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The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently heard testimony on the particular effects the economic downturn has had on older workers, addressing the unfortunate possibility that the recession may be serving as a catalyst for some employers to engage in age discrimination.
Recession Hits Older Workers
The Washington, D.C., nonprofit research and think tank organization, the Center for Corporate Equality (CCE) has issued a detailed report on “best practices” for conducting the adverse impact analyses, which are used to detect and sometimes litigate employment discrimination claims. The editors of Federal Employment Law Insider interviewed David Cohen, who is on the board of directors at CCE and is the president of DCI Consulting Group, Inc., and a coauthor of the report, and Eric Dunleavy, senior consultant at CCE and DCI Consulting Group, Inc.
Insider: Mr. Cohen and Mr. Dunleavy, thanks for meeting with us today. Can you provide our readers with an overview of the report that is being issued by CCE?
Diversity consultant and founder of QUEST Diversity Initiatives LLC Natalie Holder-Winfield, wants to make something clear: “When I say ‘diverse,’ I don’t mean it as a stand-in or as another word for ‘minority.’ When I refer to a diverse workforce, I really do mean people of all different ideas, thoughts, cultures, backgrounds, and sexual orientation — that to me makes up a diverse workforce.”
The High Costs of Ignoring Diversity
As of last year, Babson College in Newton, Massachusetts, had two diversity managers, an assistant dean charged with increasing campus-wide inclusion, and a few HR professionals focused on diversity. But the college’s senior leaders decided that wasn’t enough. In March, they appointed Elizabeth Thornton to be Babson’s first chief diversity officer (CDO).
“The senior leadership felt that the college needed one person to be part of the president’s cabinet to develop an overarching comprehensive and fully integrated strategy to help Babson be in the forefront of this issue of preparing students to be effective transcultural leaders in a global marketplace,” Thornton explains.
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