American Express Diversity Essay

Company Overview Who doesn’t know American Express and their famous logo, the Roman Centurion? American Express has become a household name for much of the world; the brand itself is prestigious and powerful, while their service is world renowned. American Express’s humble beginnings started way back in 1850 when Henry Wells, William G. Fargo, and John Warren Butterfield launched an express mail business in Buffalo, New York (Grossman, 1987). Business was great and profits soared, mainly because there were no competitors at the time and their movement of express shipments such as goods, securities, and currency stretched all through New York. At the same time disputes between the three partners led Henry Wells and William G. Fargo to start
For over a decade American Express has excelled in diversity initiatives and has been consistently one of the Top 50 Companies for diversity (American Express, 2014). Out of 63,000 American Express employees over 36% are minorities and an impressive 63% are women (Dunning, 2014). Having a diverse workforce is not just about percentages and statistics per say, it’s about the programs and support systems the organization utilizes to enrich the workplace. American Express encourages employees to take initiative and ask questions about what they perceive around them, the collective opinion of everyone is much more important to American Express than the opinion of an executive or superior. Since 1987, American Express has enabled employees to form employee-formed networks (Dunning, 2014). Today there are over 16 networks that can assist employees through mentoring, career development, and networking. Some of the most influential ones are “The Black Employee Network” which recently took “the initiative to help to help diversify the company's customer base” and “PRIDE” “the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered affinity network worked directly with the human resources team to enhance adoption and surrogacy benefits company-wide” (American Express, 2014). In addition, for years American Express has had a nondiscrimination policy that includes sexual orientation and has offered domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples. Obviously, American Express has consistently been at the forefront of diversity initiatives for years. These same networks that are connecting employees and spreading workplace diversity are creating positive effects on business as well, for example employees with different religious faiths facilitated awareness to create and design gift cards to