Case 1
“Attraction is nothing without retention!”
494382hw – Henrik Weng
472696eb – Ellemijn Boers
490777ds – Danylo Shcherbyna
491911ig – Igor Gukasyan
500051sp – Stas Prymak
1
Problem Analysis
Recently BMC, a multinational consulting firm, faced serious issues regarding their diversity
within the firm. This was shown by negative press, accompanied by falling stock prices,
uncertainties among partners, and complaints by employees. In comparison to the industry
average, the composition of BMC's staff in 2009 shows that the percentage of diverse
employees drastically decreased the higher the position in the career ladder is (Appendix 4).
The following paper analyses the problems existing at BMC which prevent them from being
more diverse and proposes solutions to solve their diversity issues. This paper outlines three
main points of improvement for BMC: the recruitment process, job policies, and
communication.
Recruitment process
First of all, BMC's application process is not tailored to suit women or even other applicants,
as they reported that the job description was "intimidating," and this might be one reason why
women generally do not apply for a job at BMC. The competency profile used by BMC indeed
consists of raw and, in some ways extreme verbs that might scare off initial applicants. It is
crucial to alter the job profile that BMC uses since it is an important way of how BMC
communicates with its future employees. Also, according to the case, there are almost no role
models for women applying for a job at BMC. As reported in the case, a woman once was
applying for the job and only had a chance to interact with one female employee, and, therefore,
declined the offer. The absence of female employees and support for them is evident, and the
implication is that the company cannot attract, and most importantly, retain women in the
company. Apart from that, the interview process must be changed in such a way that it helps
women and other minorities exercise their talent and be more confident.
Job policies
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Job policies directly influence the extent to which it is comfortable for someone to work in a
certain company. As for BMC, it can be seen that the company's policies are exclusively
tailored for the employees that are associated with the "old-boys" culture. The "old-boys"
culture implies that work is a first priority which is evident from how the general work of the
consultant is described in the following sentence: "And let's be clear: the high demands and
high-pressure environment of a consulting firm are just not compatible with 9-5 family life".
Moreover, the competency profile outlined in Appendix 5 makes it clear that the company is
looking for people that are ready to be fully committed to the job. Thus, the company has
limited exposure to other types of candidates, undermining its commitment to diversity stated
in Appendix 6. It is readily seen that, so far, the company took only reactive responses to the
arising diversity issue covering women underrepresentation. This is evident in the attempt to
promote an "egg-freezing" policy that was a "direct" solution to the problem rather than a
weighted decision made in consultation with female employees. Thus, substantial changes
should be made in the job policies in order to increase the retention rate and overall level of
satisfaction among employees. Also, adequate job policies will serve as an additional factor of
attraction for the potential employees. Lastly, the company should establish a proper reciprocal
communication channel in order to incorporate employees' ideas and preferences with regards
to the job policies and other job aspects that influence the satisfaction of the employees.
Communication
A substantial issue at BMC relates to their company image and culture. The company image
portrayed and communicated on their website is not congruent with their actual actions. BMC's
campaign 'Our commitment to diversity (Appendix 6) states that they strive for talented
employees irrespective of their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. However, in reality, BMC
holds prejudice against minorities internally, which is clear from the management’s reaction to
the case problem - “Give it some time and this will all blow over…”. This leads to BMC failing
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to internally communicate their contribution towards diversity and reveals their unauthentic
approach towards it. Furthermore, this internal mismatch has also been shone a light on by the
press, namely Forpes.com, making it not only an internal communication problem but also an
external one. If BMC continues receiving bad press about their in-company approach towards
diversity, this will not only repel new minority candidates from applying to BMC but may also
cause existing employees to leave the firm. Lastly, this problem may also influence nonminority groups to reject BMC because they won't want to be associated with BMC's bad
company image.
Problem Solution
We have outlined three main parts of the overall solution to the problems explained above.
