Like all people, every company has a story.  As the 2010 recipient of the National Association of Asian MBAs’ (NAAMBA) Top 10 Companies for Asian Americans Award, State Farm Insurance (“State Farm”) has a rich history of diversity and has been a pioneer of Asian diversity in the insurance industry as well as the greater professional community.  AsianLife Magazine would like to recognize State Farm’s achievements in our first Featured Profile by sharing the story of State Farm’s efforts and ongoing work in the Asian community.

These days, good neighbors are hard to find, and even harder to keep.  Rarely are neighbors more than polite acquaintances in a society that values individualism and personal distance.  But State Farm, founded in 1922, a group of insurance and financial services companies, has been a good neighbor to a diverse range of clients for over 80 years.  Over time, the company itself has reflected the diversity of its client communities, making admirable strides in the recruitment, development and retention of Asian professionals.

AsianLife recently spoke with Robert Yi, Senior Vice President of the Northeastern Zone at State Farm and a dedicated leader in State Farm’s diversity affairs.  At the helm of sales and operations for nine northeastern states, ranging from Pennsylvania to Maine, Yi is himself a successful Asian professional of Korean heritage and understands the cultural difficulties faced by many Asian employees.  His understanding of these issues is evident in his dedication to State Farm’s Asian diversity efforts. 

For its admirable support of workplace diversity, State Farm was recently awarded the Top 10 Companies for Asian Americans Award by NAAMBA, recognizing the company’s continued outstanding efforts in recruiting, retaining and promoting Asian American employees and in fostering workplace diversity.

“We are extremely honored to have it,” said Yi. “We pride ourselves in being an employer of choice and ensuring we meet the needs of our employees and customers. It means our State Farm values are hitting the right core of how we’re supporting Asian communities.”

State Farm has a long history of supporting diversity within the marketplace as well.  When working with the Asian client group, State Farm leaders focus on diversity within the larger community of Asians, Yi said. 

“The Asian community is large, everyone from Korean to Chinese to Indian.  We ensure that we understand each group, and we have distinct efforts to meet that need -- agents who speak the language, agents who know what values they hold dear. We ensure we serve those communities with real cultural sensitivity and the respect they deserve.”

In order to fully comprehend the diversity within the Asian community, State Farm emphasizes building long-term relationships with Asian organizations such as OCA (Organization of Chinese Americans) and KAC (Korean American Coalition).  Leaders from these and other organizations speak at corporate events to educate State Farm leaders about the Asian community and issues of importance.  Yi calls it a “constant communication” of perspectives and ideas.  A key to State Farm’s success in expanding diversity within the company itself has been the steady cultural learning process of its leaders and employees.

A regular contributor to local community events, State Farm employees also stay close to the communities they serve through events such as the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration in New York City.  On the corporate side, educational events such as those held during Asian American Heritage Month continue to keep employees informed about important cultural values and current issues of concern.

Yi pointed to one of State Farm’s most active employee resource groups (ERGs), Asia Net, whose participants give feedback about the company’s marketing efforts to the Asian community.  “It’s about our employees mobilizing to help the Asian community and State Farm, and an effort to grow our Asian talent,” Yi added. 

The active ERG is evidence of the company’s history of relationship building with diverse communities and its neighborly dedication to clients.  This same dedication is the bond that keeps State Farm employees close like family.

“Most of our employees start with State Farm and retire with State Farm,” says Yi.  “Retention is very important, and we recognize that it’s even more important with Asian recruitment.”  Yi explained that when recruiting and developing Asian professionals, State Farm applies the same approach for learning about Asian client communities.  Employers recognize that within the umbrella of Asian employees are diverse individuals with equally diverse needs.

“We make sure to respect the culture of the individual’s community and make sure there is a link to State Farm culture,” Yi explained.  Mutual trust and understanding is a crucial tenet in State Farm’s professional culture.  The company’s diversity champions put great importance on sympathy between employee and employer. 

Yi stressed the role of long term relationships in the State Farm family’s culture of understanding. “It’s a core that resonates with Asian employees, the fact that we support lifelong learning,” he said. “We want customers that will stay all their lives, and we want employees to start and end with us.” 

Over the years, State Farm’s diversity efforts have resonated with the values of the larger Asian community, education being one of the most important of those values.  Yi noted that the first step to achieving workplace and client diversity is to first educate the executive team about relevant topics and issues. 

“Asian community is the just the start of the dialogue,” he said. “There’s an effort to understand who these communities really are and how to respect them and create relationships.”  Yi said that within these efforts are “cultural acumen initiatives” focused on learning about sub groups within the Asian community.  From these sessions emerge discussions about natural points of tension for Asian employees that may arise in the workplace, and why they occur. 

“We figure out how the values of State Farm align with the cultures, and if there are misalignments, how we can find a way to align them again. Many times, with dialogue, we find that those things are actually not misaligned at all.”

Dialogue, communication and team work are part of State Farm’s recipe for success in promoting workplace diversity.  When asked how Asian employees contribute to this team, Yi emphasized that they represent the value of long term relationships and lifelong learning “extremely well.”  They show dedication to long-term success, and they invest in the future.

“Everything we do is for the benefit of our long term customers,” Yi said.  “Long term success is more valuable than doing well quarter to quarter.  We have the right energy, and we’re starting to see a higher success rate even with this tough economy.” 

And succeed they have!  AsianLife.com congratulates State Farm on being the #1 Company for Asian Americans in 2010, and for continuing to develop and expand the Asian professional community.

aimee.lim@asianmba.org