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“Embrace Diversity” Postcards Kathy Baier, Doug Clement and Sue KrausLockheed Martin MS2 Moorestown, New Jersey, U.S.

NEED/OPPORTUNITY / Lockheed Martin is facing a mammoth demographic problem: Many of the com-pany’s 70,000 engineers are expected to retire within the next 15 years. To keep its edge, the companyneeds to replenish a workforce that is traditionally heavily recruited from the military with young engi-neers, scientists and managers from all backgrounds who have the ability to think across traditional bor-ders. For the past three years, Lockheed Martin President and CEO Bob Stevens has emphasized that thesolution to this workforce transition lies in breaking away from the traditional engineering workforce—one that is heavily Caucasian and mostly male. Instead, Stevens has emphasized that Lockheed Martinmust deliberately create a workforce that is more diverse and inclusive of not only racial differences, butalso of differences in beliefs, backgrounds and experiences.

In 2007, the Lockheed Martin MS2 employee communications and design team felt they needed to movebeyond standard communication tools and messages, and find a way to help employees understand thenuances of beliefs and backgrounds that contribute to an inclusive work environment. In other words, theywanted to explore the thoughts and beliefs around individual differences, and in doing so move beyondpromoting diversity as a Black/White/Hispanic/other minority group issue. The team discussed severaloptions. The solution centered on an “Embrace Diversity” print postcard campaign—every MS2 employ-ee would receive a series of three postcards over four months, each with specific, thought-provoking top-ics. The team chose this approach for several reasons:

4 Because of the heavy use of e-mail and other electronic communication, employees receive verylittle print material from MS2. The team believed a print piece would stand out from the electron-ic overload many employees experience.

4 Multiple postcards could be created, and a selection of postcards could be distributed each month.This allowed the team to explore more than just a handful of issues, while remaining within theproject budget.

4 The postcards could be strategically sorted so employees received a different postcard from a peerwho was seated in an office/cubicle next to them. This was designed to encourage conversationabout the topics among employees.

INTENDED AUDIENCE / Lockheed Martin MS2 is comprised of 13,000 employees. While the majorityof employees are engineers and researchers, there is still a large number of employees who do not have tech-nical backgrounds. Employees are located at 76 sites worldwide, ranging from groups of one to twoemployees who work onsite at customer locations to large complexes housing more than 5,000 employees.

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MS2’s employee base tends to skew older, given the legacy of industry growth that occurred in the 1960sand 1970s. Overall, approximately 20 percent of employees are age 55 or older, 35 percent are 45–54, 20percent are 35–44, and 25 percent are 25–34. However, MS2 is hiring 500–750 new employees a year, andthe percentage of employees age 25–45 will continue to grow in the next several years. Along with thisdiverse audience base comes a wealth of different beliefs, backgrounds and perspectives that could beexplored through the postcard series.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES / The overall communication objective was to create eye-catching, thought-provoking work that would not only capture the attention of the employee audience, but also get them tothink about their own reactions and beliefs. The intent was to explore realistic scenarios—issues that canarise at any time in the day-to-day work environment. With this understanding of the business situation,the team established the following goals for their work in 2007:

Engage employees by providing vibrant, consistent and relevant diversity information to increase theirunderstanding and acceptance of inclusive behavior.

4 Set the stage for greater employee involvement and engagement in both diversity communicationsand the company’s efforts to create a diverse, inclusive work environment. (This acknowledges thatchanging a culture takes time and continuous effort. It is not a “one year and be done” program.)

Two key objectives were established:

4 Reach at least 75 percent of employees with a targeted diversity postcard series.

4 Establish a solid baseline of employee understanding of what constitutes a diverse environment.The team had not measured this understanding previously, so their work would serve as a baselinefor future efforts.

KEY MESSAGES/THEMES / As a corporation, Lockheed Martin’s goal is to create an inclusive work envi-ronment in which all people are valued and their ideas encouraged and respected.

4 A diverse and inclusive work environment is more than accepting attributes such as race, sex andreligious beliefs. It’s about accepting the variety of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives thatmake each individual unique.

