When Susan Whitewood opens e-mail reminders about upcoming meetings of her networking group at Mellon Financial Corp., she's never sure who else received the same message. The network includes gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees at Mellon, and its leaders are careful to use a blind distribution list that doesn't disclose the names of members or potential recruits.

Tony Tye, Post-Gazette
Patti Michaud, left, director of records management for Mellon Financial, Susan Whitewood, first vice president for global exposure management, and Maria Anderson, assistant vice president for corporate affairs, are group leaders for several of the "affinity" networks the company has launched in the past year. The groups are an effort by the company to show its support for diverse and minority employees.
Click photo for larger image.

Not that the it doesn't want to grow its ranks. But the group, called PRISM -- which stands for Pride, Respect, Individuality and Support at Mellon -- is adamant about respecting its participants' privacy.

"If you're in the [Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender] community, it's a very personal decision about coming out or not. So providing trust is a big focal point," said Whitewood, 40, director of research and administration at Mellon Global Exposure Management at the company's Downtown headquarters.

PRISM is one of three so-called "affinity" networks Mellon launched in the past year as a strategic and visible effort to show it supports diverse and minority employees. There is also one for black employees and one for people with disabilities.

Mellon isn't the only big corporation keen to boost diversity and minority recruitment efforts through affinity networks. Glaxo- SmithKline, General Electric, Xerox and Goldman Sachs are among large employers across the country that have created such networks for gays, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans.

"A large piece of it is retention and recruitment," said Ernestine Harris, director of human resources for Glaxo's Consumer HealthCare division in Moon and a member of the company's African-American Alliance.

"My sense is we're starting to recognize the value that diversity can play in the workplace, and I think that's what is leading to the effort to form affinity groups," said Robert Kelley, adjunct professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business and author of "How to Be a Star at Work."

Fred K. Foulkes, director of the Human Resources Policy Institute and a professor of organizational behavior at Boston University's School of Management, said affinity networks have been embraced by "leadership companies" that view the groups as a way for "employees to help each other and management to learn some things, too."

He noted, however, that some companies are hesitant and, while not banning the groups outright, do not openly support them, either.

These companies "would rather pretend they don't exist for fear they might become a neogitating group."

Because most affinity networks are sponsored by employers, members typically meet in corporate auditoriums or other company sites. Over coffee or brown bag lunches, members and guest speakers address issues such as mentoring, business role models and how to cope with being a minority within the corporate culture.

At a recent PRISM network "coming out" meeting, members and potential members could talk openly, if they cared to, about how their sexual orientation impacts their job and relationships with managers and colleagues. The network has about 55 members in Pittsburgh and a dozen or so at Mellon locations elsewhere who keep in touch by telephone or e-mail.

"People are bringing lots of baggage, history and some fear about what their boss would think or how their co-workers would treat them" if their sexual orientation is disclosed, Whitewood said.

"If a worker has to hold something back, they're not fully engaged in work," she said. So the network attempts to provide advice and support for people wrangling with the stressful decision about whether to "come out" and also keeps members up to date on issues such as Mellon's domestic partner benefits plan.

Some networks also address more traditional career and mentoring topics.

Earlier this month, Mellon's Black/African-American group hosted an early morning coffee at its Downtown headquarters that featured Mellon Chairman Martin G. McGuinn and Mellon board member Bill Strickland, chief executive of Manchester/Bidwell Corp., a North Side organization that offers training programs for inner-city and other disadvantaged individuals.

"People are seeking role models like Bill Strickland," said Rose Gabbianelli, executive vice president for corporate affairs who helped introduce affinity networks to Mellon a year ago as a co-chair of Mellon's diversity council.

The Black/African-American group, which has 100-plus members who work for Mellon in Pittsburgh, isn't limiting its efforts to on-the-job issues.

Over the holiday season, some members noticed that school choirs that performed in the headquarters lobby at One Mellon Center didn't include many minorities, said Maria Anderson, a community affairs senior specialist who co-chairs the Black/African-American Network. After bringing it to the attention of the building's manager, performances were scheduled by the youth choir from Ebenezer Baptist Church and the Pittsburgh High School of the Creative and Performing Arts.

