Schneider Ross > News and Events > News article
Enterprise Rent-A-Car: implementing a diversity training programme - Jul 2010
The following article, written by Carol Foster, appeared in the Equal Opportunites Review on 1st July 2010 (Issue 202). It discusses the work we carried out with ERAC.
"Enterprise Rent-A-Car has introduced a company-wide diversity training programme, that has persuaded staff that managing diversity is essential to the company growing and sustaining itself. Carol Foster looks at the issues raised in the design and implementation of the programme.
Key findings
* Enterprise brought in external consultants to devise a training programme on diversity that was directly relevant to its business and demonstrated to staff the benefits of managing diversity.
* European-level directors were trained first, then senior and middle management. Overcoming the scepticism of some managers, the organisation has convinced them of the importance to the future growth of the business of a diverse workforce and awareness of the needs of different groups.
* Further training has been conducted by specially trained in-house trainers. The company has ensured that this is not been regarded as an HR issue, and the in-house trainers come from the whole range of operational areas such as finance and sales.
Enterprise Rent-A-Car believes that the company must reflect the diversity of the marketplace it serves, and that it should continue to extend itself to new, growing and everchanging communities. Donna Miller, Enterprise’s European HR director, explains: “Three-quarters of the UK population are within five miles of an Enterprise location and all our customers, whatever their background, should be able to walk into their local branch and speak with someone with whom they feel comfortable.”
She argues that creating an inclusive workplace helps the organisation to function more effectively: “The diversity training programme aims to give our employees the skills to manage a diverse workforce and customer base. The focus of the training is to build awareness and to get managers to ask routinely ‘How do I ensure that I get the best from all my staff?’”
Design considerations>
Prior to designing the UK training, Miller went to look at Enterprise’s diversity training in the US. “I realised that their training approach wouldn’t work in our UK culture,” she says. “US training focuses on the legal aspects: what the legal requirements are and how to comply with them. We wanted our training to focus on diversity as a business issue.”
Miller explains: “Our overall goal was to make the diversity training really interesting for participants by making it relevant to their everyday commercial decisions. We wanted participants to say: ‘Wow, this is a really important issue that I can use to add value to my business.’ Once diversity is understood to be about improving financial performance then it becomes woven into the fabric of the organisation.”
Credibility
Enterprise deliberately chose to develop a facetoface training programme rather than an online training package. “As a customer-facing organisation, we believed that our training methodology should reflect that,” says Miller. The decision was also taken to put the design and execution of the diversity training out to tender, with the company particularly keen to commission a training organisation that focused on diversity only.
According to Miller, there are a number of advantages to bringing in external diversity specialists: “This is a tricky area and we wanted to get it right. We were unsure whether we had the in-house expertise for the level that we were aiming for.” In addition, it was thought that external trainers would help to give the issue greater credibility among the workforce. “We thought our employees would be too familiar with our own trainers and people would perhaps take the training for granted,” states Miller. “Using external trainers emphasises that the company is taking diversity seriously and helps ensure that participants pay attention.”
Miller believes that to make diversity training really effective, it must be tailored to the business goals and culture of the individual organisation. Before devising the training programme, therefore, the external consultants spent a long time with Enterprise’s senior leaders and familiarising themselves with the organisation, so as to understand the company’s values and priorities. Miller says: “Our people have very high training expectations, so we made the training practical, used real-life scenarios from the workplace and linked it to achieving financial results.”
EU directors
The diversity training programme started in July 2004 with two sessions for the top leadership team of EU directors, of about 28 people. The topics covered included developing an understanding of the business case for diversity in Enterprise, developing the skills to act as an effective change agent for diversity and developing plans to address key local diversity issues. Miller stresses: “It is important that diversity is led by the senior team and operations, and not HR. I have noticed in other organisations where diversity is led by the HR function, only about half have the support of their chief executive and senior team for promoting diversity. Commitment to diversity must start at the executive level and senior directors must live diversity values.”
Senior management training
The second stage of the programme was to train the next management tier, around 200 senior managers who are located throughout the UK and Ireland. The issue here was how to deliver the training as efficiently as possible, given that it would mean pulling senior leaders out of their businesses and away from customers. The decision was taken to conduct the training at the company HQ in Surrey, rather than on a site within each of Enterprise’s nine UK regions.
