Phillip Milano doesn’t seem a likely crusader for workplace diversity and social harmony. Then again, stereotyping him for who he is is just the type of thing he fights against.
“I’m a 36-year-old, straight, white guy, married with children,” Milano says. “Most people find it interesting that a straight, white guy would be doing all this. They think I would be in a particular demographic. Maybe it gives me credibility in one way that I’m not a member of a minority group-I don’t have an agenda.”
Milano became the chief recruiter for the Florida Times Union, a large daily newspaper in Jacksonville, Fla., and is the creator of the Y Forum, a Web site which has garnered its share of media attention for its frank and open discussion of gender, racial and social issues.
Milano was in Northeastern Ohio recently; SBN caught up with him after several appearances on local talk shows and a Public Relations Society of America conference.
Workplace diversity
The Times Union employs about 800 and has a circulation of 180,000, so having an impact on his company’s diversity was a daunting task when Milano was promoted in 1993.
“When my supervisor suggested I had a chance to help diversify the newsroom, a little light went off in my head. It wasn’t just some kind of do gooder thing. It was a real challenge. I grew up in a family that really valued facing your challenges, either that or it was Catholic guilt.”
After the first few months in his new role, Milano says he didn’t feel he was doing enough.
“I found I was working hard but not smart,” Milano says. “I decided I needed a mechanism for recruiters to link up with more minorities and women.”
That’s how Milano started the first Web site where minorities and women can post resumes for journalism related jobs.
“When a newsroom recruits, it’s never done just locally, usually a national search is done” Milano explains. “That Web site has really taken off with about 160,000 hits a month.”
Why is it important to actively search for a diverse pool of candidates to fill positions?
“I challenge anybody who says they can’t find good minority candidates,” Milano says. “If that’s the case, they’re not working hard enough at it.
“I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘I don’t care what color they are, as long as they’re good.’ That’s just a way to practice institutional racism. It just says they’re not going to put any effort in trying to find enough candidates who are diverse so they will have a diverse group of people to pick from when they have an opening.
“People say, ‘I’m the least racist because I don’t even think of a person’s sex, race or sexual orientation when I’m hiring.’ I’m sorry, but until a company has enough candidates coming to the door with differing backgrounds, it’s not enough.”
Milano says active diversity recruitment is an unnatural approach to achieving a natural integration and equal representation of groups in a business. He says it’s also important not to look at an open position and decide to fill it with a minority before interviewing and screening a pool of candidates. He stresses starting with a diverse and large pool of candidates as the best way to approach filling openings.
Milano admits he’s not a race relations expert, but says he cares about it enough to have made an impact.
“We have certainly had success at the Times Union, but we will need to keep working at it as with anything else,” Milano says.
Social harmony
Milano’s second Web site is a bit more controversial. It was a brainchild of the first, although it remains separate from his employer.
The “Y Forum” is a Web site dedicated to helping individuals understand and hopefully appreciate others who are different than they are. It’s a place where surfers can log on anonymously and ask the kind of questions they’d never ask in public. Question and answer sessions take place with diversity experts, professors and the like.
No hate speech or vulgar language is permitted, but the site tries to provide “frank, unbiased and open discussion about larger issues.”
The questions range from the complex to the simple to the, well, odd. One young African American man wanted to know why “white folks always smell like wet puppy dogs in the rain.” A monitor on the Web site replied that body odors can usually be attributed to diet, lifestyle and even the brand of detergent used.
Milano says, even if a company’s staff members are all from the same ethnic background, differences can make employee relationships uncomfortable.
“Diversity isn’t just related to a person’s color or sex. It can be related to whether they like country or rock ‘n’ roll music. The reason we should be talking about it, for instance: If the person in the cubicle next to you seems unusual to you, it could be uncomfortable working with them. This is such an opportunity for learning-when you know those differences and you can move beyond them and start talking about creative business solutions. You may have never thought a person would have an interesting viewpoint.
“We cannot solve the bigger problems in business if we can’t come to the table armed with some sort of knowledge of the smaller differences.”
While many professionals, experts, members of the media and corporate leaders have nothing but praise for the Y Forum project, Milano says he cannot find a sponsor for it.
“It’s not for the faint of heart and it’s not a site to just have fun with,” Milano says. “I challenge a corporation to come forward and back me on this. I think it would be a tremendous opportunity for the right company.”