Diversity In Action

CSX expects to need engineers & IT folks in 2010

Half the employees hired in the past three years have been diverse at this giant rail, intermodal and rail-to-truck transload services company

CSX is a company with a healthy financial outlook in the long haul: literally the long haul, with some 21,000 miles of rail running up and down the eastern seaboard and into the interior as far as Illinois, Tennessee and Louisiana. CSX has access to seventy ports, and offers nationwide transloading and distribution services including intermodal and rail-to-truck.

The company has state-of-the-art opportunities for IT pros and engineers alike. “This is not your grandpa’s railroad,” declares Susan Hamilton, AVP of diversity.

“People tend to think of CSX employment as people driving trains, but we go far beyond that,” she says. “We have a large technology function that employs several hundred people, and we use it heavily. We also have a lot of automation, which always seems to be attractive to people in engineering and IT,” she adds with a smile.

Virtually everything CSX does is run by IT, Hamilton explains, from its centralized network ops center, which provides metrics on every train and car, to its computers that track equipment and watch for hazards and safety issues.

Over the next twenty-five years the company anticipates a hefty increase in demand for environmentally friendly rail freight transportation, Hamilton says. That will drive the need for a larger workforce.

“We are at the cusp of a renaissance,” she insists. “In fact, we’re already designing and starting to build additional terminals and track.”

The demand for more employees is expected to start picking up in 2010. That’s partly because economic stimulus funds have spurred activity, and partly because the current workforce is older, with more retirements expected every year. In the fall of 2009, however, most new hiring opportunities were in a management trainee program. Hamilton suggests that job hunters check CSX’s weekly job postings online.

The company’s 1,200 trains cover a twenty-three-state network. And unlike the nation’s highway system, which is of course government funded, and the air, which is free, the CSX infrastructure is built and maintained with its own staff and money. CEs, IEs and MEs oversee construction, maintenance, repair and inspection of every mile of track.

On the IT side, project managers oversee installation of new software in the functional areas of CSX. “They’re working on new technology required by the federal government for safety regulations being implemented right now,” Hamilton says. “The entire team will be working on that for the next few years.”

Besides its corporate HQ in Jacksonville, FL, CSX has operating division headquarters in Atlanta, GA; Louisville, KY; Nashville, TN; Chicago, IL; Baltimore, MD; Indianapolis, IN; Florence, SC and Albany, NY. It also has a presence in Detroit, MI; Birmingham, AL; New Orleans, LA; Mobile, AL; Philadelphia, PA; Boston, MA; Richmond, VA and several locations in North Carolina.

CSX recruits at national minority symposiums and expos, and sponsors a dozen Inroads interns. “We’ve had the best Inroads program in this area for seven straight years and have hired a number of the interns permanently,” Hamilton says.

The railroad also partners with twenty colleges and universities with strong IT and engineering programs, including HBCUs. And it offers twenty scholarships to minority and women students.

CSX has a strong interest in promoting women, Hamilton notes. Although the total workforce is just 6 percent female, 22 percent of management roles are filled by women.

“We still have more men than women in jobs like conductors, locomotive engineers, maintenance and track work,” she says. “But headquarters and other jobs are just like any other industry, and that’s where we have a lot of women.”

The CSX global inclusion council meets monthly, and the company has about thirty local councils where management and union employees work together. The local councils also do community outreach, Hamilton notes.

CSX has employee affinity and networking groups including African American, Asian, Hispanic, young professionals, military, women, LGBT, and caregivers for folks with aging parents. Several new groups are coming in: for people with disabilities, professional engineers and an interfaith council.

To spark career progression, CSX has a formal evaluation system including midyear and end-of-year reviews. There’s also a competitive mentoring program for associate development which runs at HQ and field ops locations. Selected participants get hand-picked coaches who mentor them for a year.

“Diversity is strong within every program,” Hamilton adds. In all, nearly a quarter of CSX management people are from diverse backgrounds. About half of all employees hired in the past three years have been diverse, and the railroad has been recognized for its diversity activities by a number of national groups and publications. “We’re changing the face of the company,” Hamilton declares.

Community volunteerism is strong at CSX, especially among the affinity groups. The company has a “Dollars for Doers” program that lets employees earn contributions to organizations where they volunteer. CSX officers serve on the boards of local charities, and the company supports the United Way up and down the eastern seaboard. Groups at various locations are active with Habitat for Humanity and the company is a top supporter of the Heart Association.

After Hurricane Katrina, company employees contributed to the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. A hundred miles of the railroad, including several bridges, were lost, and many of the railroad’s own employees were affected, but “We went in and helped our employees around the clock,” Hamilton says. “We had a call-in line, gave them money if they needed it and arranged for temporary transfers to where there was work.”

Hamilton hopes that more people will want to “get into training.” So much of what you use comes by train, she notes.

“I’ve been with this company thirty-two years and I wouldn’t trade my career here for anywhere else.”

D/C