CASE STUDY

Insight into Women Professionals: How Accenture Smashed the Glass Ceiling This case study is about the initiatives taken by Ireland-based global consulting company Accenture Plc. (Accenture) for its women employees. The case highlights how the firm went out of its way to further the cause of its women employees while maintaining a high performance level. Industry observers were of the opinion that Accenture's emphasis on an inclusive environment had helped it achieve high performance levels. The firm saw a rapid increase in the number of women employees, given its various measures to attract, retain, and grow this section in its workforce. Studies carried out by the firm had revealed that women employees were willing to work hard on developing their skill sets in order to achieve their career objectives.

However, women faced a large number of issues that called for measures on various fronts.

Issues:

» Gain some key insights into women employees.
» Understand the issues and challenges related to promoting diversity and taking up the cause of women employees in the organization.
» Appreciate the linkage between the various measures taken by the firm and the consequent improvement in the diversity of the firm.
» Study the various initiatives adopted by Accenture to achieve this.
» Explore ways in which the women's initiatives could be made more effective for meeting the future requirements of the firm.

"Organizations can think of helping women improve their aspirations by creating specific channels of career enhancement...Women tend not to ask for a pay raise or promotion, do not cultivate mentors, feel that their careers are not fast tracked, and do not aim for the C-suite jobs."

- Rekha Menon, Executive Director, Accenture India, in 2011.

 

"Because we understand that women are critical to the company's success, we aim to attract, retain, and advance women by recognizing and maximizing their performance."

- William D. Green, CEO, Accenture, in 2005.

 

"Forget China, India, and the internet: economic growth is driven by women." - The Economist, April 12, 2006. Unleashing Women Power At Ireland-based consulting firm, Accenture Plc. (Accenture), the contribution of women employees to the creation of a diverse and rich working environment was well recognized.Accenture was known for its annual celebration of International Women's Day (IWD), an event it had been celebrating since 2001. The celebrations covered almost 140 events in 34 countries. According to the company, the event highlighted Accenture's commitment to recruiting, retaining, and advancing the cause of women at the workplace. The event provided a global forum for showcasing company initiatives which addressed the various issues that women faced at the workplace. Experts felt that this in turn had enabled the firm to achieve high performance.

Rekha Menon (Menon), Executive Director at Accenture India, quipped, "At Accenture, our commitment to diversity and building, sustaining and expanding an inclusive culture is a key ingredient in helping our clients and company achieve high performance levels."

Over the years, there had been a rapid increase in the number of female employees at Accenture.

Women on the Rise at Accenture?

Susan Bulkeley Butler recalled her experience as the first female consultant at Accenture (then Arthur Andersen) in 1965. She said, "There were no female consultants. It was unheard of for a woman to fill any role except support staff... So, before they could hire me, my new bosses had to check with clients and make sure they could accept a 'man in a skirt'.

The Research that was done:

Accenture released the results of a global study on attitudes toward work, surveying 3,400 business executives from medium to large organizations across 29 countries. The survey reveals some telling statistics about how people across the globe feel about women, work, success, and ambition.

What may be most surprising about the report is how similar the responses were between men and women. Apparently, securing satisfying, fairly compensated work is important to everyone!

But there were some notable differences between genders – mainly around the areas of career planning and development. Women are seeking their own brand of professional success and taking their own path to get there. The study revealed that fewer women than men (14% compared to 22%) are hoping to attain C-suite roles. Indeed, the freedom to define your own success is wonderful and freeing, but this begs a very difficult question: are women choosing a different definition of success because obstacles, glass ceilings or sticky floors perhaps, are obstructing the path to the corner office?

>>Career Satisfaction and Development: More Women Seeking Education

One of the main findings of the report was that almost half of the respondents (42% of males and 43% of females) are not happy with their current work situation. Yet at the same time, they aren’t looking for a new job (most said they’re planning to stay put for the time being). LaMae Allen deJongh, Accenture’s Managing Director of U.S. Human Capital & Diversity explained, “Our research found an unusual workplace dynamic in that even though today’s professionals are dissatisfied with their jobs, they are focused on seeking the training, the resources, and the people that can help them achieve their goals with their current employers.”