Miller explains: “Training senior managers from one region locally would have been less disruptive to the business. However, some of our regions are not very diverse due to their locations. So we decided to conduct a series of training sessions at HQ, bringing together senior managers from different regions. For example, we could put people from ethnically diverse areas like Birmingham or London with people from regions where there is little diversity, like Scotland. This meant that they could share experiences and learn from each other, as well as from the trainers.”
The two-day diversity leadership training course was given to around 15 people per session. The intensive, interactive course focused on awareness-raising, identifying the participant’s own prejudices and stereotyping. It covered a wide range of topics, such as crosscultural awareness, male–female communication and the needs of single parents and employees with children. The aim was to give managers the skills to handle real-life situations and to encourage different ways of thinking, so that they became better leaders and managers.
Overcoming scepticism
Miller admits that initially managers were sceptical about attending the diversity courses. However, after the first two or three training sessions, people realised that the courses focused on how managing diversity well could help grow their business. At the beginning of the course, participants discussed what they hoped to get out of the training, and the course leaders suggested that participants would, for example, be able to improve their customer satisfaction ratings or increase their profitability by specific, measurable amounts.
Participants also spent the last hour of the course devising individual action plans. On their return to work, they met with their regional managing director – who is senior to their line manager – to discuss their specific diversity goals. These were transferred into the appraisal process, ensuring managers were made accountable for delivery of their goals.
It took about two years to get everyone through the diversity leadership training as people were newly promoted or moved positions. Diversity is now included in the ongoing management development programme and all newly promoted managers are given this training.
Middle managers
In considering the training of the middle management group, the company realised that, because of the numbers involved – around 700 people – the external consultancy would need to train up in-house people to deliver the training. Interestingly, it was decided to use operations managers within each region rather than HR people. “The aim was to reinforce the message with managers that diversity is about improving their financial results,” explains Miller. “We have four people trained up per region, with trainers representing almost every operational department, including sales and finance.” The diversity training lasts one day and is ongoing. The topics in this training include: what is diversity and why does it matter?; the company’s changing external context; stereotypes; business benefits for Enterprise; and acting as a change agent. Each session is led by two trainers and sessions take place generally three to four times a year.
Training for all employees
Diversity orientation training was undertaken to help and support all remaining employees to understand the reasons behind the company’s commitment to diversity. The course encompasses different case studies and how diversity applies at all levels for all employees, as well as for customers. In addition, all new recruits must receive the three-hour diversity training module within 90 days of starting with the company. This may be included within the initial induction week or at a later date.
Second-level programme
Enterprise is currently undertaking a second-level diversity programme of one-and-a-half-day sessions for senior managers. This part of the programme focuses on participants’ managerial responsibilities (most participants manage about 50 people) and how they can engender trust in workplace relationships. In particular, it explores how people from different backgrounds and with different experiences can build productive working relationships – for example, a single white woman without children managing an Asian man with children.
The training requires a large amount of reading preparation and participants are asked to give a 10-minute presentation at the beginning of the course on how a diversity issue has impacted on them personally. Miller comments that these have tended to be very personal and can be emotional. She adds: “The courses have established a greater level of trust among colleagues – for example, they have given some people the confidence to ‘come out’ at work.”
Impact
After the training sessions started, Miller’s team started to look for real-life “hard” results, such as examples of participants increasing their sales or winning new customers. Miller explains: “We asked those who had attended the courses, what had they put into practice as a result of the diversity training and what were the positive outcomes. Very soon we began to get noticeable results.”
She cites examples such as an area manager in the north of England who made a determined effort to be more open to older candidates in recruiting for entry-level management positions (rather than focusing on graduates). He took on someone in their fifties with 25 years’ experience in the automotive industry. Using his particular expertise, the recruit helped increase branch sales by 33%, moving his branch from below group average to consistent performance above that level.
In another case, an area manager for southeast England had a team member who was three months pregnant and suffering from health issues, and had a 45-minute drive to work. The manager asked a branch closer to her home to take her on for the next six months. Overcoming their concerns about the potential for a poor sickness record and negative impact on morale, he persuaded the branch to take on the employee on a trial basis. While she was with them, the branch performance improved, with a 25% increase in callbacks and a 20% increase in collection of money. The second branch was reluctant to let the employee return to her original position.
