of getting a promotion and/or a raise in the next year, in addition to positive mental and social effects.

 

Wall Street Journal Secrets of Wealthy Women: Top Women Entrepreneurs: The Secret to Building a Business

Veronica Dagher speaks with entrepreneurs Bethenny Frankel, Barbara Corcoran, and Katia Beauchamp on how they built successful businesses. Their key secrets include making your big break happen for yourself, being comfortable with uncertainty, and always over-preparing.

 

Harvard Business Review Study: We Interviewed 57 Female CEOs to Find Out How More Women Can Get to the Top

Jane Edison Stevenson and Evelyn Orr spoke with female CEOs of Fortune 1000 and large privately owned companies. From these conversations, they pulled six key insights and corresponding steps that companies can take to build a pipeline of future female CEOs.

 

Freakonomics: After the Glass Ceiling, a Glass Cliff

This podcast featuring analysis from Stephen Dubner is part of a Freakonomics series called “Secret Life of a C.E.O.” In this episode, Dubner and Carol Bartz, former CEO of Yahoo! Inc., discuss research that suggests that female executives are more likely to be put in charge of firms that are in crisis.

 

Own It Summit March 25th, 2018 in Washington, D.C.

A student-run female leadership summit that began at Georgetown University and has since spread to college campuses across the country. Get tickets here.

 

Stanford Women’s Leadership Conference April 7, 2018 in Stanford, CA

The annual Stanford Women’s Leadership Conference (SWLC) celebrates women leaders around the world and provides Stanford women with actionable tools to enhance their leadership. Sign up here.

 

Forbes Women’s Summit June 18-19, 2018 in New York, NY

Keynote conversations, panel discussions, and one-on-one interviews that bring together the voices and insights of a diverse range of female luminaries from the worlds of business, entertainment, and politics. Request to attend here.

 

Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit October 1-3, 2018 in Laguna Niguel, CA

One-on-one interviews, panel discussions, interactive breakout sessions, and high-level networking with the preeminent women in business, government, philanthropy, education, and the arts. Sign up here.

 

Talent Acquisition Inside Out

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As Managing Director, John Delpino is a leader in Raines International’s Human Resources, Consumer Goods, and eCommerce / Retail Practices.  Prior to joining Raines International, John’s career spanned nearly 25 years leading talent acquisition with PepsiCo, Pepsi Cola and its Frito-Lay Divisions, and eight years leading officer-level talent acquisition with Wal-Mart. 

 

John Delpino, Managing Director, joined Raines International after an impressive career at some of the world’s largest and most notable companies. His experience weaves through both internal Human Resources and Talent Acquisition teams and external Executive Search and Recruiting firms, allowing for a unique perspective on the world of talent and recruiting. In fact, John’s roles at PepsiCo and more recently at Walmart both served the objective of drastically reducing the need for the type of firm where he finds himself now. His LinkedIn profile even boasts that his direct hiring “netted cost avoidance of $16.6M” by circumventing the use of search firms.

 

How does a man resolved to subvert the industry end up working for a retained executive search firm after more than 30 years on the other side? According to John, regardless of how talented and built-out an Executive Recruiting team might be, even Fortune 100 companies face searches that are beyond their capabilities. “There was always a circumstance where you needed to use somebody,” he admitted. While the network of an established HR director will be sufficient to fill standard and common roles like a Vice President of Sales or a Category Manager, John found that the more niche, “one-off” roles often required outside help. “A VP of International Tax,” he explained, “…you do one of those in a blue moon so there’s no baseline to start from – you’re at a cold start.” Another example included the Head of Global E-Commerce. “I was not heavily wired to Silicon Valley,” he recounted, “and the sense of urgency was extremely heightened. I didn’t have the time to gain the affiliations that I needed to be effective in filling the role.” Search firms also came in handy for confidential searches and replacements. As an internal recruiter, all confidentiality is lost the moment you reach out to a candidate. Search firms are a great way to blind the process for as long as is necessary.