DeJongh said that employers should take note of this dynamic, and provide more opportunities for learning and development. “We hope executives will view the insights emerging from this research as an opportunity to engage their employees and help them become more successful and satisfied.”

Women in particular are seeking more ways to educate themselves – perhaps seeing education as a way to advance their own career potential. According to the study, a noticeably larger percentage of female executives (18%) compared with males (11%) are looking to go back to school. DeJongh was careful to note that while more women than men are looking to the classroom everyone is looking to improve themselves.

She said, “Although more women reported a stronger interest in going back to school, a majority of respondents (59 percent) both male and female reported that training and education and additional responsibility in general have helped move careers forward. We see this as a sign that many employees refuse to be stagnant. They are interested in looking for ways to move forward and reinvent opportunity for themselves.”

>>Pay & Promotion: More Men Asking for Promotions, Equal Numbers Asking for a Raise

Given the hubbub around the importance of building negotiation skills for women, it was surprising to see that the percentages of individuals who had negotiated a raise were fairly similar, with only a slightly lower percentage of females (44%) having done so than men (48%).

But what was surprising was that the percentage of males (39%) who had asked for a promotion was significantly larger than that of females (28%). With the global pay gap not going anywhere for the time being (in fact, last week’s White House report on women noted that in the US that women still make only about 80% as much as men for equal work), this could provide a reason why.

It’s not enough to ask for a raise – if women want to make more money, perhaps they need to ask for more responsibilities or a higher status within the organization first. DeJongh was hesitant to say that asking for a promotion first will lead to making more money. But she pointed out that with so many employees reportedly dissatisfied in their careers, employers should make sure they are really listening to what their employees want, both males and females.

“While the survey didn’t specifically ask about status, it’s a good reminder for companies to really listen to employees and investigate the source of dissatisfaction and understand what employees are looking for. For example, in this research, respondents attribute their lack of current job satisfaction to a variety of issues, ranging from being underpaid and a lack of opportunity for growth to a lack of opportunity for career advancement and feeling trapped,” she said.

She continued, “Success means different things to different people. We were pleased to find, however, that this research suggests that women and men are equally ambitious when it comes to improving skills and reinventing opportunities for themselves despite current job dissatisfaction.”

>>Mentors: Women Not Getting as Much Career-Growth Advice

The importance of mentors and sponsors is deservedly getting the spotlight lately, especially considering the recent release of two studies on the subject by Catalyst and the Center for Work/Life Policy.

Both studies revealed the importance of mentor and sponsor relationships – and the Accenture study confirms it. The study reveals that while about the same percentage of women (32%) and men (31%) had formal or informal mentors, they’re relying on them for different kinds of support.

Significantly more men (49%) than women (40%) had planned career moves with a mentor, while more women (47%) than men (38%) used their mentor as a sounding board. What this boils down to is that more men are discussing the next level with their mentors. And more women are discussing the status quo.

This is not to say that men are more ambitious than women. Certainly, women face challenges in the workplace that men do not, and it’s not surprising that many women need more “sounding board” support from their mentor. The quality and content of mentor and sponsor relationships is key to career growth – and this study illustrates that women are not getting those critical career-growth conversations as often as men.

According to deJongh, “Employers should create a culture of distinguishing between, and supporting both mentoring and sponsorship – and women should be proactive and seek out mentors and sponsors, ask for help, and find advocates to help them move up and be recognized for their talents and achievements.”

>>Are Female Execs Getting the Support they Need from Their Employer to Be Ambitious?

To sum up, according to the study, a large number of women and men are dissatisfied with their current career, but they don’t plan to change companies. They’re seeking career development opportunities, and many more women than men plan to further their education to do so. Women are negotiating for raises in roughly the same numbers as men, but they aren’t asking for promotions. And at the same time, they also aren’t having as many career-development conversations with their mentors as men – if they even have a mentor.

Altogether, it does seem that women want to advance in their careers, but they aren’t getting the necessary support from their companies to achieve their ambitions. Since they’re not receiving advice from a mentor or role model on how to get there, they’re seeking more education opportunities. And they’re using mentor relationships as a place to blow off steam or toss around issues within their current role.

