>> When it comes to our organization we have a very diverse demographic of customers that travel on JetBlue. With almost 30 international destinations, we do know that diversity plays a big part in our hiring process. My name is Robert Bilak. I am the Director of Crew Relations and Compliance here at JetBlue Airways. So, there are specific guidelines, policies, procedures, and more specifically regulations that determine how we hire someone and why we hire people. Or goal is to really focus on the culture of the organization and make sure that our crew members are supported through their day to day activities here at JetBlue. I have a team of field generalists that are located throughout the organization that support the human resource needs of all of our crew members. When I look at diversity from an HR or people perspective, I look at the talents or attributes that someone brings to the table. We look at our affirmative action. We look to make sure that we are hiring the right candidates but also be diverse in our hiring of our candidates, so yes, we do have specific regulations we need to follow from the EEOC, the Department of Labor, and governing bodies such as that, but JetBlue goes above and beyond to be able to take those regulations and then turn them into something that fits with our culture. When I started 11 years ago, what I realized when we were hiring back then, were we really looking at the demographic or we were just focusing on the specific skill set that that individual brought, and what I realized too is wow, we didn't have a lot of females that were interested in flying. We actually have a CRG, our Crew Member Resource Group, Women in Flight, where we focus on the skill sets that women bring specifically to that profession here in the airline.

>> Women in Flight is really about supporting women who work here at JetBlue, along with the women that work in aviation in general. It's about mentorship. It's about networking. We're in a field that normally is about 80% male, but here at JetBlue we're actually a lot more equally balanced in our work place than our numbers, so for us to understand how women can play a role and be able to bring their whole selves to work here, that's really unique and awesome. Hi. My name is Tori Lucas and I'm an analyst on the talent management team here at JetBlue. Definitely based on my experience what we're doing right is the fact that we are genuinely trying from a good space and a good place. This is not the first time that I've been in a diverse work force, but it's the first time in a really long time that people are trying to do the initiatives and spearhead the projects that they are trying to do from a people perspective as opposed to just a compliance perspective, so for me that's really different and that's what makes us unique.

>> So, having such a diverse workplace, yes there are definitely some complexities in some of the issues we deal with. The more diverse the situation is the better we are at addressing it because it makes us think differently. If I had a camera and I was watching what everybody was doing every day here in the work place, I probably would lose some sleep at night, but I also would probably learn a lot from it too. The person who receives the information is the one who determines the appropriateness and/or inappropriateness of that, not specifically the person who gives it, and I think that's really important to always remember. We have a program here called "respectful workplace". It is a program that we educate all of our crew members and orientation, so it's in their day two of orientation and it's approximately an hour long module that talks about what you should and shouldn't do in the workplace with regards to treating people fairly, treating people with respect, treating people appropriately. We also talk a little bit about the regulations about harassment in the workplace, about discrimination in the workplace, what to look for, what not to do, and what you can do, what you can and cannot say, but we also encourage them to have fun. Fun is one of our values. We have five values - safety, caring, integrity, fun, and passion, passion and fun, and when it comes to fun we encourage everyone to have fun every day here. When we educate new baby blues on day two of orientation, we do tell them, we preface fun with appropriate fun, so we want to make sure that you understand that yes you can have fun with somebody, but make sure it's appropriate, and my team deals with a lot of sometimes inappropriate fun, so if there is some conflict or if there is some type of situation, we want to sit with them and we want to figure out what do we need to do differently. What does the company need to do to support you differently? Are we not addressing your issues? Are we not addressing what you need us to do? And so we are always walking away saying "what can we do better?" I want to give you an example. I was based at our JFK operation, which is our main hub here, sitting in the airport for two and a half years, having an office there. I was able to experience a lot of not just the crew member activity but also the customer activity.

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A customer walked up to our ticket counter at JFK and the customer service crew member started speaking in a different language to this customer, and what had happened was the customer did not acknowledge of understand that language and said to that crew member, "Please speak English", so I said to the crew member, specifically why did you speak to this customer in Spanish when the crew member, or when the customer came up to the counter. Well, the customer looked, they looked different Bob, they looked like they were from a different country. I'll never forget that. I use that example in orientation 11 years later guys. I mean that, and it connects with them. And other organizations would probably reprimand that employee and say, "you know, you did this wrong, you could be fired for that." Here at JetBlue we want to learn from it. We want to make it better. We want to figure out how we can improve from it. And that was not just a teaching moment for that crew member, it was a teaching moment for myself, so, yeah.

1.

In the video, JetBlue's director of crew relations and compliance noted that a key strategic advantage of diversity for the organization is:

a.increases the number women pilots.

b.helps prevent sexual harassment.

c.necessary for it to achieve EEOC compliance.

d.helps the company think differently.

2.

According to the text, which of the following is the first step a firm must take in order to leverage diversity?

a.Seeing people's differences

b.Understanding people's differences

c.Valuing people's differences

d.Squelching people's differences