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Homework answers / question archive / Diversity management is the bottom line at Price water house Coopers (PwC), a professional services company

Diversity management is the bottom line at Price water house Coopers (PwC), a professional services company

Finance

Diversity management is the bottom line at Price water house Coopers (PwC), a professional services company.99 And the company’s commitment to diversity puts them near the top of the list for Top Companies for Diversity as determined by Diversity Inc. So what does a company do to be recognized as a leading company for diversity management? Well, it starts at the top. SPwC’s chairman and senior partner Bob Moritz is a vocal advocate of diversity and inclusion and says that “it’s also the key to sustainable global growth for an organization.” Moritz’s commitment to diversity stems from his personal experiences.
As a young professional, he lived in Japan for three years, where he was a minority.
He recalls, “If you’re overseas or in a country where no one speaks your language—or
the cab refuses to pick you up in the middle of the night because you’re a foreigner—
you get a different perspective.” In addition, his work team included individuals from
France, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Japan. He soon recognized that people
from different cultures approach problems with differing perspectives and that his way
wasn’t necessarily the right way and was certainly not the only way. That’s why now,
as the company’s top executive, he realizes that to help his company succeed in today’s
global economy, an inclusive culture that attracts and retains diverse talent is critical.
PwC also has several diversity programs and initiatives in place. The company’s
first chief diversity officer (CDO) was appointed in 2003 and, like at many
organizations, was first “housed” in the human resources department. Now, however, the
CDO reports directly to Moritz, giving the position credibility and, more
importantly, accountability. Another interesting thing about PwC’s CDO position is that
it is rotating—that is, partners are rotated in and out of the role every two years.
Currently, that position belongs to Maria Castanón Moats, an audit partner.
Another diversity commitment that PwC has made is to talent development.
Professional services companies like PwC prosper or fail because of their human
talent. PwC has made it a priority to “find, engage, and promote the best and brightest
employees, especially those from underrepresented groups.” To attract such
outstanding diverse talent, the company offers employees an enviable array of benefits. Because
work at professional services companies can be arduous and demanding, PwC has
looked for ways to offer its employees work–life flexibility to deal with personal and
professional challenges. Some of the benefits it offers includes back-up childcare
assistance, paid paternity leave, nanny resources and referrals, on site religious
accommodations, well-being rewards, and tax equalization for all domestic partners.
Finally, a major key to PwC’s diversity management is its mentoring program,
which has been described as “world class.” A mentor is a senior employee who
sponsors and supports a less experienced employee, called a protégé. Although half of the
company’s mentoring pairings are cross-cultural, Moritz has asked each of PwC’s
9,500 partners to “consciously diversify their pool of protégés.” A portion of the
partners’ evaluations will be based on their advocacy and investment in these
individuals. But PwC doesn’t just expect its employees to know what to do in mentoring.
A toolkit for successful advocacy was created that includes guidelines, suggested
readings, and other internal resources. And the most important part of that toolkit?
Videos showing real-life examples of partners and staff members sharing their personal experiences with mentoring.

Discussion Questions
1 How might population trends affect a professional services organization like
PwC? What might it have to do to adapt to these trends?
2. What challenges might PwC face in adapting to a more diverse applicant pool
of college graduates?
3. Businesses often face the dilemma of retaining diverse employees once they’re
trained. What can PwC do to retain its diverse employees?

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Question-1

Population Trends

Demographic change is the main reason why organizations need to adapt their practices in order to respond to the increase in diversity. Pw would have great implications in managing diversity with the demographic changes or population trends such as total world population, an aging workplace and aging customers. Some challenges are as follows;

1. These population trends would have great influence on diverse business objectives such as service provision.

2. The needs of the employees also change with the change in population trends. Hence, appropriate strategies must be implemented with time to meet the needs and desires of the employees.

3. The shifts in the population would affect the productivity.

4. Decline in population might cause migration and later retirements of the employees.

_______________________________________________________________________

To adapt these trends, Pw might do the following;

1. For recruitment, various diversity programs should be implemented to attract the minorities though college fairs.

2. After hiring the minorities, appropriate trainings should be conducted to educate the employees about the future organizational needs with demographic changes.

3. Different programs and processes such as survey and interviews of the current employees should be conducted to retain the skilled and diverse employees to tackle the issue of decline in the working population.

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Question-2

External Recruitment

An effective recruitment enhances the quality and diversity of the applicant pool by reaching the graduates through college fairs. It is the great challenge for the company to build and retain the diverse and high-skilled workplace. Pw also attracts the diverse applicants which gives the company a large hiring pool and increases the overall diversity. It gives the opportunity to fresh college graduates and brings the fresh talent to the company with innovative ideas and outlook.

________________________________________________________________________

Challenges Pw might face

In adapting to a more diverse applicant pool of college graduates, Pw might face following challenges;

1. Hiring the diverse applicant pool of college graduates would result in communication difficulties.

2. Conflicts might occur between current and new employees with respect to ideas.

3. The current employees might feel there are less chances for their promotion and in turn affect their productivity.

4. Employee morale could be hurt.

5. Training the diverse applicants would be a tedious process and would take long time.

6. Company will have to spend both time and money in adapting the diverse applicant pool.

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Question-3

Pw is a professional services company and the main objective of the company is to diversify the workplace. It hires best and brightest employees and engages them in various diversity programs and initiatives to achieve its objective. It hires various types of people who look different from each other in race, color or gender to encourage diversity in the organization.

Once the company trains its diverse employees, it is a great challenge to retain them in the organization. The following processes and programs could help the company to retain its diverse employees:

1. Mentoring program would help retain the minorities and Pw is currently using this program to teach the protégé about diversity in organization by the mentors who are different in culture and gender.

2. Creating processes such as advertising in Diversity, which Pw is doing already to either attract the new applicants or to promote the existing employees to retain.

3. The company could use diversity initiative - “Employment Resources Groups” to involve the group of employees to some common dimension of diversity.

4. Communication of management with the current employees through survey and interviews is necessary to determine their needs, in order to create the strategic plan for retention.

5. By conducting exit interviews with the leaving employees and change the current structure and strategies of the organization accordingly would help retain the currently working diverse employees.