Positive stories like these are shared around the organisation through the quarterly magazine, monthly email newsletter, the intranet and through other internal publications. For example, Enterprise is currently producing a 19point Diversity Scorecard for senior leaders, covering people management issues such as recruitment, promotion and retention. It provides real-life examples of how diversity can add value to the business, with managers able to contact the individuals in the case studies for practical advice.
Since the first diversity training session in 2004, Enterprise’s diversity employment statistics have improved. For example:
* female recruits have increased by 6.43%;
* the overall proportion of women in the workforce has increased by 5.62%;
* the overall ethnic minority representation in the workforce has increased by 5.93%;
* women in management have increased by 4.68%;
* ethnic minorities in management have increased by 7.89%;
* overall retention has increased by 10.02%; and
* 93% of employees are returning from maternity leave. Prior to the diversity training, this was 78%.
Miller claims that the company has also pushed parenting issues, confirming that it is okay for staff to work flexibly to accommodate parenting and caring responsibilities: “We are seeing more men on flexible work schedules and people who work flexibly have been promoted. We are able to demonstrate that we promote on performance only.” She affirms: “Our diversity training programme has really impacted on workplace behaviour and performance.”
Carol Foster is a research officer for Equal Opportunities Review.
Box 1: Enterprise Rent-A-Car
One of the biggest car-rental companies in the world, Enterprise was founded in the United States in 1957 and is still owned and run by the same family. Enterprise has more than 7,000 offices in the UK, Germany, Ireland, the US and Canada. The company started in the UK in 1994 and is now one of the UK’s top three rental car companies.
Enterprise Rent-A-Car is divided into nine regions across the UK, with more than 330 branches employing over 3,000 staff. Branch managers run their location as if it is their own business and a portion of their pay is based on branch profits. The UK workforce is 40% female, with women comprising 34% of management. Ethnic minorities make up 25% of the workforce and 29% of management in the UK. The average age for full-time staff is 27. The company has 800 part-time staff with an average age of 45.
© Michael Rubenstein Publishing Ltd 2008-2010
"Enterprise Rent-A-Car has introduced a company-wide diversity training programme, that has persuaded staff that managing diversity is essential to the company growing and sustaining itself. Carol Foster looks at the issues raised in the design and implementation of the programme.
Key findings
* Enterprise brought in external consultants to devise a training programme on diversity that was directly relevant to its business and demonstrated to staff the benefits of managing diversity.
* European-level directors were trained first, then senior and middle management. Overcoming the scepticism of some managers, the organisation has convinced them of the importance to the future growth of the business of a diverse workforce and awareness of the needs of different groups.
* Further training has been conducted by specially trained in-house trainers. The company has ensured that this is not been regarded as an HR issue, and the in-house trainers come from the whole range of operational areas such as finance and sales.
Enterprise Rent-A-Car believes that the company must reflect the diversity of the marketplace it serves, and that it should continue to extend itself to new, growing and everchanging communities. Donna Miller, Enterprise’s European HR director, explains: “Three-quarters of the UK population are within five miles of an Enterprise location and all our customers, whatever their background, should be able to walk into their local branch and speak with someone with whom they feel comfortable.”
She argues that creating an inclusive workplace helps the organisation to function more effectively: “The diversity training programme aims to give our employees the skills to manage a diverse workforce and customer base. The focus of the training is to build awareness and to get managers to ask routinely ‘How do I ensure that I get the best from all my staff?’”
Design considerations>
Prior to designing the UK training, Miller went to look at Enterprise’s diversity training in the US. “I realised that their training approach wouldn’t work in our UK culture,” she says. “US training focuses on the legal aspects: what the legal requirements are and how to comply with them. We wanted our training to focus on diversity as a business issue.”
Miller explains: “Our overall goal was to make the diversity training really interesting for participants by making it relevant to their everyday commercial decisions. We wanted participants to say: ‘Wow, this is a really important issue that I can use to add value to my business.’ Once diversity is understood to be about improving financial performance then it becomes woven into the fabric of the organisation.”