4 The diversity of the workforce provides the competitive edge needed for MS2 to succeed in theglobal marketplace. A diverse and inclusive workforce allows the company to benefit from the dif-ferent backgrounds and perspectives of colleagues, and fosters more creative and innovative think-ing throughout the organization.

4 Respecting others’ perspectives and backgrounds is more than a business imperative—it’s also theright thing to do.

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CREATIVE RATIONALE / Twelve different postcards were designed, exploring themes such as generationaldifferences, cultural and religious traditions, teamwork, military experience, and sports colloquialisms. Theintent was to explore realistic scenarios—issues that can arise any time in the day-to-day work environ-ment. The team wanted to avoid using stock photography or illustrations that included people becausethey wanted employees to focus on the issues and language, not whether it was a gender or race issue. Thefinal design focused on “conversation bubbles”—similar to those that appear in comic strips—as a way topresent thoughts and reactions in a neutral way. The dialogue was written to be a bit more edgy than tra-ditional company communications about diversity, in order to attract the attention of employees in a morethought-provoking way. Given the positive reaction to the first set of postcards, the team quickly createdan employee contest to generate future postcard ideas and presented those concepts in electronic formatduring the corporation’s Diversity Awareness Week in September 2007.

BUDGET/STAFF REQUIREMENTS

By using existing communications, design and Web staff across the organization, the project managementand development costs were absorbed by standard department payroll. The team only needed to pay forthe printing of the postcards and shipping to the various MS2 sites, for a total cost of approximatelyUS$6,800.00—or just US$0.12 per employee for the campaign. The campaign was developed in April andMay, and distribution began in June 2007 as scheduled.

CHALLENGES / Ironically, the one challenge the team expected to encounter—getting senior executivebuy-in on the postcard topics and language—did not occur. Rather, senior leadership felt the postcardswere well thought-out, provocative and dealt with pertinent issues. The most difficult challenge was devel-oping an accurate distribution list for employees to receive a printed postcard. With the wide use of elec-tronic communications, keeping an up-to-date list of employee office locations within each facility has notbeen a business priority. The team addressed this with a secondary campaign to encourage employees toupdate their office locations and personal information in the company database, and by working closelywith mailroom staff at each location. While the team did not achieve 100 percent distribution, each seriesof postcards achieved a higher distribution rate than the previous one.

MEASUREMENT/EVALUATION / 4 Objective: Reach at least 75 percent of employees with targeted diversity communication. Based

on returned cards and a nonscientific poll of employees, communication leads and mailroom staffacross locations, an estimated 70 percent of employees received the first batch of postcards. Thatnumber reached up to 90 percent of employees for the final set of postcards.

4 Objective: Establish a solid baseline of employee understanding of what constitutes a diverse envi-ronment. Following each of the postcard distributions, the team conducted an online survey andreceived nearly 1,000 responses (just under 10 percent of the workforce, and thus considered sta-

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tistically valid). With each of the postcard distributions, 62–65.5 percent of employees recalledreceiving the postcard; 43 percent felt the diversity message was new, different and made themthink; and up to 50 percent believed the message was effective. Again, because the team had notmeasured the effectiveness of diversity messaging in the past, this gave them a solid baseline towork against in future years.

In late September 2007, the HR organization surveyed employees’ perspectives on diversity and LockheedMartin’s communication of diversity as a business imperative. It revealed the following strong metrics:

4 A total of 85.2 percent of employees indicated that they agreed or strongly agreed that MS2 is seri-ous about its commitment to having a diverse, inclusive work environment.

4 A total of 84.5 percent of employees indicated that the benefits of a diverse, inclusive work envi-ronment had been clearly communicated to them.

In addition to the quantitative feedback, the team received a number of notable e-mails from employees:

4 “I like them! I thought the concept was a little ‘hokey’ until I actually read them. And you man-aged to touch on one of my pet peeves. I’m ex-Navy with no traditional degree and the last post-card addressed the concern I have that some folks think one has to have a sheepskin on the officewall to be effective. That’s not true. Thanks for sharing that message!”

4 “May I say I am not a fan of what I consider corporate group-hug efforts—strange for an old guywho would benefit from diversity-think—but I must compliment you on your campaign …espe-cially the bubble-conversation post cards I have seen. Brilliant marketing.”

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