IE Women in
Business Club in cooperation with IE Out Club organized yesterday a Diversity Conference
hosted by Nieves Delgado, VP of Sales at IBM (International Business Machines).  If I was asked to sum up the contents of the
conference, I would say that attendants were infected with Nieves’ passion,
energy and good sense of humor towards diversity matters.  Not only she managed to explain different
types of diversity that IBM is working on, but she gave us real examples,
figures and numbers on how IBM is ahead of other companies through its internal
diversity plans. We were somehow surprised about some of the figures she
presented.  Let’s talk about diversity at
IBM.

For Nieves,
diversity is directly linked to inclusion. The core values at IBM are talent, a
good working environment that serves diverse market places and the community
itself and this is why companies like IBM have placed so much emphasis in its
corporate culture and diversity policy . 

IBM was
born in 1896, of course well before the company launched its first computers
and laptops in 1950s. However, IBM was already a pioneer in diversity issues.
In 1899, the company hired the first women and black people and 15 years later,
they hired the first person with a disability. In 1953, IBM launched the Equal
Opportunities Policy well before the US launched a federal law against several
types of discrimination in the 1960s. IBM was already establishing the pillars
for a future diversity policy which they firmly believe in and promote through
its senior management. This is the key to enforce such policy.

Diversity
at IBM is focused towards five areas, although there are local initiatives in
each region. These are: Women in Business, Multicultural, GLBT, Disabilities
and Work/life integration.  With this
policy, IBM’s goal is to become the best employer in the world. In terms of
comparing the values of men and women at work, IBM has done some research on
the first five key barriers found by women at work. In 1997, women placed the
access to key management positions in the fifth position, whereas in 2007 (10
years later), they find that access to key positions is in the first position.

One of the barriers that has not moved in this ranking of priorities is that
they still consider that the work environment is still male dominated (ranked
in the first place in 1997 and second in 2007).
 

In terms of
multicultural environments, IBM believes that inclusion of all types of people
is essential given the fact that we should recognize that society is very diverse
and this will contribute to social cohesion. During the conference, Nieves
Delgado mentioned the difficulty of understanding each other in a multicultural
environment. She mentioned the fact “that no one understands each other due to
a problem of under communication”.  Although we all speak the same language we may
not transmit the same message with our level of English.  In some cases, it was also difficult for her
to be a business woman in certain Middle East countries.

In other
areas such as GLBT, people with disabilities or work/life integration, IBM is
doing a great effort to include these members of the society. For example, IBM
offers sabbatical periods given that Generation X employees value free time at
the top of their priority list. Making work compatible with your personal life does only refer to looking after children.

The
conference was not only full of interesting insights
regarding diversity at IBM but proved to reflect what our society is facing
today. A world full of diverse employees where IBM aims to protect our freedom and work climate while representing each one of us at the workplace.  More details on
diversity at IBM España can be found here.

IBM just loves you the way you are…