At Cox Communications, the subjects of diversity and inclusion are not just corporate monikers or taglines; they’re highly critical parts of our day-to-day culture, values and operations.

And at Cox Las Vegas these subjects are front-burner items that help define and improve our culture. For this reason, we once again held a Diversity Leadership Conference. This year, the in-house conference took place on Sept 8, 2010 and was attended by over 100 management executives and other company leaders from Southern Nevada.

For the conference, five high-profile community leaders accepted an invitation from Cox Las Vegas to share their thoughts on diversity. Cox leaders were able to increase their knowledge and awareness about diversity through speaker presentations, observations and follow-up Q/A sessions.

Cox Communications’ Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer Mae Douglas kicked off the conference with a videotaped message from the company’s Atlanta corporate office. She noted:

"All employees at Cox Las Vegas are afforded the opportunity to excel in a corporate culture that embraces diversity and encourages new ideas.  The key to this inclusion is not how many diverse employees we hire, but how welcome they feel in our company, how involved they are in the decisions that impact our business and, most importantly, how long they stay and thrive with us."

Below is a list of speakers in order of their appearance and their presentation topics:

• Candice Nichols, Executive Director, Gay & Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada, "LGBT Diversity: Beyond Corporate Policy."
• Irene Bustamante-Adams, Immediate Past President, Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce, "How to Develop an Effective Supplier Diversity Program."
• Tim Wong, President and CEO, Arcata Associates, "The View of Supplier Diversity from the Minority-Owned Business Perspective."
• Fred Keeton, Vice President Finance, External Affairs and Chief Diversity Officer for Harrah’s Entertainment, "Driving Business Outcomes through Cognitive Diversity."
• Debra Nelson, Vice President, Corporate Communications and Diversity for MGM Resorts International, "The Pillars of a Successful Diversity Initiative."

Diversity

At Cox Las Vegas, our diversity begins with our people. Our people-oriented diversity programs broaden our recruiting and hiring processes, as well as helping us to include more employees and more perspectives into our daily business operations.

Our focus is on connecting with people, and allowing our people to connect with each other. One way we do this by utilizing our in-house Diversity Committee to implement new ways to celebrate our diverse workforce. Some of these ideas include:

• An annual half-day Diversity Fair where employees bring foods and highlight the cultures that celebrate the county of their origin or heritage.
• A Wall of Commemoration that allows our company's armed forces veterans to share their thoughts, accomplishments, metals and awards about their service to our country.
• A wall-sized word map that invites employees to place push-pins in the country and city of their birth-the completed map is impressive as we have employees from all over the U.S. and many countries in Europe, Asia and points around the globe.
• We participate each year in Bring Your Child to Work Day

Incorporating community and public relations into our diversity strategy means ensuring that we're supporting all parts of our diverse Southern Nevada community. We are members of numerous diverse organizations and we are active in these organizations as well.

• Asian Chamber of Commerce
• Latin Chamber of Commerce
• Urban Chamber of Commerce

In addition, we actively sponsor or participate in dozens of community activities each year that celebrate the broad diversity of Southern Nevada. Some of these activities include:

• AIDS walk
• Chinese New Year
• Fiestas Patrias
• Gala for Gala for Señoras of Excellence & Señores of Distinction
• Gay Film Festival
• Gay Pride Festival and Parade
• Hispanic Health Fair
• Juneteenth
• La Oportunidad Business Expo
• Noche de Halloween
• Pure Aloha
• Prince Kuhio Ho`olaule`a Pacific Islands Festival