Diversity a competitive advantage

INCLUSIVE APPROACH: Neal McNamara, left, Nixon Peabody office managing partner, with associate Brittany Killian. / PBN PHOTO/NATALJA KENT
INCLUSIVE APPROACH: Neal McNamara, left, Nixon Peabody office managing partner, with associate Brittany Killian. / PBN PHOTO/NATALJA KENT

The national trend in cultivating a diverse workforce tends to focus on enriching corporate culture, staying in line with equal-opportunity regulations and attracting talented professionals.
Some companies with Rhode Island offices, including a law firm and a national defense-systems innovator, have also found diversity to be a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining business.
“There was definitely a business push. Some of our clients were interested in making sure their vendors and service providers reflected diversity, not just by sending a diverse team to make a pitch, but in a diverse set of individuals working with the companies,” said Kendal Tyre, a partner in the law firm of Nixon Peabody and co-chair of its national diversity action committee.
“We have several-dozen clients that have electronic billing and they track the diversity of the firms servicing them,” Tyre said. Those service providers may include women, Asians, African-Americans and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, he said.
“Companies are using their economic leverage to ensure equal opportunity is provided for folks throughout the professions,” Tyre said.
Nixon Peabody, which has offices in Providence, Boston and other U.S. cities, as well as in Europe and Asia, received a 100 percent rating for its diverse workforce from the Human Rights Campaign, a civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. This is the seventh year in a row Nixon Peabody was among companies earning a perfect rating on the group’s Corporate Equality Index.
The index is based on such factors as the company prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, offering partners medical insurance and resource groups for employees. Nixon Peabody’s rating has proven to be true in terms of supporting professional development and creating an inclusive environment, said 25-year-old Brittany Killian, an associate in the firm’s Providence office.
“I was an openly gay student at Northeastern and I spoke to some of the career counselors there,” said Killian, a graduate of the university’s law school who talked with other law students and attorneys to get perspective.
“Everyone kept recommending Nixon Peabody as one of the places to look into,” she said. Killian did an internship at the firm’s Boston office.
“One of the partners in Boston is active in the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association and he invited me along,” Killian said. She met associates from many law firms and heard that while diversity was sometimes advertised as part of a firm’s corporate culture, it didn’t always hold up in the day-to-day environment.
Killian didn’t wait to find out about the corporate culture when she interviewed at Nixon Peabody’s Providence office.
“I talked about my partner during the interview, knowing it was super important that I didn’t want to work at a place that didn’t embrace that,” Killian said. “I was open and no one blinked an eye.”
She’s found working at Nixon Peabody a good fit and discovered the firm’s health insurance to be even more beneficial than her partner’s plan she was on previously.
Neal McNamara, managing partner of Nixon Peabody’s Providence office, said the firm’s diversity perspective covers a wide range of professional-development opportunities. “We have a male associate in Boston who became a dad and went to 80 percent time. He was recently named a partner. I’m not sure that would happen in a lot of firms,” McNamara said.
As co-chair of Nixon Peabody’s national diversity-action committee, Tyre said professional development is continually evolving.
“Professional development is one of the key factors that we have for our diversity initiatives,” Tyre said. The firm has five affinity groups – African-American, Asian, LGBT, Hispanic and women – open to everyone in the firm, offering mentoring, suggestions for recruitment and connection to community groups.
“We have training at least twice year, once for our summer associates, the law students, to give them an overview of diversity action and how diversity can be leveraged for business development,” Tyre said.
Other companies with a Rhode Island presence have been recognized by the Human Rights Campaign for their corporate commitment to diversity.
Raytheon, which has 1,400 employees at its Portsmouth facility, also got a 100 percent rating on the 2013 Corporate Equality Index. That’s the eighth consecutive year the company earned a top score, Raytheon spokesman David Desilets said in an email.
The designation by the Human Rights Campaign “reflects our core values to treat all people with respect and dignity, and to welcome diversity and diverse opinions from all our employees. Raytheon is committed to leveraging diversity of talent and thought as part of our inclusive culture, which we consider a competitive advantage.”
Amgen Inc., based in Thousand Oaks, Calif., and with a facility in West Greenwich, earned a 60 percent rating on the Corporate Equality Index. •

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