Consulate General of the United States Chennai, India

OFFICIAL TEXT

(As Prepared for Delivery)

February 07, 2013 

Remarks of Ambassador Powell at Conference on ‘Best Practices for Gender Diversity’  

CHENNAI: Thank you for the opportunity to speak today on the issue of gender equality.  This is an issue which runs through all of our U.S. Government values and goals -- advancing U.S. national policy, managing my own organization, the State Department, and coordinating USG agency programs and operations in India as Ambassador. 

I understand that the bottom line of today’s conference is in fact the bottom line – starting with fairly recent research on what companies gain by recruiting the most talented employees, irrespective of gender.  It is also about the sheer dollars and cents profits – and rupees - that companies accrue through integrating and encouraging the development of women within their organizations.  Finally, it is about the sharing of best practices on how your businesses can inspire that bottom line.    

It is no surprise to me that empirical research shows that creating a gender-inclusive work environment yields concrete positive results.   What is surprising to me is that we need such research to prove what seems self-evident: that is, if you systematically eliminate half of an available pool of contributors to business, government and broader society, you will also lose half of the potential.  And that half could have included the next Bill Gates or Albert Einstein, not to mention Marie Curie or Hillary Clinton – if they had been given the same opportunities at education, advancement, nurturing, mentoring and access to opportunities.      

Recognizing the constructive role of women in achieving global solutions, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton placed a renewed focus on addressing issues concerning the role of women across all areas of our foreign policy.  Over the last year, this has included the issuance of an Executive Order launching the first-ever U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security – a comprehensive roadmap for accelerating and institutionalizing gender-responsive efforts to women in areas of conflict by:  increasing their participation in making and keeping peace; strengthening their roles in decision-making institutions; protecting them from exploitation, discrimination, and abuse; and investing in their health, education, and economic opportunity.

During her tenure as our Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was a particularly powerful advocate for, and clear proof of, the value of increasing women’s participation globally in society and the effectiveness of women in senior leadership positions.   

Secretary Clinton put a particular emphasis on promoting women’s equality across sectors, especially in the areas of health, education, entrepreneurship, and business.  This focus was not driven purely for philanthropic reasons or just because it’s the right thing to do. 

Report after report shows the linkages between women’s engagement in the economy, politics, and society of a country and that country’s improvements across a range of social indicators. 

The World Economic Forum Gender Gap report also shows that in countries where the gender gap is closer to being closed or where it has narrowed the disparities between women and men, those countries are more economically competitive and prosperous.  And such countries are more stable and better environments for business investment, trade and growth. Promoting women’s participation and leadership in the private sector plays a big role in closing this gap. 

Increasing women’s voices in the decision-making process is also, simply put, smart management.  Those of you in the consumer goods and service sectors are probably well aware of analyses showing that women are estimated to control $15 trillion worldwide by 2014 – that is, next year.  And by 2028, women will account globally for about two-thirds of consumer spending.  That is a major market segment!  

From a business perspective, how well will a company understand this potential consumer segment if that segment is not represented or has a voice within its own ranks?  And what is the public face and message of that company, and therefore the credibility for that product, to the consumer?   

As a public sector employee, I can tell you our bottom line is not all that different from the private sector’s.  Although we may not use profit margins or sales as metrics, our end products -- which for the State Department is leading robust outreach and engagement that advances U.S. national security, commercial and social goals globally – are enhanced by the diversity in our workplaces and by the voices of our women.   

The opening of the State Department’s ranks several decades ago to greater inclusivity for women and minorities across the board also opened the door to new audiences, provided fresh insights into our decision-making, and lent credibility to the messages we transmit for the U.S. people to the world -- half of whom are women.  Expanding our applicant pool also helps us recruit the best and brightest diplomats available across our society. 

And our other U.S. government agencies are also seeking to equalize their organizations.   In a ground-breaking policy change last month -- the Pentagon announced that the U.S. military was lifting a 1994 ban prohibiting women from serving in combat positions.  This change could open up more than 200,000 battlefront slots across services currently reserved only for men.  

