Businesses are the most influential force in America for fighting racism, but employers still need to include more women and minorities in their decision making to improve both their own bottom lines and society as a whole, a top United Parcel Service executive said Monday.
Janet Marie Stovall, executive communications manager for UPS, said the workplace offers the greatest potential to eradicate racial divisions in America. But Stovall, who is the keynote speaker today at the Chattanooga Urban League's Equal Opportunity breakfast, said progress on diversity and inclusion at the top of the country's biggest businesses appears to be stagnating.
"Business is in a position that no other entity can do; businesses can dismantle racism," Stovall said. "Colleges can't do it - there are only 20 million students enrolled at any one time. Churches can't do it because only 35 percent of us regularly go to church and, when we do, 11 o'clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America."
In business, 162 million Americans of all races go to work everyday, united in the spirit of wanting a paycheck. Stovall also said that most employers today recognize that to be successful in serving all customers and reaching all potential workers in an increasingly racially diverse society, they need to diversify their staffs and hire more women and workers of color to maximize their hiring and sales.
But while staffs may be diversifying, Stovall said inclusion of women and minorities, especially in top positions and key decision making areas of business, is still lagging. Only three of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 biggest companies in America are now headed by African Americans - down from six in 2012 and the lowest level since 2002. The share of female CEOs in the Fortune 500 dropped by 25 percent in 2018.
"We have the perception that business is serious about diversity and inclusion, but I'm not sure they really are," said Stovall, who writes speeches and works on communication issues for top executives at the Atlanta-based UPS. "I think if business gets serious and challenges itself to make sure we hire, promote and involved people of all backgrounds, color and gender, then I think we could fix the biggest problem that society faces, which I think is racism."
Stovall said businesses need to define with measurable metrics their specific targets for inclusion and diversity and set short term time schedules to achieve such goals.
It's a lesson she learned at Davidson College in North Carolina in the 1980s when Stovall was one of just 52 black students in a school of more than 1,200 students. She launched a "Project 87" initiative to push the college by 1987, after she had graduated herself in 1985, to admit more minority students and hire more black professors and deans, which Davidson ultimately did.
"Most companies are committed to diversity, but inclusion is harder to figure out and what is needed today," she said.
Stovall will deliver her message today to more than 800 persons gathered for the 36th annual Equal Opportunity Breakfast, presented by BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and Volkswagen Group of America at the Chattanooga Convention Center.
At today's breakfast, the Urban League also will present the 2018 Community Impact Award to Hamilton County Department of Education for their Future Ready Institutes and the 2018 Inclusion By Design Award will be presented to the founders of Chattanooga Connected.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340