Enabling a mentoring system creates an environment where experienced employees could help, encourage and guide new employees and show them how to succeed within the company. Mentoring can lead to a close relationship that can last the duration of their careers; it can instill confidence within the less experienced employee while gaining professional contacts and becoming aware of different opportunities.

It could be very beneficial for a mentoring program at Carl’s company to pair top management with non-managerial female employees.  By doing so, Carl and other top managers would have broadened perspectives on women in the workplace.  Working one on one would help them better appreciate the skill set female employees offer the company and better promote them to make efficient use of human resources.  At the same time, company morale may improve if female employees see their contributions recognized by their mentors. Mentoring can also have benefits for women in Joyce’s position by being encouraged to succeed within the company and gaining confidence in their work, as well as gaining confidence in the company. 

Since many of the alternative solutions listed above are preventative steps that would have been helpful prior to the interview with Joyce and Carl, they aren’t necessarily effective solutions in the current situation.  Rather, in retrospect, the preventative actions should be instituted by the company’s top management going forward as a commitment to diversity.  

As for finding an acceptable solution to the immediate issue, Joyce and Carl might both benefit from allowing Joyce to fill the position as “Acting Vice President” in an interim basis for one month, with the offer of permanent promotion contingent on her performance during the interim period.

The terms of the interim filling of the position would be such that Joyce would be given the authority to act as the Vice President for one month.  This trial period would allow Joyce enough time to actually prove she is capable of handling the challenges of the position.  At the same time, Carl would be able to still interview other candidates during the interim period in the event that either Joyce does not perform acceptably or possibly that she does discover that her personal quality of life is negatively affected by the amount of time required of the position and declines the promotion.  Joyce would have to accept her same current compensation during the interim period, but if she is offered the permanent promotion and she accepts, she would receive the higher compensation of the promoted position retroactively from the start date of the interim period.  Finally, because Carl’s own stereotypes preclude him from fairly evaluating Joyce’s performance during the interim period, the evaluation should be conducted by a three person panel including Carl and two additional diverse managers/organizational members mutually agreed upon to decide if Joyce earns the permanent position.  Joyce should receive a written summary of her performance evaluation including criteria used to make the determination.

Although all eleven effective diversity management techniques should be implemented as a preventative measure of further discrimination, the most rewarding solution for Carl may be to use a multipronged ongoing training approach. As described above, this solution would encourage Carl to break his gender schema of women by experiencing all different professional and personal levels of women. By helping at a women and children’s homeless shelter, sitting in on a single parent support group and visiting a female CEO at PepsiCo, Carl would have firsthand experience of struggling women, professional and successful women. He may also be able to link together some common ground for women and men by attending the single parent support group, because in that situation both genders are in similar states and working towards overcoming their struggles and managing their successes. 