Credibility
Enterprise deliberately chose to develop a facetoface training programme rather than an online training package. “As a customer-facing organisation, we believed that our training methodology should reflect that,” says Miller. The decision was also taken to put the design and execution of the diversity training out to tender, with the company particularly keen to commission a training organisation that focused on diversity only.
According to Miller, there are a number of advantages to bringing in external diversity specialists: “This is a tricky area and we wanted to get it right. We were unsure whether we had the in-house expertise for the level that we were aiming for.” In addition, it was thought that external trainers would help to give the issue greater credibility among the workforce. “We thought our employees would be too familiar with our own trainers and people would perhaps take the training for granted,” states Miller. “Using external trainers emphasises that the company is taking diversity seriously and helps ensure that participants pay attention.”
Miller believes that to make diversity training really effective, it must be tailored to the business goals and culture of the individual organisation. Before devising the training programme, therefore, the external consultants spent a long time with Enterprise’s senior leaders and familiarising themselves with the organisation, so as to understand the company’s values and priorities. Miller says: “Our people have very high training expectations, so we made the training practical, used real-life scenarios from the workplace and linked it to achieving financial results.”
EU directors
The diversity training programme started in July 2004 with two sessions for the top leadership team of EU directors, of about 28 people. The topics covered included developing an understanding of the business case for diversity in Enterprise, developing the skills to act as an effective change agent for diversity and developing plans to address key local diversity issues. Miller stresses: “It is important that diversity is led by the senior team and operations, and not HR. I have noticed in other organisations where diversity is led by the HR function, only about half have the support of their chief executive and senior team for promoting diversity. Commitment to diversity must start at the executive level and senior directors must live diversity values.”
Senior management training
The second stage of the programme was to train the next management tier, around 200 senior managers who are located throughout the UK and Ireland. The issue here was how to deliver the training as efficiently as possible, given that it would mean pulling senior leaders out of their businesses and away from customers. The decision was taken to conduct the training at the company HQ in Surrey, rather than on a site within each of Enterprise’s nine UK regions.
Miller explains: “Training senior managers from one region locally would have been less disruptive to the business. However, some of our regions are not very diverse due to their locations. So we decided to conduct a series of training sessions at HQ, bringing together senior managers from different regions. For example, we could put people from ethnically diverse areas like Birmingham or London with people from regions where there is little diversity, like Scotland. This meant that they could share experiences and learn from each other, as well as from the trainers.”
The two-day diversity leadership training course was given to around 15 people per session. The intensive, interactive course focused on awareness-raising, identifying the participant’s own prejudices and stereotyping. It covered a wide range of topics, such as crosscultural awareness, male–female communication and the needs of single parents and employees with children. The aim was to give managers the skills to handle real-life situations and to encourage different ways of thinking, so that they became better leaders and managers.
Overcoming scepticism
Miller admits that initially managers were sceptical about attending the diversity courses. However, after the first two or three training sessions, people realised that the courses focused on how managing diversity well could help grow their business. At the beginning of the course, participants discussed what they hoped to get out of the training, and the course leaders suggested that participants would, for example, be able to improve their customer satisfaction ratings or increase their profitability by specific, measurable amounts.
Participants also spent the last hour of the course devising individual action plans. On their return to work, they met with their regional managing director – who is senior to their line manager – to discuss their specific diversity goals. These were transferred into the appraisal process, ensuring managers were made accountable for delivery of their goals.
It took about two years to get everyone through the diversity leadership training as people were newly promoted or moved positions. Diversity is now included in the ongoing management development programme and all newly promoted managers are given this training.
Middle managers
In considering the training of the middle management group, the company realised that, because of the numbers involved – around 700 people – the external consultancy would need to train up in-house people to deliver the training. Interestingly, it was decided to use operations managers within each region rather than HR people. “The aim was to reinforce the message with managers that diversity is about improving their financial results,” explains Miller. “We have four people trained up per region, with trainers representing almost every operational department, including sales and finance.” The diversity training lasts one day and is ongoing. The topics in this training include: what is diversity and why does it matter?; the company’s changing external context; stereotypes; business benefits for Enterprise; and acting as a change agent. Each session is led by two trainers and sessions take place generally three to four times a year.
