Vernon Memorandum

Corporate Social Responsibility: MN401

April 30, 2007

Vernon Memorandum

Here are my three recommendations for Beta’s future social issues strategy:

Recommendation # 1: Increasing Percentage of Female Management.

As there has been virtually no progress in promoting women, there is an urgent need for greater commitment to this issue. A training program needs to be established to educate managers on how to regard diversity as a genuine strategic business opportunity that impacts the bottom line. This program should include our legal obligations to establish and maintain a diverse workforce and discrimination free workplace. This training program will lead to a better understanding of the diversity required in today’s workforce and will culminate in Beta issuing a policy statement outlining our commitment to addressing gender imbalances.

Once this policy statement has been included in Beta’s standards and set of values, the Human Resources department, under the guidance of John West, needs to ascertain the extent of the gender imbalance situation. This could take the format of an Affirmative Action Plan (Vernon, page 398) and should include:

• A utilization analysis to determine the percentage of Beta’s current workforce which is female vs. the percentage of the available workforce which is female.

• Determine which Beta policies and procedures are hindering our ability to achieve gender balance.

• Set forth an action plan that will address these imbalances and establish a policy that will anticipate any future gender imbalances and deal with them accordingly.

• Establish goals and timeframes for implementation of the action plan

• We need to implement a procedure to provide comprehensive, regular, and validated measurements in order to assess the success of the plan. This can be achieved by utilizing the principles of Social Auditing (Vernon, page 117)

Suggested strategies for inclusion in the action plan are;...