Of the NNPA
WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Companies involved in multi-billion dollar acquisitions and mergers can strengthen their bottom line by carefully crafting and maintaining a diverse workforce, which in turn will better position them for dramatic demographic changes in the future, a top corporate executive says.
The official, Rick Bradley, Executive Vice President, AT&T Wireless, in an interview with the NNPA News Service: “Merging cultures is hard work. I think on a lot of levels, it’s harder than merging infrastructures and sales processes because there are subtleties and nuances in these relationships.”
Bradley knows that first-hand, having been at the helm of the human resources organization responsible for the integration of two companies, Cingular Wireless and AT&T Wireless, once the merger was approved in November of 2004. Combining those two companies resulted in the largest wireless provider in the U.S., with more than 60,000 employees.
Bradley’s experience with that merger will come in handy as Cingular, and its two parent companies, AT&T and BellSouth, become the new AT&T. On December 28, 2006, the Federal Communications Commission gave final approval for AT&T’s $85-million merger with BellSouth, which also meant 100 percent ownership of Cingular. The company quickly announced the three companies, once merged, would operate under a single brand, AT&T. The new AT&T will employ more than 300,000 employees, a result of the integration of the former AT&T, BellSouth and Cingular.
As an increasing number of companies integrate corporate operations and cultures, some more successfully than others, Bradley says it’s important that top executives keep a sharp eye on the composition of their new staff.
“Each company, AT&T, BellSouth and Cingular, has earned a strong reputation in the areas of diversity and inclusion,” Bradley said. “We have begun to identify the best practices within each company which will ensure our process and decisions have diversity as a natural part of the decision-making.”
Following the previous merger, for example, even though Cingular and AT&T Wireless both had stellar reputations for employee diversity, Bradley said, certain steps had to be taken to make sure that people of color and women did not suffer in a new corporate configuration.
“In deals this size, you have a lot of overlap,” Bradley explained. “You have at least two, three, and sometimes four people doing duplicative work. Right now, as we did in the Cingular Wireless – AT&T Wireless merger, we are focused on the same criteria. Who has the right background for the job? Who has the right performance? We will look at recommendations from the boss. We will look at education. .
. “We wanted to make the right decisions and make sure that no group was adversely impacted – people of color or women . Diversity comes in a lot of flavors.”
And, according to Bradley, the new AT&T has not lost any flavor.
“At the end of the day, if you look at our structure, today people of color and women are well represented in the organization.”
He said that in Cingular, the AT&T wireless company, 43 percent of its 65,000 employees are people of color and 52 percent are women. It has done approximately $1 billion in business with suppliers who are women or people of color. While total spending in this area has reached $25 billion, company officials acknowledge they have room for improvement.
Bradley says Cingular has created a working environment that is unrivaled by most companies.
He credits Cingular’s CEO Stan Sigman for allowing such open access.
“I just think it was Stan picking the people he thought could do the job,” Bradley says. “Every day, you walk in with him, you have to prove yourself. All of us are making our contributions to making the business move forward.”
In 2005, under the Cingular brand, the wireless unit had revenue of $34.4 billion, earned from serving more than 58 million customers. Until recently, Ralph de la Vega, a Latino, served as chief operating officer. And he reminded managers that there is a direct link between making money and having an inclusive staff.
“The top leaders must demonstrate their own dedication in a consistent and forceful manner,” he stated. “They must reflect the marketplace; encourage fresh ideas and critical thinking from many sources; connect with customer segments by having a representative workforce; and look like the community.”
And that community is changing.
During the first half of the 21st Century, non-Hispanic Whites will see their share of the U.S. population shrink from 69.4 percent in 2000 to 50.1 percent in 2050. In the following decade, Whites will become a minority in the U.S. for the first time.
But African-Americans will increase their percentage of the population from 12.7 percent to 14.6 percent in 2050. Hispanics (of any race) will see their share almost double from 12.6 percent to 24.4 percent. Asians will go up from 3.8 percent to 8 percent of the population.
Numerically, non-Hispanic Whites will go from 197.7 million in 2000 to 210.2 million in 2050, a gain of 7.4 percent. The African-American population will expand from 35.8 million to 61.3 million (71.3 percent), Asians will grow from 10.6 million to 33.4 million (212.9 percent) and Hispanics will almost triple, jumping from 35.6 million to 102.5 million (187.9 percent).
With 60 percent of its staff 35-years-old or younger and a high-profile Latino COO, who recently accepted another corporate position with AT&T in San Antonio, it is not surprising that what is now AT&T Wireless dominates the youth and Hispanic markets.
Some African-Americans are concerned that while the Black population continues to grow and spends disproportionately on telephone services, AT&T Wireless may not be spending enough with Black media outlets and vendors.
Bradley said AT&T Wireless doesn’t mind disclosing what the company spends with disadvantaged communities, but will not make public its figures for each group. Even so, he said, the company will continue to explore ways to better interact with people of color, including the Black Press. He cites a list of honors the company has received for its work with vendors and its overall diversity efforts.
He said that while much of the material used in telephones are manufactured overseas, AT&T Wireless has been innovative in other ways, such as requiring outside law firms it hires to assign a certain percentage of billable hours for Black lawyers on their staffs.
The company recently began an initiative with several historically Black colleges, which it hopes to expand, that could lead to permanent employment. Additionally, Bradley said, AT&T is partnering with the National Urban League to find employees in various cities.
He said the company is looking forward to doing even more.
“We need to be sure that communities that we’re doing business in and that we live in are prospering,” Bradley said. “And that’s what minority- and women-owned business spending does. It drives cash into the community that will make it a more robust community that will hopefully become customers of ours.”