Northern Trust Corp., McDonald’s Corp. and State Farm Insurance Cos. made the list of Black Enterprise magazine’s “40 best companies for diversity.” The three companies also made the list in 2009.
Northern Trust of Chicago was lauded for having a diverse board of directors. McDonald’s of Oak Brook exhibits diversity in all four categories that the magazine considers in its ranking: employee base, senior management, board of directors and supplier diversity.
Bloomington-based State Farm’s strengths include diverse management and suppliers, the magazine said.
In 2009, Exelon Corp. made the list, but the utility didn’t make the cut this year.
Northern Trust said it recently established Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Councils that work with each business unit. Latina Style magazine recently named it one of the “50 best companies for Latinas.”
To select the companies, Black Enterprise sent surveys to the top 1,000 publicly traded companies, as well as 100 other companies with strong U.S. operations.
Other financial services firms that were among the 40 include Aetna Inc., Aflac Inc., American Express Co. and Bank of America. Other food companies that made the list include Burger King Corp., Coca-Cola Co., General Mills Inc., Pepsico Inc. and Yum Brands Inc.
byerak@tribune.com
Winning awards like this is nothing to be proud of. Hiring, promotion, and contracting decisions should be made on the merits, and without regard to race, ethnicity, or sex. Unfortunately, corporate “diversity” programs are typically about making sure that decisions are made with plenty of weight given to racial, ethnic, and gender bean-counting. That’s too bad, and these companies should be sued, not praised.