Powering the Possible through Diversity and Inclusion

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The technology industry as a whole faces fierce competition for diverse professionals, and this is especially true for a company such as Dell, with a workforce across five continents. Why is a diverse team so important? Diversity of thought is crucial to successfully adapt and innovate in dynamic and complex environments. Our people must mirror our customers to truly understand and respond to their needs.

Here are a few steps we’ve taken to provide resources for our team members, and attract and retain the most talented professionals:

  • Our team members participate in nine employee resource groups (ERGs), affinity groups that connect team members who share common ethnicity, gender, nationality, lifestyle or sexual orientation. Last year, our ERG chapters grew from 49 to 65 global chapters, and participation increased by more than 80 percent; roughly 10,000 of our team members now participate in one or more of the groups. Additionally, earlier this year, our team members launched two new ERGs: Planet (focused on sustainability) and Virtus (focused on military and veterans).
  • To give our team members more flexibility, we’re expanding our Connected Workplace, which aims to create a highly mobile and collaborative work environment. We offer Connected Workplace to 22 sites in 18 countries, with plans to offer it to new sites in all regions where we operate. More than 18,000 team members currently participate.
  • We’ve integrated diversity as part of succession-planning discussions, Tell Dell feedback, Leadership Imperative, and are focused on developing a pipeline of diverse executive talent to lead Dell’s future.

Those are just a few of the highlights, and we’re proud of this progress. But we know we have more to do. To that end, here are a few of the steps we’re taking this year:

  • We’ll launch our first global online education module to foster appreciation of team member’s diversity of thought, and how it can unleash the power of inclusion and engagement.
  • We’ll begin implementing diversity and inclusion plans tailored for each business unit globally, with strategies to fit unique hiring, development and retention needs.
  • We’ll continue to leverage our partnerships with outside organizations that can help inform our understanding of underrepresented groups and strengthen our recruitment and retention efforts. As part of that commitment, we’ve already pledged $1 million to Catalyst, a leading nonprofit membership organization expanding opportunities for women and business, for its "Catalyst Center for Career Pathway Research"; we’ll work with Catalyst to address key findings.

We’re committed to a global workforce that thinks as differently as it looks, and to providing a workplace in which those differences are celebrated and leveraged as a competitive advantage. For more information on our diversity efforts, visit www.dell.com/diversity.

About the Author: Lisa Mink

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