Establishing Diversity as a Core Value in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The business case for diversity is clear:  a diverse workforce is more innovative, resourceful, and productive.  It allows a workforce to draw upon a wide range of skill, perspectives, ideas and backgrounds.  These beliefs have long been agreed upon by Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) leadership, managers and staff; however, the Service has not acted aggressively and consistently on this belief.  Service leadership recognized the need to move the agency beyond viewing diversity as merely the numerical representation of certain groups to embracing diversity as the standard way of doing business.  The Service's Executive Diversity Council developed a Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan which puts this vision into effect.  As such, the plan sets forth four strategic goals: (1) highlight diversity as a core value; (2) establish partnerships, sources and feeder systems; (3) recruit and hire a diverse and highly-skilled workforce; and (4) maintain a highly-skilled diverse workforce through talent management.  Objectives and actions under these goals are themselves diverse and draw upon both new and existing mechanisms for achieving these goals.  The plan recognizes that inclusion and performance are inseparable and that maximizing both requires individual competence, an organizational support system, committed leadership and individual accountability.