Diversifying the workplace is one thing. Creating a companywide sense of belonging, and a deep knowledge that all employees are playing on the same team as equals, is quite another. It’s also much harder to do.

Take a boss who’d never actively undermine an employee’s progress because of her race or ethnicity but might make a thoughtless joke at her expense or an unconscious assumption about her goals. Such “microinequities,” as they’re called, can make the office an uncomfortable place for multicultural women, draining the energy they’d normally plug into their work and keeping them off-balance. Fortunately, five smart companies—General Mills, KPMG, McDonald’s USA, Procter & Gamble and Verizon Communications—have taken steps to create a corporate culture that’s truly inclusive and universally supportive.

General Mills already offers two inclusion-training programs: one for leaders, which has trained nearly a thousand managers and team heads, and another that has educated more than 10,000 employees. This year the Minneapolis-based company is also launching a new microinequities course to help staffers hone their skills further.

When professional-services powerhouse KPMG wants to know how it’s doing on the diversity front, it simply asks: Since 2003 the New York-based company has conducted a companywide survey that includes a number of questions on corporate culture and inclusion. Over 80 percent of KPMG employees participate anonymously, identifying their gender, ethnicity and other factors. The results are then used to create action plans to create a better work environment for all staffers.

Verizon Communications created a new, annual weekend-long conference to bring members of the New York-based company’s 10 Employee Resource Groups together with senior leaders for mentoring, networking and other activities. More than 500 employees attended the conference, 58 percent of whom were multicultural women.

Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble, purveyor of products from Pampers to Pantene, takes an active role in driving diversity. Its Managing Inclusion program is a nitty-gritty, sweat-the-small-stuff initiative that’s training managers how to make their direct reports feel truly included and vital to their organization—as well as how to teach others in their unit to do the same.

Ask Patricia Harris if the corporate culture at McDonald’s USA is a supportive one for multicultural women like herself, and you’ll get an unqualified yes. Harris, who serves as the Oak Brook, IL-based company’s global chief diversity officer, has been with the Golden Arches for three decades and just published None of Us Is as Good as All of Us (the title is a quote from founder Ray Kroc). The book is a paean to McDonald’s extensive diversity efforts, including dedicated career-development programs for women and multicultural employees as well as support for the Multicultural Foodservice and Hospitality Association and the Women’s Foodservice Forum. (Harris was a founding member of both.)

It's a Fact!
At General Mills the mandate for inclusion comes from the top: 10 senior leaders organized the company’s Executive Diversity Council as a high-level “ear to the ground” way to enforce accountability on diversity issues.

Last year KPMG’s second-annual Leadership Conference on Diversity tripled its number of participants to more than 600, from 49 cities. Held by webcast, the conference featured live feeds from New York, Chicago and Kansas City.

Verizon Communications’ commitment to building an inclusive culture is evident in its managerial ranks: Multicultural women represented one-fifth of all management promotions in 2008.

At Procter & Gamble diversity training is embedded in its management programs, which teach employees that different viewpoints help make the company stronger.

Over 40 percent of McDonald’s USA franchise owner/operators are women or minorities—as are 60 percent of those in training.