First of all, BMC has to alter its application process to better suit women. Secondly, as
mentioned, BMC has not only to attract but also retain female workers and therefore has to
change its job policies to satisfy the needs of women. Lastly, BMC has to communicate the
changes in an efficient manner in order to influence its company image and attract first
female applicants. It is important to mention that the solutions that we offer not only can help
BMC attract and retain female employees but also assist in making the company's
environment a better place for men and minorities as well. The implementation of these three
parts will be explained in detail and backed up by scientific papers in this section and
examples of similar practices employed by reputable consulting firms in the real world.
Moreover, Newman and Lyon (2009) find that diversity helps companies achieve their
performance goals, and hence, they see targeted recruiting as a working tool that should be
implemented across the whole spectrum of the recruitment process.
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Recruitment Process
Application
Let us start with the application process. Research has shown that the specificity and type of
information presented in employment advertisements affect the decision to apply for a position
(Feldman, Bearden & Hardesty, 2006; Lievens & Chapman, 2010; Rynes & Cable, 2003). Born
and Taris (2010) investigate in their article how the profile of the desired applicant presented
in the employment advertisements affects male and female students' inclination to apply for a
position. Moreover, they inspect how the wording of the profile affects this inclination. They
find that women are indeed sensitive to the gender-typicality as well as the presentation form
of the requirements. For BMC, it means that they have to tailor their employment
advertisements to the female profile in order to attract more females: i.e., use indications like
Mrs. Instead of Mr., mention more character traits that are usually connected to females (e.g.,
creativity), and create behaviorally formulated job requirements rather than in the form of traits
(Born & Txaris, 2010). What is important, Born and Taris (2010) found that male applicants
remained unaffected by the presentation form or gender typicality of the profile, and therefore,
by implementing the changes above, BMC would not lose talent inflow from male applicants.
Besides using an increased number of female indicators, vacancy description wording should
be changed as it also influences how applicants perceive the potential position. Verbs and
adjectives play a crucial role in how certain individuals perceive the vacancy. It especially the
case when it comes to meta-stereotypes that are stereotypes minorities hold about what the
majority group thinks about them. It was found that minorities apply less to the jobs where the
description is worded using verbs rather than adjectives (Wille & Derous, 2017, p. 547).
Moreover, the BMC vacancy has some meta-stereotypes with regards to women. These are the
statements about productivity and career motivation as women tend to devote a substantial
amount of time to the family, making majorities think that women are not capable of being
5
productive and motivated. Thus, BMC should start using adjectives instead of verbs in order
to increase the application rates of people within minority groups as well as make these people
more confident applying to the job. For example, the wording of vacancy description of
business analyst in McKinsey mostly comprised of adjectives supporting our wording advice
(McKinsey & Company, n.d.).
Applicant Profiling
Moreover, the BMC’s competency profile should be extended with competencies in which
women have a strong performance. It was found that integrity and conscientiousness are the
traits in which women outperform men consistently. By adding these competencies to the
competency profile, women will be more confident applying to the job as it will serve as
signaling that the company needs competencies in which women consistently show strong
performance (Ryan & Tippins, 2004, p. 317).
Selection Process
Furthermore, BMC can also adjust its internal policies to make the applicant selection process
more gender-inclusive. Johnson, Hekman & Chan (2016) find that when there is only one
minority candidate in a group of four final candidates, their chances of being hired are
statistically zero. But when just one more woman or minority candidate is selected among the
last four candidates, both the men and women had an equal chance of being selected (see
Appendix 1). Accordingly, BMC should aim to include an equal proportion of men and women
in the initial talent pool that they select. This will not only make the application process more
inclusive and fairer for women but also reduce the selection bias where an overwhelming male
majority of applicants may lead the recruiter to believe that a male candidate should be selected
for the position.
