Commonwealth Compact
Reports and Publications
Stepping Up:Managing Diversity in Challenging Times
The first Annual Benchmarks Report (May 2009)
Stepping Up: Key Findings of the Benchmarks Data Analysis
In its first year, Commonwealth Compact received Benchmarks data from 111 organizations. Information from individual organizations is guaranteed confidentiality, but the data were aggregated and an analysis, Stepping Up, was released in May of 2009. Overall, persons of color represent 34 percent of all employees in the group, an encouraging number, but the report also pointed to many steps that could improve the numbers:
- While 97 percent of CEOS said they are actively engaged in diversity efforts, only 49 percent say they are satisfied with the diversity of their leadership team.
- In the healthcare and for-profit sector, the proportion of minority employees in lower level jobs was more than double the proportion in manager or officer positions. The education sector did better, but the proportion there was only slightly less than double.
- In general, the stronger the mechanism to push diversity goals, the less likely it was to be used. An organization was far more likely to advertise for a job opening in an ethnic newspaper than to require that the pool of candidates contain at least one person of color.
- Fewer than half of the organizations had specific programs for reaching out to minority- or women-owned vendors. Still, the author of the report and the leaders of the Commonwealth Compact agree that the willingness of so many organizations to collect and submit data indicates an appetite in Massachusetts to face diversity issues squarely, and make real progress.
For more information on the Commonwealth Compact, contact us.
Related Links
Guidelines for Benchmarks Reports
Benchmarks Template
Signers of the Commonwealth Compact
Updated September 25, 2009
Commonwealth Compact and the "Obama Effect"
by Steve Crosby