Uniting Intel’s Diverse Workforce
Gustavo De La Torre might not be working
at Intel today, nor have a college education to be proud of, if a young
friend of his had not stepped forward many years ago to embrace diversity.
Today De La Torre is Intel’s Worldwide
Diversity Initiatives Manager, based in Santa Clara. Back at age 11,
he came to California from Mexico. “I did not know a word of English,”
he says. “I was put in school and did not understand a word. I was culture
shocked and it was very traumatic for me. I remember going to class
and just sitting there and hearing all this noise. No one would play
with me at recess. I remember standing under a tree and watching the
kids play. I’d go home and cry and say, ‘I can’t go to school.’” Frustrated
by the exclusion, De La Torre pleaded with his mother, “Please don’t
make me go, put me to work.” Then, he says, “One day something happened
to change the rest of my life.” When the bell rang for recess, De La
Torre took to his now familiar place by the tree. “One other student,
Steven Duncan, asked me to come over and play. I said no but he grabbed
my arm and pulled me into the playground.” As he feared they would,
the other students began laughing and poking fun at De La Torre for
his differences: the way he looked; the way he spoke. Duncan put his
arm around De La Torre.
He told the group, “Hey, this is my friend,” says De
La Torre. “From that point on I was included many times.” As De La Torre
takes on the mission of immersing Intel in diversity, he hopes each
employee will remember Steven Duncan. “We don’t know what kind of impact
we make,” says De La Torre. “For me, I may have dropped out of school.
It doesn’t matter who you are, you can make a difference if you reach
out. You can take a risk. That’s one of the big things we need to do
in corporate America- make sure we include everyone at the table. If
you’re included, you’re going to provide your best.” De La Torre has
come together with a team of six people to form Intel’s Corporate Diversity/Multicultural
Team. While the company has always made diversity a focus, now it is
a high priority. The plan seems to be working. Nearly 50,000 women and
minorities polled at the end of year by div2000.com, a website detailing
diversity at American corporations and the government, ranked Intel
among the top 50 companies that best promote multi-cultural business
opportunities. De La Torre says, “Understand your own diversity and
value it. We all have bias and that’s part of recognizing your own diversity.
Reach out on a day-to-day basis and talk to someone, or get to know
someone new. In this day and age, the world is getting smaller. As part
of a global community Intel needs to make sure to value the diversity
in the workforce.”
The Days of Leaving “You” at
the Door Are Gone
How many times have you heard from someone that you
are supposed to leave your problems or your sense of self at the door
when you come to work? Times have changed, and Intel is on the forefront
of that change. Individuality is an integral part of Intel’s success,
and Gustavo De La Torre, Worldwide Diversity Initiatives Manager, is
an integral part of ensuring that it stays that way. When you talk to
De La Torre about diversity, you find a man with passion for the subject
as well as sound ideas for moving Intel forward. “From a business standpoint,
diversity makes perfect sense,” says De La Torre. “Whether a team is
developing or marketing a new microprocessor, having diversity on the
team maximizes its effectiveness and may allow members to develop a
perspective they might never have thought of otherwise.” In short, a
diverse team may not just be looking from the perspective of one culture
or coastal location, but from perspectives of East Coast, West Coast,
and other countries. Developing a truly global company takes the ability
to bring together different people, value their differences, and then
leverage those differences. Diversity is more than multicultural; it’s
a global business imperative. Technology enables companies to reach
out to overseas markets. Companies that generate a majority of revenue
from outside the U.S. can’t simply translate product instructions and
ship goods out. The company needs to find out what each of its markets
wants and the best ways to position its products for those markets.
According to De La Torre and many others working in businesses using
diverse methodologies, thinking globally equals thinking diversely.
“You have to use a different approach for each segment of the population,”
says De La Torre. Intel and many other companies have realized this
and are making shifts in the way they do business.
Attracting and Keeping Talent Another
aspect of diversity is retention and recruitment. “We’re all competing
for the same talent,” says De La Torre. As the shortage of qualified
workers increases, potential employees are going where they feel most
valued. When young college interns ask what to look for in a company,
De La Torre suggests the following: Do your homework and find out what
the company is all about. Make sure that it is a company where you’ll
be able to contribute based on the skills you’re bringing in. Find out
if the company values you as an individual. The days of managers treating
everyone the same are gone. “You don’t come in the door and forget about
‘you’ or where you came from,” says De La Torre. “That’s not possible
and it’s taken us awhile to realize that it’s okay if everyone is different.