6
Interviews
The interview process should also be adjusted in order to make women more confident during
the interview process. Representation of minorities in the role of interviewers should be
substantially increased as minorities feel insecure when they are communicating only with the
majority group (Wille & Derous, 2017, p. 547). Also, the interview process should be modified
as women tend to decline the offer after two rounds of the interview. As the reasons behind
these declines are not explicitly mentioned, we infer that the company makes too much accent
on hard-working culture and commitment to the firm that the women see limited opportunities
for career development due to the family-related time commitments in the future (Webster et
al., 2020, p. 716). Thus, instead of talking too much about time pressure and commitment, the
company should talk about newly developed job policies that allow for improved work-life
balance indicating that the company is aware that women usually need to spend more time with
the family compared to men. Still, the company should openly talk about potential
disadvantages regarding the high-pressure environment of the job. By being honest, the
company helps employees to get an understanding of what they might expect in the future
(Ryan & Tippins, 2004, p. 317).
General remarks
According to Avery and McKay (2006), recruiting at predominantly minority or female
institutions of higher education will convey the impression to women and minorities that the
firm values diversity. This insight is in-between communication and application, as it presents
a specific strategy for BMC as well as increases awareness of the fact that the company values
diversity. Also, BMC can host events as "women in consulting," etc., to not only reinforce the
fact that they strive for diversity but also to help recruit female applicants.
Job Policies
7
Work-Life Balance
Next, we continue to job policies. Carless and Wintle (2007) found that young job seekers are
looking for jobs that enable them to have a balance in their life, as they are more concerned
with the overall quality of their life than climbing the corporate ladder (Hall, 2004). This is an
important insight for BMC since they can implement work-life balance policies in order to
attract and, more importantly, keep women among other talents in the company. Krentz, M.
(2019) finds that, in fact, women value tools to balance their career and family responsibilities
in a job much more than men. His research included a ranking of several job characteristics
that both women and men participated in. The findings concluded the following: women found
practical tools that would help regardless of family status: parental leave (ranked 3rd by women
but 10th by men), appropriate health care coverage (6th vs 11th), and childcare assistance, such
as backup or onsite childcare (11th vs 22nd) more important than men. Hence, supporting the
fact that women have a larger desire for a job, which also allows them to balance their family
life. Furthermore, women ranked flexibility programs for both women and men 2nd, while men
ranked them 5th (Krentz, 2019). The paper by Rau and Hyland (2002, p. 115) examines how
people with work-life conflicts perceive various job policies targeted to enhance work-life
balance. Authors found that people with extremely high work-life conflicts tend to prefer
flextime as the main way to mitigate the problem. On the opposite, people with low work-life
conflict tend to prefer telecommuting as the main tool to resolve the conflict. We believe that
women who want to have children might experience both low and high work-life conflicts
depending on the age of children. For example, when children are young, they require a
substantial amount of attention, but when children mature, they do not need that much of
attention. Thus, BMC should implement both flextime and telecommuting in order to increase
satisfaction and retention among women employees. Also, these policies will likely increase
job satisfaction among all employees regardless of gender (Lund et al., 2021).
8
Maternity Leave
Besides flextime and telecommuting, paid maternity leave should also be introduced as it is an
industry-wide standard. Maternity leave was adopted by all reputable consulting firms,
including Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, McKinsey, Deloitte, etc. Such a policy
will be a most optimal substitute for the proposed "egg freezing" policy, which was deemed
unethical by women employees of BMC. Also, instead of inventing unsuccessful job policies,
BMC should facilitate bottom-top communication in order to promote the participation of
employees in the process of the introduction of new job policies. Such communication will
help to make the proposed job policies even better as the interest of all parties will be
considered. Moreover, it will increase overall job satisfaction and commitment to the company
among the employees as it will create a feeling that employees can influence their workplace
(Sypniewska, 2014, p. 64).
Company Culture
Lastly, the company should introduce an internal informational campaign that will promote
both gender and ethnicity diversity as currently, BMC has an "old-boys" culture. The
informational campaign should highlight why diversity is important in the modern world and
what advantages it brings to the company (Dixon-Fyle et al., 2021). It will help to eliminate
prejudices with regard to gender or ethnicity. Existence of the prejudices regarding the
minorities, especially if these stereotypes are reinforced by the company’s culture, make
minorities not only insecure but also think that they have limited career and development
opportunities due to their status leading to a higher turnover among minorities (Webster et al.,
2020, p. 716). Diversity is a key enabler of enhanced innovation capacity, better problemsolving, and stronger resilience (Tsusaka et al., 2021). These are only a few potential upsides
that are coming from diversity, making it highly important for BMC to internally communicate
why diversity is important and what are the possible upsides coming from diversity.
