Date: December 20, 2015
To: General Motors Board of Directors
From: Mark Barber / Consultant
Subject: Ways To Improve The General Motors Diversity To Exceed Objectives

General Motors has been meeting legal requirements in their representation of diverse groups in leadership positions within the company in several ways. General Motors has been exceeding these standards by way of their representation of women. For Example: In public companies in the state of Michigan, their board of directors, on average, are 10% women. General Motors has over 1/3 of their directors as women. This by far exceeds the legal requirements for gender diversity.
General Motors also goes to lengths in developing resource groups for minorities in the company such as groups for women, Asian Indians, Chinese, people of African ancestry, Hispanics, young employees, Native Americans, Mideast and Southeast Asians, people with disabilities, veterans, Vietnamese, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees. This would go above and beyond legal requirements to give a positive company culture of inclusiveness so more time and energy may be spent on company goals rather than individuals attempting to spin their wheels either hiding or pretending to think and behave as the mainstream employees.
The information source provided was a bit vague on the amount of diversity outside of women and race in management positions. One diversity group briefly mentioned in the original memo was age diversity. It seems a lot of companies heavily focus on race and gender, but age does not appear to get a lot of attention. Another area of discrimination not discussed in the information provided was that of equal education opportunities. A third area of information lacking is that of hiring American’s with disabilities. If General Motors is known to have lost a discrimination case in the past, then age, education opportunities, and disabilities may be a weak point within their company. It is understandable that losing $42.4 million in a lawsuit focusing on women and minorities would make them pay more attention to those areas, but it should not be at the expense of other areas of diversity they may be missing. Over-compensation in a single area is what caused the discrimination in the first place, as the populations of minorities rise as stated in the original memo, over-compensating for race and gender may overpower other areas of diversity being neglected due to a knee-jerk reaction to the lawsuit.
To avoid legal discrimination, General Motors may want to consider keeping close records of employee statistics to monitor all areas of possible discrimination, not just gender and race. This will help identify which groups may be receiving a lack of opportunity within the company to obtain employment or to be promoted into management positions. Expanding their employee resource group programs to include more diversity options such as those mentioned previously to focus on multiple age groups, etc. General Motors may also wish to consider an educational opportunities panel or committee to ensure employed candidates are all receiving equal chances to further their education.
I believe keeping a broad scope of diversity is going to be important for General Motors Especially moving forward as minorities gain population in America and also there will be a much higher percentage in mixed-race Americans in the future.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the information provided, please contact me at 555-321-6549 or MBarber@Consulting.com