ATLANTA - An independent task force reported Wednesday that the Coca-Cola Company is doing a good job complying with a court diversity settlement, but needs to work harder to promote senior managers fairly. <br>
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Coke set up a diversity task force after spending more than $200 million on racial and gender discrimination settlements in the past two years. The committee represents both the plaintiffs and the company and released its first of four annual reports. <br>
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The 60-page report card gave Coke relatively high marks for new policies to improve diversity. <br>
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Among the changes are a uniform process for employee reviews and a new requirement that all new management job postings must attract at least three candidates -- one of whom must be a woman or a minority. <br>
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Before, some minorities and women complained they were not told what jobs were available or how to get them. <br>
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The main criticism in the report card is slow progress in fairly identifying current employees for senior management jobs. The task force called on Coke to implement a better way to identify talented employees who have the potential to move up. <br>
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Another bad sign was a task force survey of current employees that found minorities continue to give Coke low marks for fair promotions. Minority employees were much less likely than their white counterparts to agree with statements such as ``I believe career opportunities here go to the most qualified person.'' <br>
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About a third of Coke employees are minorities, but most top employees are white. The report card said blacks make up 20 percent of Coke's work force but only ten percent of the executives.
