WRITING
Excellence Winner
“Embrace Diversity” Postcards
Kathy Baier, Doug Clement and Sue Kraus
Lockheed Martin MS2
Moorestown, New Jersey, U.S.
NEED/OPPORTUNITY / Lockheed Martin is facing a mammoth demographic problem: Many of
the company’s 70,000 engineers are expected to retire within the next 15 years. To keep its edge,
the company needs to replenish a workforce that is traditionally heavily recruited from the military with young engineers, scientists and managers drawn from all backgrounds who are able to
think across traditional borders. For the past three years, Lockheed Martin President and CEO
Bob Stevens has emphasized that the solution to this workforce transition lies in breaking away
from the traditional engineering workforce—one that is heavily Caucasian and mostly male.
Instead, he has emphasized that Lockheed Martin must deliberately create a workforce that is more
diverse and inclusive, not only of racial differences but also of differences in beliefs, backgrounds
and experiences.
In 2007, the Lockheed Martin MS2 employee communications and design team felt they needed
to move beyond standard communication and messages, and instead find a way to help employees understand the nuances of beliefs and backgrounds that contribute to an inclusive work environment. In other words, they wanted to explore the thoughts and beliefs around individual differences, and in doing so move beyond promoting diversity as a Black/White/Hispanic/Other
minority group issue. The team discussed several options, including traditional newsletter articles,
intranet postings and the like. The final solution centered on an innovative “Embrace Diversity”
print postcard campaign. MS2 employees would receive a series of three postcards over four
months, with specific, thought-provoking discussion of various issues.
INTENDED AUDIENCE / Lockheed Martin MS2 encompasses 13,000 employees; while the majority of employees are engineers and researchers, there are a large number of employees who do not
have technical backgrounds. Employees are located at 76 sites worldwide, ranging from groups of
one to two employees who work on-site at customer locations to large complexes housing more
than 5,000 employees. MS2’s employee base tends to skew older, given the legacy of industry
growth that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. Overall, approximately 20 percent of employees are
55 or older, 35 percent are ages 45–54, 20 percent of employees are ages 35–44, and 25 percent
are ages 25–34. However, Lockheed Martin is hiring 500–750 new employees a year, and the percentage of employees ages 25–45 will continue to grow in the next several years. With this diverse
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audience base lay a wealth of different beliefs, backgrounds and perspectives that could be explored
through the postcard series.
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES / The overall communication objective was to create a thought-provoking communication tool to not only capture the attention of the employee audience, but also get them to think
about their own reactions and beliefs. Doing so would require an eye-catching design paired with bold,
edgy language. With this understanding, the team established the following goals for their work in 2007:
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Engage employees by providing vibrant, consistent and relevant diversity information to increase
employee understanding and acceptance of inclusive behavior.
Set the stage for greater employee involvement and engagement in both diversity communications
and the company’s efforts to create a diverse, inclusive work environment. (This acknowledges that
changing a culture takes time and continuous effort. It is not a “one year and be done” program.)
Two key objectives were established:
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Reach at least 75 percent of employees with a targeted diversity postcard series.
Establish a solid baseline of employee understanding about what constitutes a diverse environment. The team had not measured this understanding previously, so their work would serve as a
baseline for future efforts.
SOLUTION OVERVIEW / The “Embrace Diversity” print postcard campaign consisted of 12 different post-
cards that explored themes such as generational differences, cultural and religious traditions, teamwork,
military experience, sports colloquialisms, and company loyalty. During the campaign, every MS2 employee would receive a series of three postcards over four months, with specific, thought-provoking discussion
of various issues. The team decided on this approach for several reasons:
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Because of the heavy use of e-mail and other electronic communication, employees receive very
little print material from MS2. The team believed a print piece would stand out from the electronic overload many employees experience.
Multiple postcards could be created, with a selection of postcards distributed each month. This
allowed the team to explore more than just a handful of issues, yet remain within the project
budget.
The postcards could be strategically sorted so each employee would receive a different postcard
from a peer seated in an office/cubicle next to them. This was designed to encourage conversation
among employees about the topics.
The intent was to explore the beliefs and backgrounds that contribute to an inclusive work environment
by presenting realistic scenarios—issues that can arise every day in the MS2 work environment. The design
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focused on “conversation bubbles”—similar to those that appear in comic strips—as a way to present
thoughts and reactions in a neutral way. The team wanted to avoid using stock photography or illustrations that included people, because they wanted employees to focus on the issues and language, not
whether it was a gender or race issue.