9
Communication
Means of Communication
Finally, BMC must successfully communicate the changes in its job policies and application
processes in order to attract more female employees. This can be done in numerous ways,
including portraying diverse advertisements, presenting inclusiveness policy statements,
employing a female recruiter, participating in diversity fairs, publicly supporting and
sponsoring women's causes, and presenting cases of successful diversity management through
including females in the company's representatives. These concrete actions will convey the
impression to the public that the organization seeks and values diversity (Avery&McKay,
2006). The impression is highly important, especially when it comes to targeting and recruiting
minority groups. It was found that people that have a negative attitude towards the company
are less likely to apply even if the actual job suits them perfectly (Ryan & Tippins, 2004, p.
317). This is exactly the case for BMC, as women generally have negative sentiments towards
the company due to the "old-boys culture" and unethical job policies introduced by the top
management. Thus, it is highly important for the BMC to effectively communicate the changes
happening in the company using the aforementioned methods.
Diversity Statement
The diversity statement displayed on the company's website should be changed because it
highlights diversity only as a mean of potentially getting a competitive advantage. We believe
that it can be potentially brought up by the media stating that BMC needs diversity only to
enhance the company's performance. The diversity statement should highlight that the
company aims to provide people regardless of race, ethnicity, and other factors with equal
rights, opportunities, and career opportunities. Gaining competitive advantage should not be a
central message but rather a by-product of diversity. The new diversity statement can be found
in Appendix 3.
10
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Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Candidate profile previous and revised.
1. Integrity
To have strong moral principles and be honest.
2. Consciousness
To be aware of and fully committed to the work you are doing.
3. Creativity
To find unconventional but feasible solutions to problems.
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4. Commercial awareness
5. Career motivation
To be motivated to build a career with BMC.
6. Problem-solving
To be able to think critically and in a problem-solving manner.
7. Leadership
To be willing to take responsibility for and lead others.
Appendix 3
New statement:
Our approach to diversity is based on the belief that all people should be treated equally, and
each person should equal opportunities for development regardless of their gender, race, sexual
orientation, religion, age, disability status, or any other dimension of diversity. We believe that
diversity creates an exceptional opportunity of generating additional value for our clients. We
are thus committed to increasing the representation of minority groups in BMC.
Old statement:
Our diversity initiatives and strategies are designed to attract, develop, and advance the most
talented individuals regardless of their gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability
status, or any other dimension of diversity. Our approach to diversity is based on the belief that
diversity can lead to a competitive advantage by helping us to serve our clients more
effectively. Our ability to access and serve a wide portfolio of clients benefits from a diverse
workforce. We are thus committed to increasing the representation of minority groups in BMC.
15
Appendix 4
Appendix 5
Appendix 6
16
Case 2
“Retention is the pinnacle of success!”
494382hw – Henrik Weng
472696eb – Ellemijn Boers
490777ds – Danylo Shcherbyna
491911ig – Igor Gukasyan
500051sp – Stas Prymak
17
Problem Analysis
The multinational consulting company BMC is facing more problems regarding the retention
of their female employees. The company is seeing less and less women making it to senior
management positions such as partner, while the company’s competitors have significantly
more women in top management positions. The average percentage of females who are partner
at BMC is 7.9%, while the industry average is 24% (Appendix 2). This shows that this is not
an industry-wide problem, but an issue that is only present at BMC. The problem of a lack of
female senior managers will lead to a serious shortage of female employees in the future. This
paper analyses the different problems that exist at BMC which result in the absence of women
in top positions.
Company culture
An important issue at BMC is related to the company’s culture. The culture that exists at BMC
does not facilitate a sense of belonging and inclusion for female employees, which is also seen
in the results of the employee survey (Appendix 3). There is a significant difference between
men and women in the results from questions concerning the number of opportunities they
receive from management and if the employees feel that they have “what it takes”. These
results show that women feel like they are less engaged in their jobs than their male colleagues.
