Diversity Advisory Council Report to the USCG Auxiliary National Commodore

 

May 2005

 

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The gathering of the twenty-five Diversity Advisory Council members from USCG Active, Reserve, Auxiliary and Civilian forces were greeted and welcomed by Adm. Steve Rochon, USCG Director of Personnel and Capt. Jean Butler, Chair of the Diversity Advisory Council.

 

Admiral Rochon took time to speak to the DAC members encouraging us to work together as a team. He stated that we were to develop and scrutinize a compilation of issues the USCG and the various other members could agree were diversity issues.

 

The Admiral was aware that half of the Council’s members were new and therefore spent time telling us about the passionate work completed by the previous DAC. He stated that the Coast Guard sees DAC as the eyes and ears of the Commandant and that our work should be taken seriously.

 

DAC was charged to investigate, research, and gather data on the diversity issues the Active, Reserves, Auxiliary and Civilian workforces felt would jeopardize the Coast Guard from being the Employer of Choice. And within a few days we were to prioritize those issues into a report/presentation and deliver it to the Commandant and the other Flag Officers.

 

During the first few hours we were presented with an exceptional training presentation delivered by Ralph Hargrow, of Insight Education Systems of Montclair, NJ.  The title of the training “Micro Inequities-The Power of Small,”has been billed as the new paradigm for Diversity.

        

The training is designed to drive rapid behavior change and raise business diversity performance, it focuses on one of the most hidden barriers to success; the subtle, usually subconscious messages we all send that devalue, discourage and ultimately impair performance in the workforce at all levels in an organization.

       

The training pointed out that typically, we send between 2,000 and 4,000 positive and negative micro-messages each day. These have a powerful influence on driving the behavior of all those with whom we interact. Repeated sending or receiving of negative micro-messages Micro-Inequities, results in exponential erosion of workforce effectiveness. Well-crafted constructive micro-messages, MicroAdvantages, have an equally powerful positive effect.

 

I’ll be forwarding copies of the training material including the PowerPoint presentation that was a part of this training. I believe that this training played an enormous part in helping the Council focus on the task we had before us and would recommend the Auxiliary ponder the same.

 

The DAC representatives were assigned work on four different subcommittees; Workforce, Ethnic, Gender, and Equal Opportunity. Each committee was given a number of diversity related issues and concerns from the units we represented.  A majority of the issues came from the Active and Civilian workforce.

 

The subcommittees were asked to discussed, research, and work out whether or not anything could or should to be done with each issue. A listing of some of the issues brought before the Council were as follows:

 

Delays in the recruitment of white males ASVAB scores lowered Self identify race/ethnicity                          EEO reviews on Cutters                              Female recruitment/ Ads                             ODU- maternity                                          RPAL concerns                                           TRICARE issues                                         Effects of alcohol on minorities                  Civilian personnel policies

EEO complaint System Warrant details by CWO Lack of promotional ops for minorities Military pre-selection to civilian jobs Single parenting issues Helping minorities be more successful Reservist transitional concerns Auxiliary ageism issues Minority and female advancement  -MORE-

 

DAC also had some preceding issues from its last meeting that also needed attention.

 

As the Auxiliary’s representative, I was assigned to the Workforce Subcommittee where we addressed issues affecting the Reserve, Auxiliary and Civilian workforce.

 

The Auxiliary’s primary issue was a concern for the younger applicants who would join or were considering joining the Auxiliary that were sometimes made to feel unwelcome or unwanted by our older current members.

 

The Workforce subcommittee spent its next day and half meeting with Program Managers and Directors of Personnel for the Reserves, Civilians and DIRAUX to investigate what the perspectives were about the assigned diversity issues and to gather data.

The subcommittee had follow-up meetings with Captains Farrell to discuss the Reserve Units proposed “Diversity Plan” that the Captain was responsible for developing. We wanted to get all of our questions answered and to become a lot more familiar with the reserve diversity plan prior to making any recommendations about it to Admiral Collins. A follow meeting also took place with Captain Smith, and it was significant that he was aware of the Auxiliary’s concern and that he addressed this in his conversation with our subcommittee.

 

Captain Smith stated that he’d recommend to Coast Guard to reach out more to the Auxiliary and to build bridges of support for the Auxiliary’s diversity iniatives. 

 

The Captain did an excellent job presenting to the workforce subcommittee the  differences on how the Auxiliary and the Coast Guard were structured.

 

Finally after gathering the necessary data that was needed each subcommittee had to prepare their reports for presentation to the DAC group as a whole. The members of DAC then sifted through and prioritized what would be presented for our Friday morning report to the Admirals.

 

After working late Thursday evening and arriving 6:30 am at Coast Guard Headquarters Friday morning to finish up and walk through for the sixth or seventh time our presentations, Capt. Butler had the DAC members more than prepared to make our report.

 

A power point presentation accompanied our oral report to the Admiral and the other Flag Officers and guest. With each portion of our report Admiral Collins made his points and asked questions for clarification. Then he’d turned to his staff and program managers for their comments and input.

 

Finally Admiral Collins thanked the members of DAC for our hard work and the work that was done. He stated that he appreciated the efforts of the Council to sift through and resolve many issues before they reached his desk.

 

Later Admiral Rochon met with the members of DAC during our closed door debriefing session and reiterated his heartfelt support for the work that was done and handed each member his own USCG Department of Homeland Security Director of Personnel coin.

 

Copies of the presentation made to Admiral Collins will be forwarded.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Donald C. Lloyd

Donald C. Lloyd, DVC-PD

     

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