As the economy improves and more companies no doubt begin the hiring cycle, considering the rising understanding that diverse voices bring added value to an organization, companies would be wise to provide high performing executive women they support they need.

As deJongh explained, “What we hope executives learn from our research is that right now there is a huge opportunity to engage employees – both men and women – in order to help them become more successful. Employees are looking to reinvent opportunities at their current jobs and if executives can listen to employees and provide them with innovative training throughout every level of their careers, leadership development, flexibility, and clearly-defined career paths they can better engage their employees and help them be more successful.”

Simply claiming that women aren’t reaching the top ranks of organizations because they want to define success for themselves is a cop-out. There are institutional barriers in place, and organizations need to take steps to remove them. If organizations aren’t providing women with critical career growth planning and opportunities, women will go elsewhere.

Steps taken:

The next five years are going to be an interesting place for senior women leaders in the corporate world in India. We are going to see an increasing number make it to the top, and more important, stay there, says Priya Chetty-Rajagopal, Vice President & Client Partner, Stanton Chase International.

“No Glass Ceiling. Just Blue Sky’ I must admit Marcy Blochowiak’s book title summarizes my thoughts well! It may be an aspirational statement anywhere in the world, particularly n India, but I would like to stay with the thought.
It is well known that the focus on Women Leadership is driven primarily by two strong pillars, The Business (CEO’s Office) and The Function (HR). This imperative is moving due to pressure from the global ecosystem from a ‘good to have ‘to a ‘must have’.Diversity is increasingly a business imperative that is being watched by both the shareholders and the Board. With this hawk eye, it is not surprising that these pillars are focusing even more extensively on this space.

From adversity to diversity

India is relatively young as far as corporate Women Leadership is concerned but has played an excellent catch up, by moving quickly forward to be aligned to its global counterparts. India’s history with regard to women has been mixed – in the past women have been worshipped as goddesses, burnt for dowry, killed at or before birth in appalling cases of female infanticide - but things are changing so rapidly, we almost feel we are living in two Indias! From a cultural, social and economic angle, women have put up with much adversity in the past, and sadly some still face huge challenges today.
From adversity to diversity now, however! The past is moving away, and the future is a dazzling catch up. Women are moving center stage as political, social and economic beings. While remaining conscious and wary of our history, looking forward and embracing our empowerment is critical. We have produced some stupendous women CEOs and CXO level leaders, but they are still not standard issue in India, as perhaps they are in the West. But things are getting better. The pressure on this space comes not only from the Indian set up, but the global headquarters as well, and the good news is that the level of internalization is taking place in the top ranks of management. Male stakeholders are one of the biggest supporters in the corporate structure of today.
I must clarify that I am focusing primarily on the larger corporations here - the MNCs or large Indian corporates, particularly the IT majors. A lot still needs to be done in the SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) space. The ‘Glass Ceiling’ is typically a phrase that makes most people , especially women (and I must say , that includes me) , roll their eyes and cringe, as it is such a cliché ! However, like many clichés, I must admit that it has a significant element of truth.

Pushing through the Glass Ceiling

In India, there are several factors that are impelling senior women leaders to break through the so-called Glass Ceiling