 

The final hurdle that John outlined was capacity and time. At Walmart, he was typically working on 12-15 searches at a time, as he was responsible for all US-based hiring for the Vice President level and above. With only a small Research team at his disposal, John was the one responsible for dialing out to candidates on all active searches within his purview. In comparing workloads, he explained, “the fraction of the time that I got to spend on each of those searches was small, whereas here at Raines our staffing model caps at two to three searches per consultant at a time… you get a much higher touch, and the process is much more hands on.” John also cited the benefits of having a support staff to help in candidate identification and reach out. “Our structure allows us to hit the ground running with cleared calendars and a sense of urgency that often doesn’t exist when you recruit internally.”

 

The ability to devote more time and resources to a given search has noticeable effects on both candidate and client experience. When you are stretched thin across many searches, the attention you are able to devote to an individual candidate is minimal. “I think that the overall candidate experience is better when attentive search firms are involved,” John concluded. “Candidates benefit from having a point of contact that continually updates and advises them throughout the process – something that isn’t as feasible when your search load grows.”

 

A similar consequence of spreading your focus across many searches is that “you’re forced to have fewer candidates on each assignment and hope that you have a winner among them.” Alternatively, with a team of Researchers, Consultants, and Managing Directors, John finds that “at Raines, we can continue to scour the market and discover the best candidates even if we already have great people in the process… we have the means to over deliver.” These are the kinds of factors that John took into consideration when deciding on when to partner with a search firm and who to partner with. “When I speak with heads of HR now, I tell them that I understand that firms aren’t always necessary, but I let them know that we’re here for the tricky ones.”

 

When the decision is made to bring in help from the outside, the next undertaking is choosing who to work with. Considerations in this decision often involve the depth of a firm’s experience doing similar work, the extent of their “off-limits” restrictions, and their style and ability to get along with hiring managers. “At the end of the day, it was about having the highest level of confidence in their ability to get it done.”

John has known Bruce Raines, CEO and Founder of Raines International, for over 25 years. Having worked together on multiple search assignments at PepsiCo and Walmart, John said he has stuck with Raines over the years because of the firm’s ability to differentiate itself from others in these areas. “The obvious advantage we have over some of the bigger firms is that we have fewer off-limits which means greater access to candidates,” he explained. However, what was more striking to him was the respectful nature of the relationship. “There is a loyalty factor beyond that of any other firm that I know of,” he shared. “For example, when Pepsi owned restaurant concepts, with which Bruce never worked, he nonetheless refrained from recruiting from those businesses because Pepsi was a client.” The strength of this relationship was key to continuing to choose Raines over the years. “What I find really telling is that when client contacts leave and move to a new company, they bring Raines with them and that’s a big part of how Raines’ client base has expanded. Having a followership like that says a lot about the quality of the work and the relationship.”

 

The lesson to be gleaned from John’s experience is that relationships may matter just as much as performance. Replacing any impersonal, transactional sentiments with those of compassion is imperative. In order to improve the relationship between search firms and their clients, John is a proponent of serving as an overall advisor. “I might just be working on one search for a client but if they have a thorn in their paw or some other problem that I can help them with, I want to add value in any way that I can. If I know a great candidate for a search we’re not being retained for, I will still pass them along for my client’s consideration in an effort to help both sides of that equation.”

 

A close working relationship is also key to the successful execution of a search. In bringing an opportunity to market, it is easiest to attract a candidate when you can provide full information on the role, the company, and the ins and outs of the team. John says, “as long as you have all the important information, you can market the role just as well from the outside as you can from the inside – it all depends on how much the client lets you under the tent.”

