Diversity In Action

At MetLife, diversity is about “the way we do business”

The company does consistent entry- to mid-level IT hiring. It has a “huge commitment” to bringing in diversity, says the strategic staffing VP

Insurance company MetLife has spent more than a billion dollars on internal IT development. That, says strategic staffing VP Roger Taylor, makes IT a large focus area for the company, and equates to an excellent career opportunity for IT specialists. “It’s not unusual to have fifteen to twenty-five positions open at the director and executive level,” Taylor notes.

MetLife’s diversity office was established in 2000, says its VP Denise Singleton. A year later the company’s first enterprise diversity council was put together, made up of senior-level business reps from each line of business.

In 2001 the office of diversity formalized a program to provide diversity training for associates and managers. Since then several line-of-business diversity committees have also evolved, Singleton says, “so representatives in a particular line of business can focus on a specific diversity initiative relevant to that business unit.”

Another part of MetLife’s diversity community is its Local Inclusion Action Teams (LIATs). The LIATs reinforce an inclusive environment at local levels across the country.

There are also a number of affinity groups in the company. “We’ve been working with company-wide affinity groups and employee networks for more than sixteen years,” Singleton reports. Taylor’s recruiting teams work closely with the groups to identify
candidates inside and outside the company.

Two years ago MetLife began a series of “diversity live” programs. In these crowd-pleasers, professional actors present a variety of scenarios, leading to a lively audience discussion of what was done and how it could have been done better. One scenario involves an American-born IT pro in the U.S. interacting with an Indian teammate in Delhi; others touch on work-life, cross-cultural and gay/lesbian themes.

There’s been clear progress since these actions were taken. “We know that’s so because we do an employee survey every two years,” Singleton notes. In 1998 a little more than half the respondents agreed that MetLife values diversity, but “When we conducted the survey in 2006 the affirming number was 79 percent,” Singleton says. She adds that she won’t consider it a complete success until the surveys indicate 100 percent agreement.

Every quarter the company publishes a diversity progress report divided by lines of business. The reports go to the chair and top seventy-five company execs.

The reports, Singleton says, “reflect how we are progressing as a company and how each line of business is progressing.” They look at recruiting, retention and development, among other metrics.

There are some 3,850 IT employees in MetLife offices in the U.S. and 530 internationally; they implement more than 1,000 hardware and software technologies. As a Fortune 50 company, MetLife continually invests in technology to stay on top of the market. Service-oriented architecture, knowledge management and Web 2.0 are some of the technologies MetLife is investing in now to fuel earnings and revenue growth, Taylor notes.

To support its complex infrastructure the company employs a wide range of IT positions. Typical positions include application developer, architect, Web designer, project manager, engineer, business analyst and operations support staff. At a senior level MetLife looks for business relationship managers and CIO-level managers.

Many of the IT positions are located in Morristown and Somerset in New Jersey; Long Island City and Hauppauge in the New York Metro area; Greenville, SC; Tampa, FL and Denver, CO. “The IT department’s sourcing strategy is continuously evolving as MetLife expands internationally and becomes a global company,” Taylor adds.

The company is also examining the impact of baby-boomer turnover as this large generation begins to retire. “We have a significant younger population coming in,” Taylor says.

“Successful companies know that your biggest asset is your people,” he adds. “You want all sorts of multicultural representation because that is who our customers are, and because diversity engenders creativity in how to approach business.

“We look at diversity from the traditional definition in the U.S. and also from a multicultural international perspective,” he points out.

“Diversity is really about the way we do business,” Singleton concludes. “MetLife could not support our more than 70 million customers without having a strong focus on diversity.Z

D/C