Owning the largest Executive Search firm in America that specializes in the Loss Prevention/Security industry has, for more than 19 years, put us in a unique position of seeing, understanding and agreeing with Corporate America's sensitivity to increasing their diversity populations within their respective organizations. This emphasis has truly taken hold over the last five years especially and quite frankly is a little overdue.
The good old boy mentality that prevailed in the 1960s and '70s, began to erode in the '80s, became a bad word in the '90s, and has been virtually wiped out in the new millennium. And now we're all dealing with the problem of "Why aren't there more diversity candidates out there?"
This is a question that every client we have has asked us over the last few years and we need to look no further then the public law enforcement agencies across America to find the answer. For over 20 years, these agencies have been legally mandated to aggressively pursue, recruit and increase their diversity populations. And rightfully so. When taking into consideration two facts you can then see why this industry's diversity representation is so low. First, the vast majority of individuals in this industry who attended college were Criminal Justice majors with deep desires to join the Federal, State, or Local law enforcement agencies. Second, these agencies were there and aggressively recruiting at the university level.
The Public Law Enforcement agencies, regardless of their motivation, were way ahead of the private sector and now we're all feeling the pressure to make up for lost time and balance the playing field. Quite frankly, it has been the Human Resource departments throughout America that have been truly leading this charge and forcing everyone to address the situation. And it's about time.
However, it is also the Human Resource department's responsibility to help. And this writer has only seen one company with a strong college-recruiting program for Loss Prevention in 19 years. Until such time as this industry makes college recruiting a priority we will continue to suffer the consequences of low diversity numbers and hear that vacuum sound in the public law enforcement sector.
Also, the diversity representatives that now hold executive positions in this industry need to support their respective trade associations, the only one of which the writer is aware of is, for example, the International Organization of Black Security Executives (IOBSE), and help if not lead Corporate America's effort in attracting and recruiting more diversity!
Change is slow, but now is the time for all of us to work together and address this as an industry. For more information about the International Organization of Black Security Executives (IOBSE) please call 1-888-88-IOBSE (1-888-884-6273) or visit their website at www.iobse.com.
