| Global Business Integrator |
I worked in Indiana at the corporate headquarters and Plant site for
more than 12 years. I was a high performer.
I have letters of appreciation and mostly excellent performance reviews,
never a low or failing review, corporate videos, local newspaper
articles, and company recognition from about every Sr. Executive at the
company etc. yet; I was called racial names and dealt with daily racial
slurs from immediate line mgmt and co-workers on a regular basis.
In 2003 I reported the racial discrimination activity to the V.P. of HR.
He assigned it to the Executive Director for HR and Finance. He
scheduled an investigation, without my need to file an official
grievance. I knew if I did that I would be terminated for sneezing. The
problem with this investigation is the investigator reported to the same
direct report as the folks I complained about. This alone is a long
story; the important fact here is there were no improvements or positive
changes as a result of this investigation. In fact things became worse.
During my employment at Lilly I was a Leader on the Corporate Diversity
Team. I was an originating member along with the Sr. Management Staff
that interviewed strategies and roll out the solutions. As a result we
interviewed and hired Pope and Associates. This Firm was originally
brought in to train 10% of our workforce, primarily management, how to
professionally incorporate cultural diversity. I have data to display
the serious concerns Lilly have with this issue.
However, this has turned into a legal nightmare for Lilly. This program,
being updated from its original intent, actually intensified the
concerns verses resolving them. The general concept was to go into a
counseling session with the person or persons allegedly discriminated
against you along with another two Lilly employees trained to be
counselors. The problem with this theory is there were not any
disciplinary actions as a result of these sessions. It could not be
reported to HR. It was all confidential. Supposedly you could say
anything you want to say about the person(s) and no repercussions should
follow. Just how well do you imagine this worked? You are right if you
guessed it did not. In fact this over simplified explanation does not
even begin to touch on the negative magnitude of this program.
Internal surveys have proven the management has a strong track record
for obsessive compulsive liars. In fact you have to be in the "click" to
achieve this promotion. The promotion board that makes the decisions is
the same ones that groom you to be a really good evasive liar.
The performance management program for merit delivery is overkill on
administration that is really meaningless. It takes months to complete
and never has real effect on what the outcome is going to be anyway.
This is the number one complaint by all employees at the company. When
asked if employees trusted their management and this process, 70% of all
employees said they did not trust management and thought the process was
worthless.
The new training program at Lilly, or should I say the "new Flavor of
The month" is called 'Don't Feed the Hog". You may be familiar with this
based on a book by Kerry PATTERSON JOSEPH Grenny Al Switzler Ron
McMillan on How This World's Best Leader's Solve Tough People Problems.
Well a suggestion would be to begin firing all those "good old boys" in
middle and upper management. The second would be to start judging people
on their merit instead of race and politics. It is really very simple.
But Lilly as usual with spend millions of dollars to CYA in training
that goes in one ear and out the other. This is why employees visualize
training as the "flavor of the month", there are so many that no one
takes them serious even if they are good. Cultural training has become a
check in the box.
Employee morale has been so low at Lilly that many folks have left.
Constant surveys are sent out to the employees on how they value the
company and if they are considering leaving. Stock is very low, Law
suits are high. Eli Lilly has lied about everything from it drugs and
policies to its employer employee relations. But for the right incentive
or dollar amount it continues to pay for some degree of integrity. My
guess is it is only a matter of time until it falls on its face. A
strong pipe line, but a weak manufacturing process and lack integrity.
You do the math. After all they can only hold off the FDA so long.
This company has wrongfully terminated hundreds if not thousands of
African American's over the years including myself as of June 8, 2004.
Most others that stay with the company have become accustomed to
discrimination as a way of life in their tenure at Lilly. Minorities
make less money, receive more responsibilities, and are last to get
incentives and promotions.
There are also the blatant disregard for human decency that occurs with
name calling, racial slurs, and hate activities. This goes on as
acceptable daily activity. To complain means to make thing worse for you
or be wrongfully terminated. In today's economy most African American
becomes complacent with this activity because it is of greater
importance to maintain employment. Although understandable, it allows us
to be even more vulnerable to accept this illegal and abusive behavior.
This occurs more often in the Manufacturing and Information technology
components.
The new wave here is to hire Indians and Orientals to fill these
positions as they are deemed as easier to manage. They are usually well
educated, technically savvy, but most important don't speak or
understand the language and the culture very well. This brings about the
reserve that the Lilly employer's desire. Not only can they meet their
quotas but this can also be used as weapon or threats against African
Americans.
The wonderful Midwestern "good old boy attitude" home of the KKK is not
only alive and well at Eli Lilly, it is breeding a whole new generation
even more despicable hate tactics than the ones of past.
When a corporation is deemed as the "Savior of the State" these things
are swept under the rug by local and state official or in some extreme
cases hush money is given to avoid or for quietness of law suits. As
well there are some law suits I am sure but of course nothing that would
be public knowledge.
Eli Lilly has the money to pay off lawyers and law suits in fact they
are experts at that. Justice to me is uncovering this hidden racism
within this company. It is really way out of control! The longer this
continues the more it will wear on the integrity of this company. I
think in current status Lilly is deserving of that, if it takes away the
integrity of me and many others by less than acceptable human behavior
then Lilly needs to suffer as well with integrity loss, discriminatory
reputation exposure and loss of income.
In terms of the magazines and news articles when Lilly wins all the
diversity awards it is more because of political advocacy and pay off
than merit in execution of the policies they developed, Such
as 'Sydney's Red Book.' Well, I am confident having met Mr. Taurel and
worked for many members of his executive Team they believe and support
these values. However the farther you go down the chain the further you
go down on the morals that were strategized by the executives. In many
areas and instances they have less value than the paper they are wrote
on.
It was 1967 before African American??s could share the same restrooms and
water fountains at the company. I hope it does not take until 2067
before African Americans can equally share in the merit and compensation
programs. After all the African American education, talent, and skills
is heavily responsible for the profit and growth.
During my tenure at Lilly, for a number of years I worked in
manufacturing Financial where one of my responsibilities was to report
the compensation and benefits of the employees, which means I had access
to salary and merit increase information for multiple years. I also
served as a mentor for our Career Development Center, in this program I
spent long periods of time with various minority employees as their
personal mentor and advisor in reference to career and salary
development. I have data from survey results received from employees
that indicate the greatest concerns at Lilly were in salary, merit
increase, and performance most came from minority employees and this is
just to mention a few of the examples I can share.
My career was highlighted in the Global Broadcast Television at the
beginning of the year, 2000 for how to improve your Career Development
at Lilly. For Four Years I was the leader of a program called Voice of
the Employee. This program resulted in a Corporate Wide Lunch and Learn
Career Program I launched in 1999, that is continued today. Other
programs I led included the first benefits package, VIP Tour Guide for
Guest Relations etc.,I had achieved enormous success at Lilly
considering I was a Black female. I intimidated White Males because of
my intelligence and notoriety.But with all of my accomplishments I never
got equally rewarded as did my cacausian counterparts. They used me and
took advantage of my ambitions.
Unfortunately, I would not compromise my morales as the "token double
minority" therefore my sucess in this company became unaccomplishable.
I would strongly suggest to minority college grads, Eli Lilly will look
good on your resume for a couple years of experience. Then go to a
company where you can use that experience for equal reward and
recognition.
Trust me if you are African American you will never achieve your self
worth or climb the corporate ladder with this company, with the
exeception of the few tokens.
So by all means go there, get the experience and training. Use them and
toss them out like they have done with thousands of other African
Americans.
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