Ask some big corporations in the San Fernando Valley about the make-up of their workforces and they will happily talk about their diversity. But just what does that mean? A generation ago the word would have been confined to physical attributes race, ethnicity and gender but in the 21st century the word has been broadened to include educational and socioeconomic backgrounds, military experience, English-language proficiency and even whether a person works full or part time, in an office or telecommuting. With workers staying on the job longer the grizzled veteran who entered the job market straight out of high school shares a working environment with the pampered Millennial college graduate. And in the pursuit of diversity, both can learn from each other. Going hand-in-hand with diversity is the buzzword of inclusion, a term probably easier to define when applied to the workplace. Darold Sawyer sums it up as including everyone and excluding no one. “It gives recognition to the vast skill sets from everybody that makes up our workforce and helps us be the successful company we choose to be,” said Sawyer, manager of diversity and equal opportunity programs for Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in Canoga Park. Of the 2,500 employees of the maker of rocket and jet engines, women made up 26.4 percent of the workforce at the end of last year while minorities comprised 31.1 percent. Statistics, however, are lacking on the breakdown of women and minority workers in the Valley. For Los Angeles County, census figures for 2000 show that of a labor force of 4.3 million, more than half of that is made up of minority races other than white. Hispanics were the highest number at 2.9 million. Women made up 1.9 million of the labor force with all but 705,000 of minority races other than white. U.S. Labor Department figures report that in 2004 there were 16.6 million Africa Americans in the workplace, 6.3 million Asians, and 19.3 million of Hispanic origin. Of those groups, Hispanics were projected to gain the most by 2014, with 25.8 million workers. For the most part with a few exceptions such as manufacturing with its older white male workers industry in the county does reflect the population mix, said Jack Kyser, chief economist with the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. Los Angeles is in a unique position to make it easier for employers to make their workforce diverse because it is an international city with an influx of potential workers coming from Mexico, Central and South Americas, Asia, Canada and Europe, Kyser said. “I don’t think they have to worry about it,” Kyser added. “At one time in the 1950s you really had to work at it but now it just happens and it’s very simple.” Corporations still need to make some effort to bring in minority and women employees. Now in a major hiring phase, Pratt & Whitney casts a wide net for its entry-level engineers. While state colleges and universities have served the company well as recruiting fields, said Sawyer, those in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic states and Northeast give access to a different student body than found in Southern California. In addition, the company is establishing relationships with historically black colleges across the U.S. “From a diversity standpoint this gives recognition to the broader demographic shift that will make up our workforce in the years to come,” Sawyer said. As a principal consultant with executive search firm McDermott & Bull in Woodland Hills, Fleming Jones has been expressly told to find candidates to add diversity to a client’s workplace. In June, Jones worked with a client that has been a traditionally male-dominated company but senior management recognized the need for women employees as a smart business choice, Jones said. “They see that diversity in opinion and experience will help them in the long run,” Jones When looking for an executive or a lower level employee the standard of hiring the best person possible still applies. That’s the philosophy at Askenazy Development and Pueblo Contracting Services in the city of San Fernando. The two companies reflect the area of the Valley they are located in and when hiring all applicants are considered because they want the best people, co-owner Martha Diaz Aszkenazy said. With a large Latino market in the Valley being bilingual and bicultural can make a difference when dealing with certain potential tenants, Aszkenazy said. “We also have some employees who are Armenian that give us a different kind of edge, too,” Aszkenazy said. But if large Valley companies are diverse at the staff and middle management levels that is not always the case at the executive level and in the board room. The Pepsi Bottling Group, for instance, employs 327 workers at its warehouse in the city of San Fernando. But only two minorities and no women are in senior management positions and the sole executive position is filled by a white male. To get into those positions requires a mentor who takes an active interest in having a diverse executive team, said Valley Economic Development Center President Roberto Barragan. “People speak of diversity but when it comes to executive management that is a rarified atmosphere,” Barragan said. At Pepsi Bottling, senior managers make presentations to junior management to let them know there is someone they can talk with or call with questions about career advancement. “They’ll talk about how to move up in the organization,” Steve Murk, human resources manager for the Pepsi Bottling Group. When it comes to representation on boards of directors by women and people of color, it remains “the last frontier,” Barragan said. For instance, of the twelve members of The Walt Disney Co. board of directors nine are men and of those seven are white. At Countrywide Financial, 8 of the 10 members of its board are white males. Online service provider United Online has one woman among its six-member board of directors, while Glendale-based restaurant chain IHOP Corp. has that rarity of a woman CEO in Julia Stewart who also serves as its board chairman. There is some validity when a company says they can’t find anyone to serve on their board to make it more diverse but at the same time nothing is being done to change that, Barragan said. “We have to encourage companies to look at diversity as something that’s not just something you have at the checkout counter,” Barragan said. “It has to be something with a president’s title or someone sitting at the board table. Then we have real diversity.”