As Managing Director, John is a leader in Raines International’s Human Resources, Consumer Goods, and eCommerce / Retail Practices.  Prior to joining Raines International, John’s career spanned nearly 25 years leading talent acquisition with PepsiCo, Pepsi Cola and its Frito-Lay Divisions, and eight years leading officer-level talent acquisition with Wal-Mart.  John has led and developed talent acquisition teams of up to 20 people, and received the John Ewing Leadership Award for his performance at PepsiCo.  While at Wal-Mart, John was involved in VP, SVP, and C-Suite executive search assignments for corporate, Sam’s Club, Walmart U.S. Home Office and field, and Global eCommerce.
John’s career has been defined by identifying, recruiting, and collaborating with some of the most progressive executives in the Consumer Goods, Retail, and eCommerce industries.  He has honed his Human Resources subject matter expertise, and built his extensive professional network, while representing two Fortune 500 companies known for their Diversity and Inclusion and Leadership Development track records.
A United States Marine Corps veteran, John received his MBA from Temple University’s Fox School of Business and received his BSBA from Delaware Valley University.

 

How Diversity is Helping Walmart Challenge eCommerce

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The retail sector faces competition like never before from the continued growth of Amazon, eBay, and other eCommerce companies, and the world’s top retailer, Walmart, isn’t immune to consumers’ rapidly changing buying habits.  With nearly 12,000 brick and mortar locations across 28 countries and 2.3 million employees of all backgrounds, Walmart believes diversity will help combat the e-commerce challenge. Walmart leverages diversity and inclusion through its multilingual outreach, its addition of ethnic products, and its focus on science to ensure employees feel included.

The Walmart supercenter in Dearborn, MI, is a great example of the company leveraging multilingual outreach to ensure diverse customers feel included. Hanging from the ceiling as customers enter are large welcome signs in several different languages including Arabic, English, and Spanish. Multilingual employees in many stores across the country are easily identified by name tags which identify what languages they speak.  Employees are encouraged to speak in their native languages in order to help customers feel welcomed.  These may seem like small gestures, but to the shopper with an international background, it shows that Walmart is taking extra steps to provide as welcoming a store atmosphere as any corner store or bodega where employees speak a shoppers’ native language.  By embracing the diversity of its employees and customers, Walmart creates a diverse and meaningful shopping experience.   

Another way Walmart leverages diversity and inclusion is by adding ethnic products to their shelves. It’s one thing to have a welcoming atmosphere in the store, but by offering the same cassava bread shoppers grew up with in Guyana, Walmart can connect and bring a bit of home back to its customers’ daily lives.  Walmart collects and analyzes demographic data from communities within a 10-mile radius of each store. This data is used in part to help regions and individual stores decide what products to stock and display. Going back to the Supercenter in Dearborn, MI – Walmart’s “ethnic food aisle” includes everything from hummus, falafel, Caribbean spices, and European yogurt. The aisle helps attract shoppers with Middle Eastern, West Indian, and Greek heritage.  Other Walmart stores have incorporated hair care products (such as shampoos, creams, and pomades that specifically target African American shoppers) and greeting cards that feature diverse individuals from across the spectrum.  Again, what may seem like a small gesture to some is part of Walmart telling everyone in their surrounding communities – whether Asian, African American, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, or other – that whatever they need can be found at Walmart.  

“At Walmart, the vision is to include everyone” Ben Saba Hasan, Chief Diversity Officer at Walmart tells Raines International. Promoting an all-inclusive environment – regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious views, etc. – isn’t just a feel-good thing to do, it’s a great business practice. Hasan explains,  “We collect performance data from all of our stores, and can see firsthand the impact of our diversity and inclusion efforts.  We share that data along with best practices to our regions.”  Rather than forcing mandates from national headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, Hasan says, leadership at the regional and store level can look at the data and realize the case for D&I is a no brainer.  

“The science behind it speaks for itself,” says Hasan.  Walmart studied the work of Dr. David Rock, a neuroscientist who works closely with scientists, large organizations, and leadership experts to develop better leaders and managers.  Walmart also worked extensively with Dr. Steven Robbins, another neuroscientist who works on the science of human behavior.  Among Dr. Robbins’ many findings – people are “hard-wired to belong.”  The neurons at work when an individual feels pain are the same neurons at work when an individual doesn’t feel included.  “Imagine yourself in pain all day,” says Hasan. Not feeling included “can negatively hinder your performance because it makes it harder to do simple, day-to-day tasks.”  