No one can ignore the fact that each person provides added value. If
people are treated with respect, they contribute their best to the company
because they feel the company values them.”
Strategy
De La Torre’s strategy for creating true diversity at
Intel includes four very important areas:
Education: Working with our global communities
and educating our future workforce from math and science perspectives
at early stages. That includes going out to the schools and finding
ways to show the value of math and science to our future workforce.
Supplier diversity: Working
with women- and minority-owned businesses and sharing the contracts
that we put out there so that we create a community of businesses that
are successful.
Workforce: Hiring women and people from diverse
backgrounds at all levels, specifically at the senior manager levels.
Community: Doing business in all the communities where employees live
and making employees proud of what Intel does in their communities.
That is part of what makes Intel a great place to work. Components of
a Successful Diversity Strategy: Representation of various people making
diversity a part of doing business, not just a nice thing to do celebrating
diversity and valuing it.
Community: Doing business in all the communities
where employees live and making employees proud of what Intel does in
their communities. That is part of what makes Intel a great place to
work.
Components of a Successful Diversity Strategy:
Representation of various people making diversity a part of doing business,
not just a nice thing to do celebrating diversity and valuing it.
Gustavo De La Torre Intel Worldwide
Diversity Initiatives Manager
By Jim Bonner
Worldwide Diversity Initiatives Manager, Gustavo De La Torre, joined
Intel in July 2000 from San Jose State University. While he cites Apple
Computer as his most fun job, Gustavo remembers his career with San
Jose State University as his most interesting, challenging and rewarding
position. Gustavo says that Academia is a totally different environment
from that of a hi-tech business. “Academics is a ‘business’ that has
been around for hundreds of years, and it is not easy to change the
status quo there.” What made it most rewarding was in knowing that he
was contributing to the future of the community by providing the best
education to the students.
A strong proponent of mentors in helping to shape one’s professional
self, Gustavo has had three in his 25-year career. His first two helped
him to develop the basic skills of Human Resources, as well as the behaviors
that will help lead to success, “discipline responsibility, perseverance
and ethics.” His last mentor was a nationally renowned expert in the
field of diversity who taught Gustavo “to value and respect each individual
first as a human being.” ...on the job Gustavo offers the following
tips to manage your personal work/life effectiveness:
- Keep a tab next to your bed so when you can’t sleep because you
are thinking about work, write it down and go back to sleep.
- To leave work at work, pick a ritual such as when you shut your
car door; think of it as meaning you are shutting the work door for
the day.
- Look at your calendar at the beginning of the week and at the end
of the week; see if how you planned to spend your time was close to
how you actually spent it.
- Gustavo has also served as national president for two Hispanic professional
organizations. The first, the Personnel Management Association of
Aztlan, is dedicated to developing Hispanics in the field of human
resources. The National Hispanic Employee Association, on the other
hand, serves the needs and interests of the broader Hispanic employee
population and has a membership of 25 to 30K.
Gustavo is the proud father of 3 daughters. He carpools to work with
Monica, the youngest, who is a Mechanical Engineer. His two older daughters,
identical twins, are both Captains in the U.S. armed services; Veronica,
is a Staff Captain in the Army and Diana is a Flight Navigator in the
Air Force. A man of many talents, Gustavo sang his way through college,
working first as the lead singer in a Latin orchestra that played for
weddings and dances (and once for a woman celebrating her divorce),
and then in a Mariachi band where interestingly, he was the only member
of Mexican descent in the group-all the others were Anglos. He even
recorded 2 songs in Spanish on an old 45RPM record(remember those?).
His last claim to fame in singing came in 1988, singing the national
anthem for 30,000 people at an Oakland A’s and Texas Rangers baseball
game and later the same year at a Giants/Dodgers’ game.
BACK
TO TOP
HOME
| ABOUT MAES | COVER
STORY | FEATURE STORY
DEPARTMENTS | CONTACT
US | SUBSCRIBE | GUEST
BOOK
Copyright
© 2001 GVR Public Relations Agency, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
web
development by Margil Villarreal Design
The
MAES National Magazine as presented on this website is not affiliated
with the Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists.
