The survey reflects answers from 47 for-profit companies and 50 non-profit groups to questions about their boards, top management, suppliers and their workforce.
View full sizeJob seekers wait in line for a job fair to open in Independence.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Minority representation in senior management jobs improved slightly last year, but diversity held flat in the boardroom and fell in the workforce, an annual survey of large Northeast Ohio employers found.
And these local companies and nonprofits channeled a smaller slice of their spending to minority-owned businesses, according to the 10th annual diversity survey from the Commission on Economic Inclusion.
"The 2010 survey's quantitative results should cause our membership to question our rate of progress ... over the past decade," the commission, the diversity-focused arm of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, wrote in an executive summary of the survey results.
Since 2001, minority executives and workers have made headway at Northeast Ohio companies, said Andrew Jackson, the commission's executive director. That progress waned somewhat during the recession, he added, as some employers cut jobs and curbed spending.
"There's certainly significant progress being made in all four categories of this survey. I will tell you that," Jackson said. "Could there be more? Yes. And our challenge is not to rest on our laurels."
The survey reflects answers from 47 for-profit companies and 50 non-profit groups -- all commission members -- to questions about their boards, top management, suppliers and their workforce.
Each participant receives a scorecard, showing how a company or nonprofit ranks in comparison to the group; however, the commission will not release details on the performance of individual employers.
"We're trying to get impact, not embarrassment," Jackson said, adding that the survey is meant to create awareness and to encourage employers to diversify.
For the 95 employers that participated in both 2009 and 2010, the survey found that:
• Minority representation on boards held flat last year, at 15.8 percent. In 2010, the total survey group of 97 employers had 1,622 board members, 260 of whom were minorities.
• Minorities comprised 13.4 percent of senior management, up slightly from 12.7 percent in 2009. Collectively, the 97 employers had 4,683 senior managers -- defined as chief executives and two levels below them -- and 753 were minorities.
• Minorities made up 22 percent of the workforce, down from 23 percent in 2009.
• Employers spent more money -- $2.23 billion -- with minority-owned suppliers last year. But those companies grabbed a smaller share -- 7.3 percent, down from 9 percent in 2009 -- of total spending. The employers spent $339 million with minority-owned companies in Northeast Ohio last year. That was also a jump in total dollars but a smaller slice -- 8.1 percent instead of 8.8 percent -- of the regional pie.
More detailed survey results and the commission's annual report will be published next week.
The commission gave eight companies the title of "Best in Class," based on their numbers and their policies for promoting and maintaining diversity: University Hospitals and FirstEnergy Corp. for board diversity; the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority and KeyCorp for senior-management diversity; Case Western Reserve University and U.S. Bank for workforce diversity; and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and Turner Construction Co. for supplier diversity.
Four employers were named to a hall of fame for several years of top performance: Kaiser Permanente and KeyCorp. for board diversity; Eaton Corp. for senior-management diversity; and Time Warner Cable's Northeast Ohio division, for workforce diversity.