Ronald Harris, director of corporate diversity at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, tries to make sure the health insurer is constantly introducing itself, and its breadth of opportunity, to a variety of people who might know little about the insurance industry.
Health insurance, like banking, has been a predominantly white industry, Harris said, but he thinks BCBST’s outreach has begun to change people’s minds about what it means to work for an insurance company.
The company, which employees more than 5,600 and insures about 3.3 million, offers a multitude of programs to keep its diverse staff while showcasing its appeal to the next generation of employees.
This summer BCBST will offer paid internships to at-risk high school juniors and seniors so students have a glimpse at the inner-workings of “Corporate America.” It’s also teamed up with law firms in Chattanooga to teach high school students about the many ways law can be practiced.
“We reach out into the community and we make ourselves available for them to reach in,” said Harris.
Question: How does BCBST look at diversity?
Answer: The primary definition we work with in all of our efforts is not just racial differences. It’s a more inclusive definition as well as the ability to understand how the sets of values, behaviors and practices fit within the scope of our strategic plans. That includes race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, age, religion — various dimensions of diversity.
We have a very, very diverse workforce. Whereas we are not a global organization, our workforce is global. We try to recognize what every group, as well as what every individual, brings to the table.
We’ve really moved away from this hard-and-fast definition of diversity and inclusion and now our focus is on cultural competency: how do we understand each group, how do we understand each individual, based on who they are, their background, their skillsets, their experiences, their exposures. That’s very, very important to us.
Q. What’s one example of how you make people feel like they contribute?
A. At various times we will have presentations to our workforce – we call them “cultural awareness sessions.” We try to take those employees from Croatia, Italy, Thailand and other various national origins and have them present to the organization — not just something that feels good but about what is important to them and what is it they bring that makes our organization more vibrant and vital.
We have earned what their work ethics and work expectations are; we talk about ambitions and skillsets from their perspectives. It’s pretty important that being inclusive is not something we say, it’s something we demonstrate.
Q. How do you attract the most diverse talent?
We try to make sure that we reach out into the various communities not only locally, but statewide –thank goodness the Internet and all those things exist. When people read of an opening we think we offer a competitive package but we also think our culture is conducive to attracting the best and the brightest– as well as the retention of top talent.
A. Is it difficult to attract diverse candidates to working in insurance?
That’s a question I’ve pondered for a number of years. There is a degree of difficulty but I think it really has more to do with minorities, African Americans and other minorities, not understanding what all it takes to run our organization. A lot of people have seen it as the traditional “paying claims” and while that is the core of what we do, there are so many supporting roles — we do need biostatisticians, we do need doctors, we do need lawyers, we do need analysts, we do need IT people, we do need public relations people.
When I’m out and about I try to talk to minorities about moving out of those “traditional fields” to learn more about the insurance industry and learn more about BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee to understand that we are a mosaic of opportunity as we well as disciplines and professions. I think the word is getting out because as we’re recruiting we have a broader pool of applicants, minorities and women included.
The banking industry and the insurance industry have been traditionally predominantly white – that’s not something anyone necessarily intended but we’ve got to get people to move out of those traditional fields. There are some onuses on minorities as well to explore different opportunities and we think we have a lot of opportunities for pretty much everyone.
Q. How do you create a corporate culture to retain a diverse workforce?
A. I could probably talk about this for the next two or three days — it’s really important. We have some dynamic leadership – people who think inclusively and think about cultural competency.
We are not a stagnant organization. We are very fluid in terms of our response to the needs of the organization as well as our employees. We have three mentor programs: a corporate mentor program, a non-exempt mentor program as well as a minority mentor program.
We have employee resources groups: a millennial group, a women’s leadership group, a veterans’ group and we’re in the process of forming an international group.
We continue to look at where we need improvement and we continue to look for where there is growth opportunities for everyone in our organization. That might sound like a bumper sticker but we take that very seriously here.
Date: January 30, 2016