The culture that is present at BMC is not tailored for women, which results in a large outflow
of female employees. The company does realize that this problem exists but is not sure what
the best way to respond is. As said by their competitors, BMC is still speaking the “old
language” and the company needs to be more innovative and flexible. The company needs to
adapt their culture in a way that minority groups feel both engaged and included. This is also
necessary in order to keep up with the company’s competitors, otherwise the dominant position
of BMC will keep declining.
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Employee retention
Secondly, BMC has serious difficulties retaining their employees, because there is a vast
outflow of talented employees which makes it difficult to find suitable partners. The high
turnover rate is particularly observed in positions high up in the career ladder, the senior
management and among female employees. Therefore, BMC predicts a significant shortage of
employees in the near future. While the outflow of male employees is stable, ranging from 10%
to 20% throughout the career ladder, the exit rate of women ranges from 10% to 50%
(Appendix 3). The spike of female employees leaving BMC is especially visible in senior
management (partner and principal) where the outflow is more than twice as high as amid men
(Appendix 3). The high retention rate imposes high costs on BMC, as they are not able to
benefit long term from developing their employees when they resign and depart to their
competitors. Substantial efforts to retain women by providing family support, which includes
nannies, babysitters, kindergarten and individual support throughout the pregnancy. Although
these measures were supposed to help women be more flexible for work these actions did not
prove to be effective in resolving the existing problems. Hence, BMC must develop solutions
to increase their retention rate to increase their level of diversity within the firm and save costs.
Job policies
Next, an inherent problem are current job policies. In an employee survey (Appendix 3) women
agreed that they experience a lack of support and training in order to do their job optimally.
According to mentor career support benefits women career progress more than it does for men
(Tharenou, 2005). Furthermore, women complain of a lack of opportunities by the management
(Appendix 2) which reduces intrinsic motivation and is responsible for less job advancements
(Noe et al., 2017).
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Problem Solution
In the problem analysis we have outlined a major problem of BMC not having enough women
in senior and executive positions. This overarching problem can be solved in three steps also
mentioned in the problem analysis: changing the corporate culture to be more inclusive and
engaging for women, valuing diversity; altering the rank-up system the company currently has
in order to attract more talent in general, not only women; lastly, implementing concrete job
policies to support women in their experience with BMC. The overall goal of these changes
would be creating a mentally safer and more convenient place for women and, of course, other
employees of the company. This is of vital importance due to the fact that, as stated in the case,
BMC is slowly losing its position as a number one consulting firm because it fails in retaining
and developing talent. Its management must employ an employee-centered approach in its
strategy to stay on top.
Company Culture
Identity Cover
Let us start with the company culture, as it seems to be the priority when it comes to solving
the outlined problem. The concept of “identity cover” explains how people hide parts of their
lives or their opinions at work in fear of negative consequences, and makes employees
vulnerable to leaving their organization (Brown, 2018). An example of an identity cover would
be the following situation described in the case: when Sharon Stones tried confronting the
CEO, but eventually gave up, since her opinion was not valid in the eyes of John Little. Also,
one can make an assumption from the case that women in general are not mentally supported
and undervalued. They are not so sure they “have what it takes” to grow within BMC, and they
clearly need more helping with training and development (Appendix 2). Therefore, the
company needs to grow a culture that fosters inclusivity and engagement.
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Organizational Climate
In order to increase levels of employee engagement, BMC can increase diversity within the
company. As found by Downey et al. (2015), diversity and engagement have a positive
relationship. Moreover, they found that this relationship holds for all employees, meaning
employees’ well-being is improved rather than impaired by perceptions of diversity practices
(Downey et al., 2015). However, it is crucial to realize that a trusting climate provides an
underlying mechanism through which diversity practices transmits its positive effects on
engagement (Downey et al., 2015). Therefore, inclusion must be established in the first place.