• Governmental Initiatives- this ranges from education for women, better representation in educational institutions, and legislation on safety and empowerment.
• A larger funnel of middle to senior women professionals - this was just not there before. There was simply a limited pipeline and this obviously impacted the numbers reaching top management.
• Larger ambition by women to reach the corner office. Culturally and socially, women today are feeling the justifiable motivation and energy to push for the top job
• Family support - women aiming for leadership roles are being supported and encouraged by family members, who are far more focused on her happiness and success than perhaps the previous generations were
• Strong professional structure. At the workplace, the HR and company structure is gearing itself to incorporate and promote more women leaders than before. The results are already showing up in Corporate India
• A greater corporate sensitivity and acceptance of the woman as part of a larger entity i.e. the family, and therefore more openness to build this in to rigorous office structures and schedules
• Mentors and role models. Not enough has been said in this important issue and its impact on pushing women up the ladder. Without adequate role models, many of us would not be able to see a demonstration of the success we want! Mentors are increasingly used and depended on by many career-oriented women.
• Senior women leaders are getting more conscious of their impact on this space, and are willing to give time and direction to younger women leaders and the organizational process to attract and retain them.
• The development of technology has resulted in a more virtual world that is less dependent on presenteeism, and physical presence. This results in a greater span of control for women.
• Globalization has given more visibility and opportunity to today’s woman, and she is using this to her advantage
• Search Consultants and HR staffing leaders are under increasing pressure to source more women for senior roles so several talented women professionals who may have been below the radar so far, are getting the visibility that they need to make it to the top
• Diversity and Women Leadership initiatives by many corporates to create and sustain talent within, as well as by powerful industry bodies like NASSCOM and CII certainly help to mainstream this, and create critical mass

CASE STUDY

A Leadership Case Study – How HR Caused Toyota Crash

Unless you have been living off the planet Earth, you have probably already read or heard about several mechanical failures in Toyota automobiles that led the auto maker famous for quality to recall nearly nine million cars worldwide. In addition, poor handling of the issue in the public eye has damaged the automaker’s brand reputation and caused sales to decline to their lowest point in more than a decade.

This think piece wasn’t written to inform you further about the mechanical failures, but rather to reflect on the following premise:

Toyota’s current predicament is a result of poorly designed practices and weak execution on the part of the human resource department!

To Find the Root Cause, You Must Look Beyond Gas Pedals

The mechanical issues plaguing eight Toyota models are not the result of human resource professionals assuming product design roles and producing faulty accelerator pedals and onboard computers, but anyone who has studied failure analysis knows that the breaking point of a product or service is seldom the underlying or root cause of the failure. Using the sinking of the Titanic as an example, the damage caused by the hull colliding with the iceberg ultimately sank the ship, but the collision was the result of a series of poor decisions to travel too fast given weather conditions. While hull design flaw contributed to catastrophe, the root cause of the problem was human error.

In any situation where employees fail to perform as expected, investigators must determine if the human error could have been caused by factors beyond the employee’s control. Such external factors might include actions by senior management, lack of adequate information or job training, faulty inputs to the process, or rewards that incent actions not in line with documented goals.

If you believe in accountability, you have to accept that human errors that lead to corporate catastrophes could be the result of faulty HR processes, most notably those related to acquiring, developing, motivating, and managing labor. Returning to the Titanic example, had the owners of the Titanic implemented rewards for safety as well as speed or hired a captain more detail-oriented, there would have been no crash that dreaded night.

Weak HR Has Been a Major Contributor to Other Notable Failures

Weak people-management practices have been attributed as the primary causes of failure in a number of notable cases. At Enron and Bear Stearns for example, reward systems that incented dangerous behaviors easily overpowered the effect of control systems designed to prevent fraud and ethical breaches. The mass killings at Fort Hood would not have occurred if the Army had better linkage between performance management and critical incident reporting systems.

Employee Errors Were the Root Cause

BusinessWeek estimates that Toyota is losing $155 million per week as a result of their recent recall and in the weeks leading up to this article Toyota had lost nearly $30 billion in stock valuation. The long-term impacts of the root causes that led to Toyota’s current situation could cost the company hundreds of billions of dollars.

The mechanical failures were known to Toyota leaders long before corrective action was taken, and many close to the issue are indicating that the company took decisive action to hide the facts and distort the scope of the problem. The underlying problem of failing to act on this critical information in a manner consistent with Toyota’s brand is again a rewards issue similar to that at Enron. When the organization disproportionately rewarded managers for cost-containment versus sustaining product quality, it created the incentive for everyone involved to ignore the facts and to deny that a problem existed. Employees who are well-trained and subject to balanced rewards and performance monitoring systems would not have allowed the situation to grow as it did.

The Eight HR Processes That Contributed to Toyota’s Downfall

If the root cause of the problems Toyota is facing are failure by employees to make good decisions, confront negative news, and make a convincing business case for immediate action, then the HR processes that may have influenced those decisions must be examined. The HR processes that must at least be considered as suspect include rewards processes, training processes, performance management processes, and the hiring process.

