Arkansas native hopes to help local companies with diversity
Posted on Thursday, February 2, 2006
The increase in diversity in the Arkansas workforce has led to a Dallas-based human resources firm opening an office in Little Rock.
Hattie Hill Enterprises provides companies with counseling services in leadership, customer service and diversity in the changing workplace. The firm’s administration started preparing in 2005 to open the branch, which will be run by company president Carole Smith. "If you look at the growing population in this country, the Caucasian population is decreasing," Smith said. "As you move forward into the future, the employees companies will be hiring are not going to look necessarily as they have in the past."
With a specialty in workplace diversity, the firm assists in improving organization and coaching employees on how to work better as a team and how to better understand their peers.
Smith and Chief Executive Officer Hattie Hill this week scheduled a series of meetings in Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley to become more familiar with the state. Among the trends they have encountered are the ever-increasing number of Hispanics seeking job opportunities in Arkansas, as well as the workforce encompassing four generations.
Hill founded the company 20 years ago. In that time, the firm has partnered with organizations in 42 countries. Among its clients are Southwest Airlines, McDonald’s, State Farm Insurance, Texas Instruments, the Susan G. Komen Foundation and University of Arkansas Medical Sciences.
Hill is an Arkansas native and graduate of Arkansas State University. To her, the new office provides an opportunity to split time between the home office in Dallas and her home state. "My mother still lives here, and I always wanted to try to figure out a way to come back," Hill said. "Now Arkansas is just exploding. Diversity is big all over the country, but in Arkansas it’s just huge."
Hill based the entrance in the Arkansas market on several statistics — a U.S. Census Bureau estimate that nearly 40,000 Hispanics currently work in the state, a UAMS evaluation stating its 9,000 base employees represent 72 countries, the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services declaring work places are seeing an increase in females, and an estimated 21.5 percent of the state’s population considered disabled, according to the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Hill and Smith now hope to convince employers to ease a corporate tradition of strict conformity for their employees and instead allow companies’ standards to somewhat find middle ground with their varying employees. "One of the keys to success in the corporate world is companies need to leverage those differences in the work place," Smith said.
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