Carl could offer to mentor Joyce with the intention of promoting her for a future opening.  Although Carl would benefit greatly from working with Joyce, on the other hand, Joyce is already fully qualified for the position and the mentoring would most likely be considered a ploy to unnecessarily delay or deny her advancement.  In order for this offer to mentor to be viable, Carl would have to make it a standard practice with all hiring and offer the same to equally qualified male applicants, otherwise Joyce could still make a case for discrimination in court, and would probably seek employment elsewhere.

Carl could recognize his inability to fairly evaluate Joyce as a candidate due to his inaccurate stereotype of women and then recuse himself from the hiring process by delegating another manager to conduct a second interview with Joyce.  Although this seems acceptable on the surface, since the organizational culture is greatly influenced by top management, there’s a good chance all the other managers are like-minded males similarly unable to impartially evaluate Joyce.

Carl could hire Joyce and make adjustments in the workplace to help working parents achieve balance in their work/home life by providing on-site daycare, or allowing flexible hours or working from home options.  This may be ideal, but given Carl’s lack of openness to diversity and the fact that it is not going to change overnight, this is an unlikely solution.

In addition to resolving the immediate glass ceiling issue, there are multiple preventative measures that should be taken to remedy any shortcomings in diversity management going forward.  In fact, had these measures been utilized by Carl prior to interviewing Joyce, the glass ceiling most likely would not have existed.  Based on Chapter 5 of Contemporary Management, the following eleven steps to manage diversity effectively include:

This solution entails that top managers dedicate themselves to diversity in order to be successful in diversity-related issues. This is because top managers need to establish the ethical morals within their area as well as use these values to properly allocate their human resources.

If Carl used this managing style, he would act on the ethical values of the company to expand and promote diversity. More specifically, he would decide where Joyce’s best fit is, at the promoted level or at her current position. Carl would be more likely to embrace the fact that Joyce is a woman instead of thinking it would hinder the company. 

Striving to increase the accuracy of perceptions requires that managers try to be open to learning and modifying their point of views through interaction with diverse groups. By doing this, and encouraging employees to do so as well, false perceptions will become more accurate. An important aspect to this strategy is to not jump to conclusions about people until substantial information is obtained.

By using this technique, Carl would try to learn more about Joyce instead of jumping to the judgment that she cannot balance her work and personal life with the promoted status. This would also allow him to have a more accurate perception of women in the workplace and break the thought that a woman’s place is in the home. Also, Joyce would be encouraged to learn more about the people she works with, which may break her stereotype that the company does not think she is an adequate fit for top management.