1. Rewards and recognition — The purpose of any corporate reward process is to encourage and incent the right behaviors and to discourage the negative ones. It’s important for the reward process to incent the gathering of information about problems. It’s equally important to reward employees who are successful in getting executives to take immediate action on negative information. Key questions — Were rapid growth (sales have nearly doubled recently) and “lean” cost-cutting recognized and rewarded so heavily that no one was willing to put the brakes on growth in order to focus on safety? Were the rewards for demonstrating error-free results so high that obvious errors were swept under the table?
2. Training — The purpose of training is to make sure that employees have the right skills and capabilities to identify and handle all situations they may encounter. Toyota is famous for its four-step cycle — plan/do/check/act — but clearly the training among managers now needs to focus more on the last two. In addition, in an environment where safety is paramount, everyone should have been trained on the symptoms of “groupthink” and how to avoid the excess discounting or ignoring of negative external safety information. Key question — If Toyota’s training was more effective, would the managers involved have been more successful in convincing executives to act on the negative information received?
3. Hiring — The purpose of great hiring is to bring on board top-performing individuals with the high level of skills and capabilities that are required to handle the most complex problems. Poorly designed recruiting and assessment elements can result in the hiring of individuals who sweep problems under the rug and who are not willing to stand up to management. Key questions — Did Toyota have a poorly designed hiring process that allowed it to hire individuals who were not experienced in the required constructive confrontation technique? Were their hires poor learners that did not change as a result of company training?
4. The performance management process — The purpose of a performance management process is to periodically monitor or appraise performance, in order to identify problem behaviors before they get out of hand. If the performance measurement system included performance factors to measure responsiveness to negative information, Toyota wouldn’t be in turmoil today. Key questions — Was the performance appraisal and performance monitoring process so poorly designed that they did not identify and report groupthink type errors? Did Toyota’s famous high level of trust of its employees go too far without reasonable metrics, checks, and balances? Did HR develop sophisticated metrics that produced alerts to warn senior managers before minor problems got out of control?
5. The corporate culture — The role of a corporate culture is to informally drive employee behaviors so that it closely adheres to the company’s core values. Because these errors occurred under difficult driving conditions, it’s hard to blame the production group, which has a well-known reputation for Six Sigma quality in its construction. The negative reports came to functions like government, risk analysis, corporate and customer satisfaction. As a result, it is the culture within the corporate offices that need to be more closely monitored rather than assuming that the culture was aligned. It appears that the corporate culture created leaders so concerned with “saving face” and so adverse to negative publicity, that they for years postponed making the announcement of a massive recall. Key questions — Did HR’s failure to measure or monitor the corporate culture contribute to its misalignment? Was the corporate culture (the Toyota Way) so biased toward positive information that employees learned not to make waves, in spite of their professional responsibility to be heard on safety issues?
6. Leadership development and succession — The purpose of leadership development and succession planning processes are to ensure that a sufficient number of leaders with the right skills and decision-making ability are placed into key leadership positions. It is likely that the leadership development and the promotion process both failed to create and promote leaders who were capable of confronting problems and making difficult decisions. Key question — Was the leadership process at Toyota so outdated that it produced the wrong kind of leaders with outdated competencies, who could not successfully operate in the rapidly changing automotive industry?
7. Retention — The purpose of a retention program is to identify and keep top performers and individuals with mission-critical skills. Key question — Did the retention program ignore people that brought up problems and as a result, did these whistleblowers often leave out of frustration?
8. Risk assessment — Most HR departments don’t even have a risk assessment team whose purpose is to both identify and calculate risks caused by weak employee processes. Clearly HR should have worked with corporate risk management at Toyota in order to ensure that employees were capable of calculating the long-term actual costs of ignoring product failure information. Key question — Should HR work with risk-assessment experts and build the capability of identifying and quantifying the revenue impacts of major HR errors, including a high hiring failure rate, a high turnover rate among top performers, and the cost of keeping a bad manager or employee?