During a major crisis or times of increased stress, people and companies often revert to their last maturity level of operations. This means that under the crunch of recession, some companies may revert to some rather discriminatory ways, even if they do not mean to do so. I knew a busy restaruant in which the owner-manager designed an effective plan of serving customers by zone in the dining room.it worked very smoothly. However, whenever business became slightly increased he would yell, "Free for all!", a command to drop the zone deisgnations. The free-for-all never worked well, though.

Think about bed wetting as another example – a “potty-trained” child may revert to bedwetting after attending a first funeral, becoming ill with the flu, or after the death of a pet. The tendency (to revert, not to wet the bed) sometimes occurs in the worlplace, unless top leadership follows-up down the line to encourage and support staff to hire and promote the best workers, regardless of demographics.

Varous Industry Analysts, Watchdog Groups, and Job Search Engines list their Top Employers for early 2009 in order to help job seekers find employment to diverse workers, including non-minorities, during a recession. The following organizations appear on many of these lists:

MILITARY

• Army National Guard – Increased enlistments in 2008 – 2009.
• US Navy

HEALTHCARE

• Bayada Nurses – Home Health Aides to RNs and Administrative Staff. Over 100 pages of listings.
• Kaiser Permanente
• Kindred Healthcare
• Fresenius Medical Care North America - over 1200 jobs.
• PSA Healthcare
• Sutter Health
• UnitedHealth Group

• Johnson & Johnson – World Wide employment opportunities.

COMPUTERS AND TECHNOLOGIES

• ACS - Computer services.
• EMC ^{2 -} Information technology. Multiple award winner, recognized for diversity.

• PricewaterhouseCoopers – World wide careers in finance and taxes.

Look for Employers that are Women-Friendly.

Check out “Best Places to Work:” for women and moms by running a search with those terms. Search “best places to work +women”, “best places to work +diversity” and “best places to work +moms” You can also try substituting the word +mothers for +moms. The Plus Sign (+) makes sure that the search includes the term or function following it.

Remember that during job interviews, employers and HR reps are not permitted to ask you any questions about your family or living arrangements at all, or whether you plan to have children or to become married or to move in with a domestic partner. However, surveys of employees in various companies provide the data for these “Best Places to Work.”

• Check out Working Mother Magazine for their Top 100 Best Companies.
• Check out the Top 30 Companies for Executive Women.

Look for Companies that have Earned Awards

Many companies that target and improve the stance of women, seniors, and other minorities receive awards. Check the Internet for award winning companies in these categories.

Check Vault.Com and Catalyst websites for company profiles and employee interviews.

Search Google for the following terms: “racial discrimination”, “age discrimination”, “gender discrimination”, “sex discrimination”, “sexual harassment”, “lawsuit”, and “settlement” and see if the company for which you are interviewing pops up in the results list.

In addition, check the Better Business Bureau regarding the company and determine how they handle consumer complaints. Look also at any lists of complaints and see if them majority of the complaints came from women or any other obvious minorities and if this seems out-of-line (for example, a cosmetics company is likely to have more female complaints because more females use their products).

If your potential employer is a healthcare practice or institution, check for malpractice suits in state and national databases.

How many women, the disabled, seniors, African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and other minorities do you see listed? If you see none or few, you likely won’t ever get to those positions, either, especially in a recession. Remember, too, that smaller companies may have a harder time installing diversity in the workplace, especially if the local population is mostly one demographic. Small businesses are also not required to install ADA requirements for the disabled if the cost is prohibitive.

Be a detective.

Look around on the day of your interview or visit the day before, stopping in to say hello to the receptionist, to check out the location exactly, and to pick up any available literature – like the most recent Annual Report. Ask the receptionist on a positive note about the length of his/her employment and satisfaction with it. Notice: Does the workplace look gender-neutral and do you see any women around? In what Job Titles do these women work?

Find out who your boss will be. If it is a person that does not clearly support and actively apply the organization’s EEO stance, it defines a potential fight that you may not win. Look for clues. For example, the secretary of one of my bosses on a summer job displayed a large risqué poster at the entrance of her cubicle stating, “Where can I find some sexual harassment?”

This local company division exuded an environment of discrimination against women, women with college degrees, women in sports, racial minorities (there were none and would not be), and the disabled. I was glad to be working elsewhere after 12 weeks.

This is more than:

1) Days off, insurance, and vacation. Benefits include

2) Ongoing Professional Development, Mentoring, Regular Employment Reviews, and In-house Promotion Track Development.

Where there are little or no benefits at all, the company may not value its workers. Check Vault and Catalyst, as described above.

Read on to Part 2 of this article and find important links for help for Seniors, Women, and Minorities.

How to Find Companies That Will Really Hire You, Part 2.