In announcing this policy, Secretary of Defense Panetta noted, “Women have shown great courage and sacrifice on and off the battlefield…and proven their ability to serve in an expanding number of roles. The Department’s goal in rescinding the rule is to ensure that the mission is met with the best-qualified and most capable people, regardless of gender.”    

Within the State Department, I would like to claim that we have achieved the status of a model employer in reaching gender equality, and that the State Department is fully representative of U.S. society at all ranks.  We have not achieved that goal.   But we have made significant progress in closing the gender gap.  As of 2012, women comprised 40% of our U.S. Foreign Service officer corps. 

If we add in the State Department’s Civil Service component – which is actually 55% women - the agency’s U.S. female employees represent 44% of the workforce.   This is a significant improvement from thirty years ago when women comprised only 20% percent of our U.S. Foreign Service professionals. At the senior ranks, our women comprise 30% of our Foreign Service slots, and 43% of our Civil Service positions, so we know that we still have work to do in mentoring and training our best women employees to continue into senior leadership positions.   

So, while we have not yet achieved our goals, I can categorically state, both as a 36 year veteran in the Foreign Service and as recently-serving  Director General overseeing all of the State Department’s human resources, that we actively strive toward that goal. This progress has not been quick -- but it has been a steady evolution.  

Only a few years before I joined the service, women were required to resign their diplomatic commissions when they married, and both the advancement of women and minorities were stymied by limited opportunities in the assignment process and training opportunities.  The glass ceiling was very low, and had few cracks in it.  This situation was only remedied through more than a decade of litigation, resulting finally in a settlement which also directed changes to the organization.  

One of the first significant changes to the organizational culture was the incorporation of mandatory diversity training for all U.S. Foreign Service personnel – which seems in retrospect an amazing gap in training for an organization working in virtually every country in the world.   

And for the last two decades, we have concertedly strengthened our policies and programs in a multi-pronged approach focused on increasing diversity and creating employee friendly policies.  These efforts have included: 

• Targeted recruitment:  The State Department has aggressively reached out to under-represented groups to join our workforce, by expanding our recruitment beyond those universities and colleges  where we traditionally drew our Foreign Service applicants and by partnering with minority organizations, participating in minority-focused conferences and advertised in minority-focused media—both print and electronic.
• Institutionalizing training:  This has included mandatory across-the-board leadership and management training required for promotion at different intervals in a diplomat’s career, a heavy component of which is about leading a diverse workforce;
• Institutionalizing mentoring:  We have added mentoring requirements into our precepts for promotion to the Senior Foreign Service ranks;  
• Strengthening the Equal Opportunity Office programs.   We mandate that each domestic bureau and overseas Mission have at least one trained EEO counselor, who ensures policies are clearly communicated and published; provides input to the management structure on EEO issues; and channels the complaint and alternative resolution process;
• Improving transparency in our hiring, awards, assignments and promotion processes: Employee review panels also ensure these processes do not include non-performance based characteristics (such as gender, ethnicity, religion and so forth), which could sway the selection process;
• Issuance and enforcement of no-tolerance policies:  most notable are our policies prohibiting sexual harassment and violence in the workplace;
• Accountability for supervisors:   Holding supervisors accountable at all levels if they do not address EEO complaints and other workplace grievances.   Our Foreign Service officers know that they will not be promoted to the next rank if their evaluations show inattention to these issues;
• And instituting employee friendly policies:  Some of these policies have included flexible work hours, the addition of paternity and family sick leave, telecommuting policies, and the addition of day care facilities in some places. 

A gender-friendly workplace does not mean preferential treatment for one group over the other.   To the contrary, good policies promoting greater diversity in the workplace work to the benefit of everyone.  I note that the employee-friendly policies the State Department has instituted over the last decade has benefited both genders as the policies themselves are gender neutral.   