The dialogue on the front of the postcards was written to be a bit edgier than traditional company communications about diversity in order to attract employees’ attention in a more thought-provoking way. The
team used conversational language to present the beliefs, reactions, comments and generational nuances
that matched each of the issues explored. The back of the postcards contained a call to action—reinforcing that diversity is a business imperative for Lockheed Martin MS2. Each card contained three to four
bullet points of actions employees could take themselves to create an inclusive work environment, from
specific behaviors to more subtle challenges to their beliefs and behaviors.
Given the positive reaction to the first set of postcards, the team quickly created an employee contest to
generate future postcard ideas. More than 50 different ideas were submitted, and 10 of them were developed into electronic diversity postcards for use as e-cards and on the web site during the corporation’s
Diversity Awareness week in September 2007. The communications team took the ideas submitted and
developed the creative and language to mirror the original campaign.
KEY MESSAGES/THEMES /
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As a corporation, Lockheed Martin’s goal is to create an inclusive work environment in which all
people are valued, and their ideas encouraged and respected.
A diverse and inclusive work environment is about more than accepting attributes such as race,
sex and religious beliefs. It’s about accepting the variety of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives that make each individual unique.
The diversity of Lockheed Martin’s workforce provides the competitive edge needed for MS2 to
succeed in the global marketplace. A diverse and inclusive workforce allows the company to benefit from the different backgrounds and perspectives of colleagues and fosters more creative and
innovative thinking throughout the organization.
Respecting others’ perspectives and backgrounds is more than a business imperative—it’s also the
right thing to do.
BUDGET/STAFF REQUIREMENTS
By using existing communications, design and web staff from across the organization, much of the campaign costs were absorbed by standard department payroll. The cost for the printing and shipping of the
“Embrace Diversity” postcards was approximately US$6,800, or just US$0.12 per employee. The campaign was developed in April and May, and distribution began in June 2007 as scheduled.
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CHALLENGES / Ironically, the one challenge the team expected—getting senior executive buy-in on the
postcard topics and language—did not occur. Rather, senior leadership felt the postcards were well
thought-out, provocative and dealt with pertinent issues.
The most difficult challenge was developing an accurate distribution list for employees to receive a printed postcard. With the wide use of electronic communications, keeping an up-to-date list of employee office
locations within each facility has not been a business priority. The team addressed this with a secondary
campaign encouraging employees to update their office locations and personal information in the company database and by working closely with mailroom staff at each location. While they did not achieve 100
percent distribution, each series of postcards achieved a higher distribution rate than the previous one.
MEASUREMENT/EVALUATION /
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Objective: Reach at least 75 percent of employees with a targeted diversity communication. Based
on returned cards, a nonscientific poll of employees conducted via the intranet, as well as discussions with communication leads and mailroom staff across locations, the team estimates that 70
percent of employees received the first batch of postcards; that number reached up to 90 percent
of employees for the final set of postcards.
Objective: Establish a solid baseline of employee understanding about what constitutes a diverse
environment. Following each of the postcard distributions, the team conducted an online survey
and received nearly 1,000 responses (just under 10 percent of the workforce and thus considered
statistically valid). With each of the postcard distributions, 62–65.5 percent of employees recalled
receiving the postcard; 43 percent felt the diversity message was new, different and made them
think; and up to 50 percent believed the message was effective. Again, because the team had not
measured the effectiveness of diversity messaging in the past, this gives them a solid baseline to
work against in future years.
In late September 2007 (at which point the “Embrace Diversity” postcard campaign had been completed),
the HR organization surveyed employees on their perspectives on diversity and Lockheed Martin’s communication of diversity as a business imperative. It revealed the following strong metrics:
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The percentage of employees who indicated that they strongly agree or agree that MS2 is serious
about its commitment to have a diverse, inclusive work environment was 85.2 percent.
The percentage of employees who indicated that the benefits of a diverse, inclusive work environment have been clearly communicated to them was 84.5 percent.
In addition to the quantitative feedback, the team received a number of notable e-mails from
employees:
“I like them! I thought the concept was a little ‘hokey’ until I actually read them. But they are very
well presented and made me stop and think about my own actions and reactions.”
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“You managed to touch on one of my pet peeves. I’m ex-Navy with no traditional degree and the
last postcard addressed the concern I have that some folks think one has to have a sheepskin on
the office wall to be effective. That’s not true. Thanks for sharing that message!”
“May I say I am not a fan of what I consider corporate group-hug efforts—strange for an old guy
who would benefit from diversity-think—but I must compliment you on your campaign…
especially the bubble-conversation post cards I have seen. Brilliant marketing.”
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