Question: Melting the Glass Ceiling for Accountants In the accounting profession, both men and women have excellent career opportunities with major firms. However, in a classic case of the glass ceiling, women make up half of the entry-level jobs but just one-fifth of most firms' partners. Firms are concerned because they want to find and keep the best people, regardless of their gender. Also, experienced accountants are retiring while the demand for accounting services is rising. Firms need to find and keep the best employees. Ernst & Young has found that attractive career paths can help retain female accountants. Many female accountants are juggling work with the need to care for elderly parents or children, putting them at a potential disadvantage compared to their male counterparts who may be on the management fast track. Traditionally firms have avoided assigning top clients to accountants who want to limit their hours. Ernst & Young has been defining career opportunities more flexibly, offering reduced schedules, flexible hours, and telecommuting. To help ensure that these career opportunities are as interesting as those offered to employees on traditional schedules and to ensure that assignments given to high-potential women and minorities include top clients, Ernst & Young has established leadership teams. The firm makes a special effort to develop female and minority employees identified as having high-potential.
Members of the executive board are assigned to serve as mentors to high-potential employees. The mentors offer the wisdom of their experience but also help make the women and minority candidates more visible when the firm is looking for candidates to take on important assignments. Ernst & Young has taken steps to ensure that the firm's partners, usually males, are comfortable mentoring female accountants. The senior partner in charge of the firm's gender-equity strategy helps the partners develop in the mentoring role. For example, she advises partners to invite women along to meetings, rather than expecting them to speak up and ask to attend. She encourages the partners to be direct if they have to provide negative feedback to their female proteges. She also helps uncover the unspoken expectations of the mentors. In one situation, a manager had more talented women available than openings for partner. He didn't offer transfers to some of the women because he admitted that he assumed the women's husbands would object to moving. She suggested he let the candidates address those concerns themselves. The manager tried and reported that he had a win-win situation: a new senior manager who was delighted to relocate and pursue a career that offered a future as a partner. Why is breaking the glass ceiling an important business issue for Ernst & Young? Which approach to development does Ernst & Young use to address the challenge of the glass ceiling? What recommendations would you give Ernst & Young to help it ensure that its mentoring program for high-potential employees is successful?