Hiring & Diversity
Thoughtful and deliberate hiring efforts will help us attract employees with the skills and talent necessary to grow our business. We seek talented individuals at every level, and we provide a variety of development programs to prepare our employees to assume greater leadership positions within the company. In addition, we work with our local communities to identify promising talent that will lead to a diverse, healthy workforce. We continue to look for ways to increase diversity at all levels of our company.
We promote hiring from within our organization because we believe in providing opportunities for growth and career advancement. We view it as a path to retain great people and as the most cost-effective way to fill open positions. In FY ‘09, we narrowly missed our goal of filling 20% of our open positions from within the organization, but we’ll aim for that again as our goal for FY ’10. We are staying at the 20% target because our rapid growth translates to a higher number of entry level openings not normally attractive to internal applicants.
The links at right show the diversity and geographic profile of our total company and our policies related to Equal Employment Opportunities and Freedom of Association.
Women made up 28.7% of management and 37.5% of our total workforce. Employees self-identifying themselves as non-white made up 6.3% of our management and 7.9% of our total workforce. We define management as employees in the official Equal Employment Opportunity categories of Executive/Senior Level Officials/Managers and First/Mid-Level Officials and Managers.
Two women served on our eight-member Board of Directors at the end of FY ‘09. The Boston Club recognized us in their 2003 and 2005 Corporate Salute, in which they honor companies with two or more women on their boards of directors. Two of our six Executive Officers and three of eight direct reports to the Chief Executive Officer are women.
Partners of our full-time employees all qualify equally for our benefits, whether they are spouses, domestic partners, or partners through a civil union. This policy, established in 1999, embodies the kind of respect for human dignity we expect in our workplace, and we believe it will help us attract a more diverse workforce, especially in areas outside Vermont.