Training for all employees
Diversity orientation training was undertaken to help and support all remaining employees to understand the reasons behind the company’s commitment to diversity. The course encompasses different case studies and how diversity applies at all levels for all employees, as well as for customers. In addition, all new recruits must receive the three-hour diversity training module within 90 days of starting with the company. This may be included within the initial induction week or at a later date.
Second-level programme
Enterprise is currently undertaking a second-level diversity programme of one-and-a-half-day sessions for senior managers. This part of the programme focuses on participants’ managerial responsibilities (most participants manage about 50 people) and how they can engender trust in workplace relationships. In particular, it explores how people from different backgrounds and with different experiences can build productive working relationships – for example, a single white woman without children managing an Asian man with children.
The training requires a large amount of reading preparation and participants are asked to give a 10-minute presentation at the beginning of the course on how a diversity issue has impacted on them personally. Miller comments that these have tended to be very personal and can be emotional. She adds: “The courses have established a greater level of trust among colleagues – for example, they have given some people the confidence to ‘come out’ at work.”
Impact
After the training sessions started, Miller’s team started to look for real-life “hard” results, such as examples of participants increasing their sales or winning new customers. Miller explains: “We asked those who had attended the courses, what had they put into practice as a result of the diversity training and what were the positive outcomes. Very soon we began to get noticeable results.”
She cites examples such as an area manager in the north of England who made a determined effort to be more open to older candidates in recruiting for entry-level management positions (rather than focusing on graduates). He took on someone in their fifties with 25 years’ experience in the automotive industry. Using his particular expertise, the recruit helped increase branch sales by 33%, moving his branch from below group average to consistent performance above that level.
In another case, an area manager for southeast England had a team member who was three months pregnant and suffering from health issues, and had a 45-minute drive to work. The manager asked a branch closer to her home to take her on for the next six months. Overcoming their concerns about the potential for a poor sickness record and negative impact on morale, he persuaded the branch to take on the employee on a trial basis. While she was with them, the branch performance improved, with a 25% increase in callbacks and a 20% increase in collection of money. The second branch was reluctant to let the employee return to her original position.
Positive stories like these are shared around the organisation through the quarterly magazine, monthly email newsletter, the intranet and through other internal publications. For example, Enterprise is currently producing a 19point Diversity Scorecard for senior leaders, covering people management issues such as recruitment, promotion and retention. It provides real-life examples of how diversity can add value to the business, with managers able to contact the individuals in the case studies for practical advice.
Since the first diversity training session in 2004, Enterprise’s diversity employment statistics have improved. For example:
* female recruits have increased by 6.43%;
* the overall proportion of women in the workforce has increased by 5.62%;
* the overall ethnic minority representation in the workforce has increased by 5.93%;
* women in management have increased by 4.68%;
* ethnic minorities in management have increased by 7.89%;
* overall retention has increased by 10.02%; and
* 93% of employees are returning from maternity leave. Prior to the diversity training, this was 78%.
Miller claims that the company has also pushed parenting issues, confirming that it is okay for staff to work flexibly to accommodate parenting and caring responsibilities: “We are seeing more men on flexible work schedules and people who work flexibly have been promoted. We are able to demonstrate that we promote on performance only.” She affirms: “Our diversity training programme has really impacted on workplace behaviour and performance.”
Carol Foster is a research officer for Equal Opportunities Review.
Box 1: Enterprise Rent-A-Car
One of the biggest car-rental companies in the world, Enterprise was founded in the United States in 1957 and is still owned and run by the same family. Enterprise has more than 7,000 offices in the UK, Germany, Ireland, the US and Canada. The company started in the UK in 1994 and is now one of the UK’s top three rental car companies.
Enterprise Rent-A-Car is divided into nine regions across the UK, with more than 330 branches employing over 3,000 staff. Branch managers run their location as if it is their own business and a portion of their pay is based on branch profits. The UK workforce is 40% female, with women comprising 34% of management. Ethnic minorities make up 25% of the workforce and 29% of management in the UK. The average age for full-time staff is 27. The company has 800 part-time staff with an average age of 45.
© Michael Rubenstein Publishing Ltd 2008-2010