Raymond J. Arroyo
Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer
Aetna
One of Black Enterprise’s 2010 Best Companies for Diversity, Aetna is one of a handful of companies to achieve a 100% rating in corporate equality by the Human Rights Campaign. According to VP & CDO Raymond Arroyo, “Our diversity scorecard is part of the company’s overall scorecard by which compensation and bonuses are determined.â€
The insurance provider has some 15 different employee support groups that recognize race, gender, religion, people with disabilities, and teleworkers. Particularly notable is Aetna’s resource group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) employees. “Aetna has been a gay friendly organization for many years,†Arroyo says. “We have included benefits and bereavement policies for domestic partners since 1995. We added sexual orientation to our EO policy nearly two decades ago. We added gender identity in 2001 and we added gender reassignment surgery to our employee benefits as well any company that has a contract with us as recent as 2009.â€
Arroyo’s advocates diversity being integrated throughout all parts of a business–workforce, customers, suppliers, health care professionals, products and services. “It should not reside in just human resources or be this stand-alone unit in the company. It should be integrated into the fabric of all that we do.â€
Continued on the next page: How to integrate diversity from the top management down