  With brilliant colors and seemingly all-seeing eye pattern, the peacock’s
feathers symbolize beauty and knowledge. Diversity offers organizations a similar
promise of beauty and knowledge, as people of different backgrounds, colors and
cultures come together as suppliers and customers to create benefits.
When you hear about corporate diversity, you probably think
immediately of mandatory employee training programs
intended to protect your company from lawsuits based
on discrimination, harassment, and bias. This emphasis, while valuable, is
just
one side of diversity’s peacock feathers, the one seen when the peacock
is on the defensive.
Cultivating diversity promises to improve your business
performance across many fronts, by helping you reach
new customer and supplier markets, build
productive
teams, and develop innovative products to address your customers’ needs
safely and responsibly. Pursuing these opportunities can be as colorful, exciting,
and limitless as the luminescent feathers of the forward-looking peacock.
Consider the demographics: Where are your customers coming from? Today, fully
1 in every 5 United States residents speaks a language other than English
at home.
The US Census Bureau projects that by 2050, the US Hispanic
and Asian populations will triple, and non-Hispanic
whites will make up only 50% of the total US
population. Customers prefer materials and consultation in their own language.
Ask yourself – is
your business in sync with these demographics?
Healthcare providers are not: while the percentage of non-Hispanic
white MDs, pharmacists and nurses roughly mirrors
their 70% of the general population,
Asians are represented in healthcare professions at twice their levels
in the
general
population (8% vs. 4%) and both blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented.
Given these demographics and projections, one can expect a trend where
patients will
be less and less likely to come from the same language and cultural background
as their doctors, nurses, and pharmacists.
Think about your business. What are you doing to make sure
that your present and prospective customers easily
learn about your products and
services?
Many resources are available to help you figure out a profitable
diversity strategy. Follow these 3 steps.
Step 1: Put a value on unmet customer needs within your
target population.
Your local librarian can help you find demographic information
for the community you want to target. Contact the NJ State
Library at
www.njstatelib.org or
at www.jerseyclicks.org for access to Reference USA, a resource
for demographic
data.
For healthcare providers, the US Dept. of Health and Human
Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health (OMH), has
organized data/statistics,
publications,
and
a clearinghouse of federal information centers at the Center
for Linguistic and
Cultural Competence in Healthcare . The OMH has developed 14
Standards for Health Organizations in making culturally
and linguistically
appropriate services available
to patients in a given service area. Once you have your customer data, financial modeling can help you
evaluate different scenarios to reach your target market. You can
clarify the
scope of the sales,
distribution and marketing efforts needed to get your product or
service to these prospective new customers. Contact Mary Stober
(stober@globalprojectresources.com) for help building scenario-based
financial models. Step 2: Think Bilingual and Bicultural Early
You invest a lot of time and money in your employees
and your marketing materials. Think about your
bilingual needs
early in order to make
the most of this
investment. If you are about to print a new brochure, consider
including translated copy
in addition to the original English. If you are about to hire
someone, consider hiring someone bilingual who can serve
your customers
in their own language. Translate
on a level you can manage as prospects respond to your outreach
efforts. If you run ads in Spanish, for example, make sure
you have someone who can answer the phones in Spanish. Train
your employees in the products, celebrations, events that are
important to the members of your target audience. For example,
in Hispanic culture, a fifteenth birthday (Quincenera) is an
important milestone for a girl comparable to a Sweet Sixteen,
and families celebrate with lavish parties. Create a job aid
for your employees explaining key traditions and highlighting
the related products and services you can offer.
For
example, language and cultural barriers result in difficulty
getting medical care. “1 in 3 Latinos is uninsured, compared
to 1 in 5 African Americans and 1 in 10 white Americans,”said
Inna Kassatkina , President, Global
Language Solutions, presenting
at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Drug Information Association.
There are several regulations governing the use of translations
in pharmaceutical development:
The Informed Consent process offers particular challenges
from translation and cultural perspectives. From
a translation perspective, Kassatkina advises not to
let the translator play lawyer. You must communicate
upfront to
the translator that they must stick to the wording of the original
Informed Consent
Form (ICF), especially in key sections like Risk and Compensation.
From a cultural perspective, translators and other cultural
intermediaries, like
universities
and civic associations, can help you understand key cultural
factors in the doctor-patient relationship, if the
subject feels authorized
to sign
the
ICF,
the subject’s literacy level, and how much information
subjects want to have about their condition.
The American Translators Association is a good resource
for finding interpreters and translators who are
experts in the exact terminology
you need to support
your efforts. Contact Mary Stober (stober@globalprojectresources.com)
for help finding expert interpreters and translators for
your project.
Step 3: Mix your media choices
People start relating to you and your business when you
give a personal touch. Learn a little about the culture
you are targeting
and the
images, colors,
texts that resonate with them. Review ethnic publications
and work
with your media partners to identify these images. When
pitching a story to
ethnic
publishers, make sure to focus on the areas of specific
interest to their readers. Ethnic media are growing in influence in the US, indicating
larger trends towards segmentation and personalization.
Local ethnic
press, broadcast
and Internet
media are important partners who help you understand
the best ways and times to use assorted media to
reach your
prospective
customers.
Contact
Mary
Stober for information on
finding ethnic media.
For example, a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation
found that 54% of Latinos get their health information
from television.
Latino media
giant
Univision
initiated a multimedia effort to educate the US Latino
population on prevalent diseases in their communities,
like diabetes,
and
to discuss treatment
options. This effort, Salud es Vida – Enterate! (Lead a Healthy Life – Get
the Facts!), involves Univision’s assets in radio, television,
Internet, and public events to mobilize the Latino community
to seek diagnoses and to
comply with treatments. Meeting the needs of diverse populations is increasingly
important in both small and large businesses. Companies
that address diversity
thoughtfully
and with keen observation stand to benefit financially
from this trend, while meeting
important social responsibility goals.
Is this article helpful? Send your comments and additional
topic interests to Mary
Stober |
