Today, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest advocacy group for , ***, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) equality, announced the results of their 2009 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) scores. We’re thrilled to report that Dell has received a perfect score of 100 for the fifth year in a row.
Dell’s commitment to GLBT equality is a critical component of our diversity and inclusion efforts. Here at Dell, “inclusion” spans not only differences in race, gender and sexual orientation, but also geographic locations, education, ethnicity and communication styles. We celebrate recognition like our fifth consecutive perfect score on HRC’s CEI, as it validates our focus and gives us a chance to demonstrate our diversity commitment to our employees. From a talent acquisition standpoint, Dell also benefits from its diversity commitment by having access to the broadest possible talent pool, which is vital to Dell’s continued growth and success.
As Gil Casellas, our vice president of corporate responsibility, posted a few weeks ago, diversity is also critical to our business success. We need to reach an increasingly diverse customer base – for example small, minority- and women-owned businesses are increasing IT spend faster than almost any other business sector and we want Dell to be their IT partner of choice. And sourcing from a diverse supplier base is increasingly important to us – these suppliers of today are the fast growing small business customers of tomorrow.
Dell can be proud of receiving a perfect HRC score for five years in a row — few companies of our size can claim the same. Tremendous effort by many Dell employees went into bringing our company to this point. We believe our leadership is having an impact outside of Dell as well — this year the number of companies receiving perfect CEI scores is the largest ever and grew by one-third over last year.
In partnering with HRC to announce this year’s CEI results, Gil is quoted as saying:
Dell is celebrating our perfect score on HRC’s corporate equality index for the fifth year in a row. Recognition always pushes Dell to move to the next level and so we’ll continue our efforts advocating for , ***, bisexual and transgendered equality. It’s part of our global diversity efforts, which aren’t just corporate goals, rather they are a critical component of our leadership and business success.
In the coming days you’ll hear from my colleague Kayla Shell about Dell’s leadership with another leading GLBT diversity advocate organization, Out & Equal, about their annual summit being held in Austin, thanks in part to Dell’s efforts. You can always read more about our diversity efforts here.