Supervisors are just as apt to see in the State Department today our male employees taking advantage of more flexible schedules and leave to take care of a sick child or attend a school concert as we are of our women employees.    

Like all large multinationals, the U.S. State Department also has the challenge of managing and bridging the cultural differences and expectations for our foreign workforces.  In fact, the State Department has one of the world’s most diverse multinational workforces with representation in almost 200 countries, with over 70,000 employees in 275 locations representing virtually every nationality, race, ethnicity, and religion globally.

 Our Embassy and Consulate teams also strive to promote gender diversity within our foreign national workforce – and not surprisingly, we are very successful in recruiting highly qualified women in countries where they are prevented by a variety of reasons from joining the broader labor market.  That our diplomatic missions adhere fully to U.S. ethical standards, U.S. law, and EEO standards, and our managers are evaluated on their oversight of workplace diversity, has proven a competitive advantage in our recruitment and retention of women.  

We are often able to secure and retain top-notch women employees even when we have not been fully competitive with private sector salaries because we provide a safe and secure workplace with equal opportunities for advancement and professional development, as well as avenues of redress for complaints.    

Here in our Mission in India, we still have a way to go for full parity as our overall Indian workforce at the Embassy and four Consulates is only 25% women.   But I note that this percentage rises to close to 40% if we only look at our mid and senior level grades, as the vast majority of the staff handling our facilities maintenance, driving our vehicles, and performing warehousing duties are still men.  

One common concern from companies and organizations who have not yet understood, or embraced, the value of seeking to recruit and nurture women employees in their workforce is that such efforts will require a huge investment of resources or are simply not feasible – and they cite initiatives such as establishing on-site day-care centers, implementing extensive training programs, or having to make accommodations which cannot fit into a company’s work model, like telecommuting.

These are all great initiatives, but making a big difference in establishing a conducive professional environment for women employees does not necessarily require a huge outlay of resources.   

In the State Department’s case, we have seen small investments of resources make a huge difference to hiring.  For example, some of our Embassies seeking to recruit more women into traditionally male-dominated sections – such as our security forces or warehousing operations – in reviewing their physical layouts realized that these sections offered no separate restroom facilities for women.   

Until they looked into it, they did not realize that qualified women were turning down these positions due to the lack of this basic amenity.  A failure to see this need had inadvertently eliminated an entire segment of applicants – an issue easily rectified with a small outlay of resources.  

Among the most powerful tools are those that do not require a lot of resources, but do require top level leadership focus and possibly some policy and organizational changes.  Some questions organizations seeking to promote diversity within their workplace should be asking themselves are as follows: 

• How are our hiring, awards and promotion processes handled? Do we actively seek diversity in our recruitment efforts? Are women and minorities included in hiring and other HR-related committees?  Are training opportunities available to everyone?  Do our promotion statistics show an imbalance, and if so, why?
• Does our organization have a mentoring program for women which includes both male and female mentors?  Does senior leadership emphasize the importance of leadership and are they mentors themselves?
• What policies does our organization have in place to promote equal opportunity and advancement?  Does our organization have a sexual harassment policy?  Are these and other policies effectively communicated to the employees?
• Have supervisors received basic diversity training?  Are they held accountable in their performance review for ensuring equal opportunity goals are met?
• How diverse is our organization’s policy-making bodies?  Are women and minorities represented on these boards?
• Does our organization have a designated women’s advocate or other venue to promote employee input and dissent?  Is there a direct line for this input to senior leadership? 

I know, that like the U.S. State Department, our U.S. businesses overseas also seek to be models in promoting equal opportunity for women and greater diversity in the workplace.  I commend the leadership of the American Chamber of Commerce in Chennai, and in particular the vision and efforts of Kami Narayan, to host this very timely conference.  I also commend our U.S. companies for their attendance here today, which demonstrates to the value you already place on recruiting and developing women in your organizations.  Thank you for inviting me to be part of this event.