A comprehensive, comprehensible guide to building an inclusive workforce.
A guide to LGBTQ+ inclusivity in the workplace.
In this follow-up to his 2020 Birds of All Feathers (which he reminds readers about frequently), Bach explains why and how companies and organizations should support, recruit, and value employees of all genders and sexual orientations. For readers unfamiliar with current terminology, the author begins with basic information about biological sex, the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity, and definitions of commonly used labels. Bach explains how heteronormativity occurs in the workplace, discusses safe spaces and allyship, and presents a numbers-driven case for building a diverse workforce. Bach makes both broad and specific recommendations for collecting data on LGBTQ+ staff, learning how to deal with uninformed or skeptical employees, and demonstrating corporate support in ways that are more meaningful than Pride parade sponsorships. The section on conducting regular reviews of corporate policies and procedures to evaluate and improve their inclusivity is particularly well done, as is the explanation of how the workplace can support employees through gender transitions. The guide targets organization leaders who have the power to make and implement changes as needed but also discusses how employees can take action and encourage decision-makers to act. It concludes with a multipage list of questions to guide further discussion. Bach’s glib tone may not resonate with all readers (“Sorry for blowing your mind so early in the book, but thank goodness there are emojis to explain your feelings. Remember when we just had to use words? #progress”), but his upbeat attitude and his enthusiasm for his subject are evident throughout. His years of experience in both human resources and LGBTQ+ advocacy allow him to speak from substantial experience and present his concepts in the language of corporate leadership while also avoiding jargon and making information accessible to the casual reader. Readers with a passing familiarity with LGBTQ+ topics will not find the book’s intro-level material a slog, and readers at all levels of prior knowledge will find many actionable takeaways in the text.
A comprehensive, comprehensible guide to building an inclusive workforce.Pub Date: March 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-77458-085-1
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Page Two
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
For Gorman, creating customers is an act of cultivating delight–-a motto that most businesses would do well to follow.
Gorman, who runs a boutique creative-brand agency, offers a refreshing return to business basics, when competition was a novel concept and businesses actually put the customer first.
Not that Gorman is trotting out old business saws in a fuddy-duddy way; his style is energetic, and his delivery is keen and clean. He is not about to forsake branding, but he will tell you to forget the fancy dancing, the retro music and the airy cleverness. His emphasis is on delivering satisfaction to the customers—consistently–-with the ultimate goal of making them friends for the long term. Granted, it's not a revolutionary concept, but in the Age of Hype, it's certainly salubrious. Profits cannot be a guiding principle; business owners must understand the values, tastes and preferences of their audience, and then create a brand that becomes "the story that people will tell when asked to recommend your product or service to someone else"–-and one that exceeds expectations. In other words, create an identity and be all you say you are. Tag lines, logos, websites–-these are all brand articulations, and though Gorman acknowledges their importance, they are not value articulations and they can't carry the product if the consumer's experience isn't pleasurable and enthusiastic. Gorman even goes a step further: The product must be a delight. (He includes many amusing anecdotes, but the best involves him tipping a saxophone-playing spaceman in the subway.) Gorman also offers intelligent advice about making oneself attractive to prospects, about clarity of message, about elegance and about the importance of word-of-mouth for verifying quality (with a nod to George Silverman)–-though it would have been helpful to get a few examples of controlling and sequencing word-of-mouth marketing.
For Gorman, creating customers is an act of cultivating delight–-a motto that most businesses would do well to follow.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-9749169-0-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An accessible audit of Russia's efforts to gain a place at global capitalism's table after more than seven decades of Communist misrule and mismanagement. As Goldman (Economics/Wellesley; What Went Wrong with Perestroika, 1991, etc.) makes abundantly clear, switching from a centrally planned economy to a market economy is easier said than done. Goldman draws on in-country contacts, official records, and contemporary news reports to document how Moscow has gone wrong at critical junctures since 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev first set the Soviet Union on a restructuring course whose implications he did not fully grasp. After a lucid account of the sociopolitical events that allowed Boris Yeltsin to oust Gorbachev (in effect, by undermining the USSR), the author offers an unsparing critique of the current incumbent's stewardship. Like his unfortunate predecessor, Goldman points out, Yeltsin failed to facilitate the formation of new businesses. Nor did he and his chief adviser (Yegor Gaidar) do enough to encourage land ownership. They also neglected to institute currency reforms that could have dampened inflationary pressures and enhanced the ruble's convertibility. Banking, price control, and tax policies were botched as well; the regime has dithered disastrously on privatizing state-owned enterprises; and the government has yet to sponsor commercial codes that might restore much-needed order to a chaotic, crime-ridden consumer marketplace. The author goes on to weigh Russia's makeover prospects in the context of the bootstrap recoveries achieved by former Kremlin satellites (Hungary, Poland), mainland China, and WW II's losers (Japan, West Germany). Even without much foreign aid or investment in the short run, concludes Goldman, the Russians could eventually win their latest revolution, albeit at no small cost. An informed and informative analysis of the toil and trouble attendant upon a great nation's attempts to gain world-class status as an economic rather than military power. Helpful tabular material and graphs throughout.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-393-03700-2
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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