To ensure diversity has positive implications on the work of the organization, an integrationand-learning perspective must be implemented (Ely&Thomas, 2001). The integration-andlearning perspective states that “the insights, skills and experiences employees have developed
as members of various cultural identity groups are potentially valuable resources that the work
group can use to rethink its primary tasks and redefine its markets, preducts, strategies and
business practices to advance the mission” (Ely&Thomas, 2001). Only this perspective
provides the rationale and guidance needed to achieve sustained benefits from diversity
(Ely&Thomas, 2001). Moreover, other research shows that fostering a positive organizational
climate towards diversity can be essential to improve social interactions and increase retention
of minority members (McKay et al., 2007). Furthermore, Jin, M., Lee, J., & Lee, M. (2017)
expand on this idea stating that leaders play a major role in defining the organizational climate.
Their findings also show that leadership predicted perceptions of team performance more
strongly for minority employees than for nonminority employees. Therefore, BMC should not
only select its team leader by rank of managerial traits and experience, but also their attitude
towards minorities and their ability to maintain a positive organizational climate in a diverse
team. For example, if a woman is selected as a team leader, the other women in the team may
21
feel empowered. While one might argue that men would in turn feel the opposite, if BMC
correctly implements diversity programs, men will not care so much about the gender of their
leader. This leads us to talk about the next point; implementation.
Implementation
Research from BCG (Krentz, M. 2019) found that around three quarters of employees in
underrepresented groups—women, racial and ethnic minorities, and LGBTQ employees—do
not feel they’ve personally benefited from their companies’ diversity and inclusion programs.
This suggests that to make a workplace more diverse, diversity should be embedded in the
organizational culture, rather than implementing a separate program to tackle it. Two types of
diversity training that work in implementing diversity in the organizational culture according
to Lindsey, A., King, E., Membere, A., & Cheung, H. K. (2017) are the following: perspective
taking – which means seeing the world from a minority group employee’s point of view and
goal setting – meaning controlling yourself and others if anything that could offend a minority
employee is voiced, be it in their presence or not. Besides a trusting climate, it is important for
the company to make women employees feel that they belong and committed to the company
because when it is not the case, employees might have lower workplace satisfaction, find less
meaning in their work and generally may be more inclined towards leaving the job. Slepain
(2019) identified several efforts that company can exercise in order to promote feeling of
belonging. First, BMC should recognize the difference between women and men by, for
example, providing women with job policies tailored specifically for them. Yet, the company
should be careful as overemphasizing the difference might make minority groups feel insecure.
Secondly, BMC should strive to create an identity safe environment in order to underline what
value is brought in by employees from the underrepresented groups, in this case women. In
order to do so, BMC should survey female employees with regards to how their workplace
22
should look like. Yet, it is highly important to not to place all burden on minority group as the
group may feel that the company is trying to single them out. Lastly, BMC should show that it
respects values of female employees by creating environments where female employees will
be comfortable to speak up.
Job policies
Work Schedule
As can be seen from the employee survey results (Appendix 2) women are not fully satisfied
with how they carry out work at BMC. The study from Walsh et al. (2015) found several key
actions that the company may undertake in order to increase women retention and satisfaction.
The study identified providing mid-career challenges to women are highly important to sustain
retention. The mid-career challenges are defined as increased institutional support from the
company’s side during the mid-career years when more and more work responsibilities are
arising in combination with demands of having children and family. The research identified
two key actions by which the company can provide institutional support. The first one is to
provide adequate level of autonomy and control. This is mainly reflected in the ability to have
a flexible work schedule combined with the optionality of being in the office. Such a flexibility
helps women to effectively combine work with family life without substantial impact on the
quality and productivity of work. The second pillar of institutional support is creation of an
infrastructure of support that would provide sense of community and belonging both outside
and within the company. According to employee survey, BMC should definitely implement a
flexible work schedule as women in the company are lacking flexibility and autonomy in
carrying out work. Implementation of a flexible schedule will result in greater retention and
satisfaction among all employees regardless the gender (Walsh et al., 2016, p. 197).