While there has been skepticism among some blacks at Mellon about a formalized network, Anderson said she's optimistic the group will be effective because the company "is behind this. So it's taken more seriously."

CMU's Kelley believes affinity networks are a good way to provide support for workers who may feel isolated because they belong to a minority subgroup. "For people who might feel awfully alone, they can hook up with other people maybe having similar experiences."

But he said his research, which focuses on productivity and how to manage the best employees, has shown affinity networks are not as effective in helping members find effective ways to do their jobs.

"Let's say you get all the Hispanic females [in a company] together. The problem we found is that although they can share strategies that work for them, they miss strategies that the Caucasian or Asian-American men are using."

Also, what works for one network member may not work for another, Kelley said. Take a member of an affinity group who is shy and is being coached by other members to be more outgoing at work and pop into a colleague's office unannounced. That might go against that's person nature and end up hurting more than helping. "To move into star performance, you can't rely just on affinity networks. You have to find what works for you as a person.

At Glaxo, one of the goals of the affinity groups is to provide colleagues with first-hand insight about how to target products to specific minorities. In addition to African-Americans, its Moon consumer operations has networks for Asians, Hispanics and gays and lesbians.

"We can be a sounding board for how to advertise to African-Americans," said Harris, the human resources director. "Certain things repel certain cultures."

The Asian network, for instance, saw an opportunity to beef up marketing of Glaxo's Tums and Os-Cal calcium supplements to Asian women, said Xin Dang, a marketing brand manager and Beijing, China, native who belongs to the Asian Employee Support Network. "We found out Asian women especially are very at risk to osteoporosis and they take a below-average amount of calcium. So there's an opportunity for our Tums and Os-Cal group to develop plans to reach more Asian users."

At Mellon, too, the affinity groups "can help us understand our clients better because our clients are subsets of the same population as our networks," said Gabbianelli, the corporate affairs senior vice president.

The networks also can help improve understanding and relationships with colleagues who don't belong to minority or other diverse groups.

A co-leader of Mellon's network for people with disabilities, Patti Michaud, 44, came to work for the financial services giant after graduating from Georgetown University.

She lost a leg at age 13 and believes that most campus job recruiters didn't take her seriously because she was an amputee -- even though she graduated with top honors.

Mellon interviewed her and hired her "because they saw what I brought to the table in terms of skills. So I have a personal degree of loyalty to Mellon," said Michaud, now director of records management for Mellon. Her network recently adopted its name, HEART, which stands for Helping Each Ability by Respecting and Teaching.

The group has about 40 members who besides networking about career development, hope to educate managers and colleagues about issues that affect disabled workers such as emergency evacuation plans, security and safety. "We know this stuff and if we can help our Mellon co-workers understand, it will be a better place for all of us," said Michaud.

To become formally recognized by Mellon, network organizers must submit a mission statement and secure an executive sponsor. Mellon will provide about $1,000 a year to each network to help finance functions.

"But if they come in with a proposal for a great event, we'll consider it," said Gabbianelli.

Membership isn't limited to people who fit the network's profile.

Joanne Jaxtimer, director of corporate affairs for Mellon/New England, joined the HEART group in Mellon's Boston office because her 10-year-old son, Michael, has pervasive developmental delay, a form of autism.

While Jaxtimer describes herself as very direct and open about her son's disability, she acknowledges some colleagues are not, so the network "provides me an opportunity to help others get comfortable talking about this."

"When you bring folks together, it's a wonderful opportunity to learn from one another," she said.

"The old perspective is that you check your life at the door" when you come to work, said Whitewood.

But through affinity networks and other diversity initiatives, companies are "educating employees that some people feel different and can't check their personal lives at the door," she said. "An employee who feel different needs to feel in a safe place. And a manager has to be proactive to say, 'It's OK to be different' instead of taking a reactive role."

First Published: January 23, 2005, 5:00 a.m.