Pitney Bowes is well known for being a leader in the development of mailing, shipping and postage equipment and services. Customers also know the company is a leader in software development including location intelligence applications, secure tracking, data management and document composition and imaging. Yet listing the products and services that Pitney Bowes offers does not convey the true identity of the firm because it’s also a model organization for diversity and inclusion to which it ascribes much of its success.
Walter H. Wheeler was CEO and Chairman of Pitney Bowes for three decades (1938 to 1971) and steered the company to enormous success through diversity of products, services, ideas, suppliers and the workforce. Current Chairman, President and CEO Murray Martin vigorously continues the diversity philosophy that defines Pitney Bowes. The company has 33,000 global based employees. Their unifying factor is a corporate culture with a rich history of diversity pervading workforce initiatives, product and service development efforts, talent management strategies, innovative thinking, strategic community and supplier partnerships and community participation.
Specifically, the company monitors its workforce composition on a location basis to ensure it represents local demographics. Pitney Bowes achieves remarkable diversity by forming strategic partnerships that help the company identify and recruit top and diverse talent. They include partnerships with organizations including the Society of Women Engineers, the Society of Hispanic MBAs, and the National Society of Black Engineers.
The company also formed the Europe-based International Diversity and Inclusion Council to ensure businesses in various geographies come together to promote the corporate culture of diversity and inclusion. The goal is to develop specific strategies to insure diversity is actionable and not just theoretical at the corporate and local levels by relying on mentoring, internships, networking and leadership opportunities
DiversityGlobal Editor-in-Chief Paul Lachhu sat down with Mr. Martin during the Global Diversity Conference at the New York Stock Exchange where he gave a full sense of the embedded diversity and inclusion culture defining Pitney Bowes.
Pitney Bowes is a leader in diversity and inclusion. What are some specific things the company is doing differently from other companies?
We are not necessarily doing anything different, but we do make an ongoing effort to focus on inclusion of people of all races, genders, ethnicities, cultures and ages. Then we foster equal opportunity by encouraging a diverse workforce to freely participate in discussions and express opinions. If everyone thinks the same way, nothing new will come out of the discussions. The corporate environment must be open enough to promote debate, openness and creativity. Innovation in a corner does nothing. Innovation on a broad scale creates value, and our whole company is built on innovation.
What do you see as the biggest challenge concerning diversity and its relationship to the bottom line?
At Pitney Bowes, diversity is a way of life. I don’t think there is a challenge between diversity and the bottom line. It shouldn’t be a challenge to promote a diversity of people, ideas and approaches. It also shouldn’t cost a company more to be diverse because diversity is a value proposition adding value to a company. For companies initiating diversity, there may be a small initial investment in education and developing people, but companies that aren’t diverse will pay a much bigger price in terms of lack of innovation and competitiveness.
Companies in the United States often make the mistake of trying to export their sense of diversity to other countries. As a global company, does Pitney Bowes do something differently?
Growing up in a diverse Canadian community, I have an appreciation for the importance of inclusion. Senior management leaders and I have been hosting seminars around the world to discuss diversity and inclusion in various regions of the world. I was recently at a meeting in London. I look at the English team and ask, “Is it all English?” If so, we have a problem. Team formation should begin with an assessment and breakdown of the cultural and linguistic diversity of the country. That is followed by an ethnic breakdown.
We must understand and work within the culture of the country. For example, India has different cultural issues in various areas and a different representation of women in the workforce and in management. These differences are part of the country’s social fabric. For Pitney Bowes the question is: How do we blend cultures and representations in a way that is beneficial to all? That’s where strategic partnerships with organizations like Catalyst, a nonprofit membership organization expanding opportunities for business and women, can help. Catalyst does the broader research we can’t do and brings knowledge that can help us succeed in India.
How do you see Pitney Bowes leveraging diversity to keep making the breathtaking innovations it made in the past?
If I look at the innovations developed and the people involved in making those innovations, it’s diversity that emerges as the common factor. We recently had a ribbon cutting with Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy in Danbury to launch a new Global Technology Center. At the same time we are operating technology centers in England, India, Australia, France, Germany and other locations. These centers communicate together easily thanks to technology. Each center is already diverse but each reaches across a broad network of diverse capabilities while working to develop global technologies. All of this means you have to have a richer understanding of diversity than you get from a single point.
What do you think are the key metrics that are going to drive diversity in the 21st century?
Communication in the marketplace has drastically changed due to technology based innovations like social networking, local search and global access, while the economy and customer preferences have changed the business landscape. The first thing to understand about future markets is that personalization is going to be the leading factor in how people procure services. And you cannot understand how to personalize unless you have a broad understanding of diversity and innovation. If you are excluding sectors as a result of communication systems or practices, everybody will soon know. That awareness will effectively eliminate a business from the procurement side. Businesses are going to have to embrace diversity on a whole different level as personalization takes over and the individual takes control of market offerings.
The businesses must be aligned with the markets served, or else they will be disconnected and unable to deliver products or services. At Pitney Bowes, we believe our business is strengthened by reflecting and converging a diverse workforce in a diverse market. The role of metrics will be to help us redefine growth opportunities and re-energize our focus on diversity and inclusion.
Numbers are important, but they are only part of the story. I recently hosted a series of special meetings to challenge top management to rethink diversity and inclusion. They were tasked with articulating value and defining specific leadership actions that are tied to their compensation. One of the highlights of the meeting was an executive vice president insisting we not lose sight of the fact that valuing diversity and inclusion is not only good for business, but it’s the right thing to do.
My first thought was that Walter Wheeler would be proud of us today.