Jeff Joerres is the current serving CEO and board chair of Manpower Group, the global leader in the employment service provision Industry. He graduated with a Bachelor degree in Business Administration from Marquette University in 1983. His first high-profile job was in IBM where he rose through the ranks, serving in various management positions before joining ARI Network Services as the Vice President in charge of Sales and Marketing (“CEO Awards,” 2011).

His performances at ARI Network Services caught the eye of the senior management at Manpower Group who recruited him into their management team. Having served in various top management positions such as the Vice President in charge of Marketing and subsequently as a Senior Vice President in two important portfolios: the European operations docket, and the Global Accounting docket. Finally, in 1999 he was promoted to the position of CEO Manpower Group, with his appointment as the Board Chairman in 2001 establishing him as the senior most figure in the corporation.

Since his appointment as the CEO in 1999, Jeff Joerres hands-on management style has seen Manpower Group rise significantly in terms of financial performance as well as an increase in the company’s global footprint and profile, earning him many admirers in the process. His efforts in ensuring that all his company’s staffing methods ensure diversity across all employment levels have paid off in the business sense, as Manpower Groups bottom-line has been consistently positive even in the face of the global economic recession.

Manpower Group

Even before Jeff Joerres’ ascendancy to the top position at Manpower Inc, the company had already forged a name for itself as one of the pioneers of embracing diversity in the workplace. As early as the 1940s. The company was already including women into its management structure, way before such a concept was socially accepted. In the face of the racially segregated overtones of the 1950s, Manpower group already had a sizeable employee portfolio of African American staff members as well as other racial minorities (Shaw, 2002).

The company’s corporate culture of not conforming to prejudices and stereotypes has been cited as one of the key factors in its ascendancy to become the industry leader in the human resource consulting market.

It is due to this atmosphere of open-mindedness and acceptance within Manpower group that may have endeared Jeff Joerres to the management, as the two seem to share the same corporate governance vision.

Jeff Joerres’ Philosophy

After being selected as one of the top executives in the country who embrace gender diversity by integrating women into top management positions (ION, 2010), Jeff Joerres was quoted in the interview as saying that his open-mindedness and affinity to promoting diversification are not caused by any ‘epiphany’, he credits these attributes to his mother’s upbringing who taught him; never to judge others and to be open-minded’. The simplicity of this statement hints at his humility, another sign of a proper upbringing. While it his gender diversity efforts that have received the most recognition, Jeff Joerres has made immense efforts to incorporate all forms of diversity within Manpower inc; starting from racial/ethnic diversity, sexual orientation diversity as well as opening his doors to those afflicted by various forms of disabilities into Manpower Group’s corporate structure.

During his address at the World Economic Forum at Davos Switzerland in 2014 (Economic Times, 2014), Jeff pointed out the ironic nature of the world global labor market in which up to 35% of employers all over the world are struggling to find employees to fill in vacancies in a world plagued by massive unemployment and an oversupply of workers. His solution to such companies is to source their employees from the diverse global talent pool, by limiting their search to what they considered their dominant group; they are missing out on talent.

Jeff Joerres has been recognized by his colleagues over the years as being a leader who leads by example. His philosophy to his employees is ‘do as I do’ and not ‘do as I say’. For one of his profiles, worldofceos.com (2012) interviewed an anonymous colleague at Manpower Group who pointed out that Jeff serves as a role model from which his employees can look up to as a reference point on how to provide their clients with the best possible service. He serves as motivation for his employees, through leadership by example.

His stance on the American government’s move to limit the number of foreigners who could be granted non-immigrant Visas is another testament to his philosophy of embracing diversification. Jeff Joerres points out that the America as a nation was founded, and advanced, by foreigners immigrating to the US with ideas and innovation. He uses the tech industry as a modern day reference point by pointing out that approximately two out of every three companies in Silicon Valley were started by people not originally born in the United States. By locking out foreigners with ideas, he says, America is not only stunting its development, but also giving competitive advantage to other more accepting global centers of innovation such as the wealthy Middle Eastern countries (CEO Awards, 2011).

What can be summarized from these insights into Jeff Joerres’ philosophy is that the man is, at heart, a true believer in promoting diversity; be it on a gender, racial, ethnic or any other basis. Moreover, he leads by example, not through rhetoric.

Jeff Joerres’ Strategies For Diversification In Manpower Group

Jeff Joerres diversification agenda in Manpower Group has been successful mostly due to the fact that his philosophy was in tune with the preexisting Manpower Group’s corporate culture of combating prejudice in the company’s structure. However, while most of his strategies were in part reinforcing the company’s diversification objectives, Jeff brought in new ideas and strategies that further improved diversification in the workplace. Some of the more notable strategies were:

Valuing Diversity

Despite the push for gender equality in the workplace, and particularly in the top management positions, a lot of companies have not yet implemented full gender equality practices in their management positions as well as their governing boards. With Jeff Joerres at the helm of Manpower Group as the CEO, more than 40% of the top executive positions within the global corporate structure of Manpower Group are comprised of women with 30% of the Board being women (ION, 2012).

There is also a considerable racial and ethnic mix in the corporate structure with Manpower Group being one of the pioneers in promoting non-hostile working environment policies for people of diverse sexual orientation identities.

The Manpower Group hiring and promotion policies are free from any form of prejudice. These policies have in part been pushed through by Jeff Joerres personally to ensure that the company is adequately diverse.

The Supplier Diversity Initiative

Introduced as a form of affirmative action in promoting diversity not just within the Manpower Groups corporate structure, but also in its supply chain, the supplier diversity initiative gives preferential treatment to accredited women owned businesses as well as businesses owned by racial and ethnic minority groups (Manpower Group, 2014).

This initiative, actively backed by Jeff Joerres, is testament to his leadership in promoting diversity across all aspects of Manpower Group’s business dealings.

The Goal

The goal for these and other diversification-centric corporate strategies can be termed simply as ‘promoting diversity’. Jeff Joerres’ identifies diversity in the workplace as not only a moral responsibility but also a financially productive initiative (Ghemawat, 2012).

Going back to his speech as the world economic forum at Davos, Jeff Joerres believes that the quest to find the best talent to spur a company’s growth and achieve its business objectives is inextricably tied to the concept of diversification. Through open-mindedness in a company’s staffing policies, the best and the brightest minds from across the cultural divide can be identified and used by the company to grow and prosper.

Looking at the rapid growth and immense profitability of the Manpower Group during Jeff Joerres’ leadership, this way of thinking seems to have paid off. The company witnessed success even during the global recession where other much bigger companies found it difficult to cope.

Current State Of Manpower Group

Manpower Group, under the leadership of Jeff Joerres, has turned into a corporate juggernaut. Its Fortune 500 ranking has risen from position 180 in 1999 prior to Jeff’s appointment as the COE to 140 in the 2013 rankings (Managi. 2013). The company’s global presence has also grown exponentially to its current 3500 offices in 80 different countries spread over all the continents (Forbes, 2013).

His sound moral leadership has not only affected the company’s diversification structure but also its ethical profile. Manpower Group has for the last three consecutive years been listed in the Ethisphere institute’s world’s most ethical companies’ index.

On a more personal level, Jeff Joerres’ personal profile has received a boost with the recognition of his successful diversification policies. Apart from his position as the CEO and Chairman of the Manpower Group, his professional portfolio currently includes his appointment as the Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, as well as the Chair of the Greater Milwaukee Future Workforce Committee, which seeks to diversify the public and private workforce in his hometown.

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