People naturally want to feel included, and employees who feel included lead to more quality interactions, more innovation and more loyalty.  Customers who feel welcomed and included become loyal customers and repeat customers, helping Walmart attract and retain customers. Walmart may be facing new threats to traditional retail as customers use e-commerce as a channel to shop, but leveraging diversity and inclusion helps Walmart respond to the challenge.

 

How Major Companies Marked Black History Month

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As Black History Month comes to a close, we at Raines Intel want to highlight some of the ways companies and their Diversity & Inclusion programs promoted and honored Black leaders and stories this month. This is certainly not meant to be an exhaustive list, but simply a chance to share some of the tributes for breaking boundaries and efforts to remember history.

Delta highlighted trailblazing African-American employees, including its first African-American female captain, Capt. Stephanie Johnson, who also was Northwest Airlines’ first African-American female pilot, Delta’s first black male flight attendant, Eugene Harmond, Delta’s first black pilot, Sam Graddy, and Rachelle Kerr, who “piloted the first all-black, all-female flight crew in U.S. history, which included first officer Stephanie Grant and flight attendants Robin Rogers and Diana Galloway” in Feb 2009 with Delta Connection carrier Atlantic Southeast Airlines.

Johnson & Johnson highlighted three graduates of its Scientist Mentoring & Diversity Program (SMDP). The program matches “ethnically diverse students interested in STEM with mentors from the medical technology, biotechnology and consumer healthcare industries.”

The AFL-CIO profiled Black leaders including Muhammad Ali, Ella Josephine Baker, Stonewall Inn activist Marsha P. Johnson, activist Keith Richardson, and more.

Microsoft search engine Bing.com featured a picture of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.on Feb. 1.

United Healthcare interviewed a staffer about his thoughts on black history month and diversity at the company.

Universities and museums across the country hosted events and discussions, like the Detroit Institute of Art’s permanent collections on The General Motors Center for African American Art and African, Egyptian, Oceania Americas.

The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation held special events in honor of Black History, including musical performances, exhibitions and discussions.

Ford Motor shared its long history promoting diversity on its website, noting it hired its first salaried African-American employee in 1924, its first African-American senior manager in 1950, its first African-American on the Board of Directors in 1973 and its first African-American Vice President in 1987. According to Ford, in the 1920s, the company had “more African American employees than any other automotive company.”

Kroger holds an annual contest for Michigan students in honor of Black History Month, calling for children in grades 4-12 to submit art, music, essays or poetry. 2017 marks the tenth year of the I Can Make History contest.

Boeing’s South Carolina plant invited two Tuskegee Airmen to share their stories.

The Birmingham Times published profiles of “notable black Alabamians.”

JP Morgan Chase celebrated the first anniversary of its Advancing Black Leaders program, which works to recruit, retain and promote black talent.

The Disney Channel created special programming for Black History Month featuring segments educating viewers on black history. At Epcot, Disney hosts the private Kinsey collection, an educational exhibit of African American history, artifacts, art and more.

Coca-Cola introduced fans to some of the first African-American models and informed readers about the history of soda fountain protests

The UAW looked at some of the black leaders of its union.

Allstate Insurance continued its annual campaign “Worth Telling,” which shares the stories of African-American leaders. This year, the campaign highlighted Philadelphia comics and coffeehouse owner Ariell Johnson, the founder of Alabama’s White’s Barber College, Isaac White, Sr. and the founder/CEO of New Orleans’ Camelback Ventures, Aaron Walker.

Across the country, AMC Theatres and 21st Century Fox offered free screenings of “Hidden Figures,” the Oscar-nominated movie about three black female NASA mathematicians.

American Airlines hosted events honoring black pioneers, held employee events, and featured news in its in-flight magazine. Macy’s hosted a variety of events on black entertainers like Saul Williams.

Uber offered “free and discounted rides to African-American history museums and landmarks” during February.

UPS highlighted Patrice Clark-Washington, the first African-American woman pilot captain for UPS.

Comcast created a category of films and TV shows about “Black Women Behind the Scenes” and partnered with the American Black Film Festival and BlackStar Film Festival to share the work of the black film-making community.