What We Love
Keeping employees happy is a top priority for this food manufacturing firm. To help Hispanic women better navigate the workplace, the company brought in a career coach to address their specific professional challenges; now other coaches are on deck for African-American and Asian employees. Five very active multicultural employee networks launched new leadership development programs last year, introduced discussions with executives and even created a corporate database to help diverse employees seek each other out.

Meanwhile, 13 additional diversity focus groups have since been established to garner feedback on how these initiatives are doing. Such efforts speak well for General Mills, but the numbers alone say volumes: Of the women of color in senior management positions, 42% were promoted last year.

Chief Diversity Officer
Kenneth Charles

Hires who are multicultural women 9%
Hires who are multicultural men 14%
Multicultural women managers/execs 6%
Multicultural men managers/execs 9%
Top 20% earners who are multicultural women 6%
Top 20% earners who are multicultural men 8%
Multicultural women on board of directors 15%
Offers formal compensation program to reward managers who specifically help multicultural women advance YES
Rates managers on the number of multicultural women employees advancing YES
Uses outside recruiter to focus on finding multicultural women candidates YES
Offers support groups specifically for multicultural women NO
Offers mentoring programs specifically geared toward multicultural women early in their careers YES
Offers sponsorship program specifically geared toward multicultural women early in their careers NO