23
Gender Diversity in Senior Positions
A study from Walsh et al. (2016) found that company should have adequate number of female
role models in senior-level positions which is exactly what women employees at BMC are
missing. Having a role-models at senior levels help women at lower-level understand what it
takes and what should be done in order to achieve a senior position. This would certainly
increase retention as women will be able to clearly model their career path within the company
which in turn decrease the likelihood of women employees switching to other competitors.
Thus, BMC should strive to attract more women at senior-level position in order to make lowerlevel women employees more confident with regards to their potential career path within the
company. Senior role models are also good mentors that can help lower-level employees feel
more confident and secure. In addition, it is worth to note that greater representation of women
at the senior positions is positively associated with higher revenues, relative profits and stock
performance making it a win-win situation for BMC and its female employees (Walsh et al.,
2016, p. 197)
Career Development and Training
Purposeful and long-term career development is another factor which plays an important role
when it comes to the retention and satisfaction of female employees. At BMC, female
employees indicate that they lack learning and development opportunities which can lead to
higher turnover as female employees would feel insecure when it comes to the career
advancement due to the insufficient qualification resulting from insufficient training and
development opportunities. Thus, it is advisable for BMC to create a strategy for training and
development of female employees that will be linked to the career development. Creation of
such a strategy allows to create confidence among female employees in terms of what
qualifications are needed to have stable growth with the organization. Also, it creates a long-
24
term and deep commitment to the company making the turnover among female employees
lower (Walsh et al., 2016, p. 197).
Rank-up system
AAP (Affirmative Action Programs)
The system that decides who gets promoted must be updated to suit women as well. One
decision by the company may be to introduce affirmative action programs. It can decrease the
number of years that a woman needs to have worked in the company to get promoted, at least
for some time. However, it is crucial to make sure male employees consider it fair. To do so,
BMC may use transparent selection procedures (Harrison et al., 2006). Also, the justification
of the AAP must emphasize the need to redress past discrimination and the practical value of
the diverse workforce that results from successful AAP’s (Harrison et al., 2006). Moreover,
organizations must publicize the details of their AAPs rather than keeping quiet about them, in
order to minimize disagreements (Harrison et al., 2006).
Implementation
A hands-on solution for BMC to make their rank-up system more gender-inclusive would be
to consider the chemistry between the team leader and the rest of the team. As stated previously,
Jin, M. Et al. (2017) identify that leaders play a major role in defining the organizational
climate. Hence, we can infer that having a female leader would also empower other women in
a team. BMC should consider this factor in the rank-up system and embrace female leaders as
they can strongly influence team performance if other women are present in the team. Nishii.
L (2012) suggests that minimum level of diversity can be achieved by eliminating as much of
structural inequalities and exclusionary decision-making processes as possible. By unifying
female leaders with female employees in one team, BMC can achieve not only the
25
forementioned, but also create a suitable organizational culture for women to work in, as
mentioned by (Downey et al., 2015), and help BMC in reaching its company diversity goals.
Besides the modifications mentioned above, the whole mechanism should be materially
modified. The deadline rank-up system is not suitable for keeping a diverse talent group as it
entails a substantial commitment to work. Also, it is inconsistent with the recommendations
proposed earlier. We believe that the company should implement a conventional rank-up model
that is being used by the majority of reputable consulting firms. First, the conventional rankup system uses the deal value as a key metric for performance. The deal value is defined as the
total revenue generated by a manager by attracting new clients or signing new deals with
existing clients. Moreover, the deal value matric should be supplemented with additional
metrics covering the development of the employees (what an employee learned during a certain
period of time), quality of interpersonal communication, whether the employee is taking part
in sustaining a diverse and inclusive work climate (absence of conflicts based on race, ethnicity,
etc.), and general performance in the workplace. Based on the proposed rank-up system, an
employee will be promoted if she/he/it showed strong performance in both deal value and
supplementary metrics. In the case of moderate performance with respect to the deal value but
positive or stable performance with respect to additional metrics, the employee will not be
promoted. In case of bad performance with respect to the additional metrics and/or weak
performance with respect to deal value, the employer will act in accordance with employee’s
circumstances that lead to weak performance (A. Imas, 2020).
26
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Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
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