question archive The Board of Directors of Empirical Building and Design has hired your group to help manage the fallout of a recent public situation

The Board of Directors of Empirical Building and Design has hired your group to help manage the fallout of a recent public situation

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The Board of Directors of Empirical Building and Design has hired your group to help manage the fallout of a recent public situation. The CEO of their company, Jordan Smith, recently made comments at a private function that was recorded and released on social media. During the comments, Jordan spoke about how getting into the C-suite for women is limited because they chose to have babies and take time away from their jobs. Serving in an executive role regularly requires 14-18 hour days and Jordan doesn't want to be responsible for taking mothers away from their children. The comments also noted that women are more compassionate, therefore they should be placed in more customer-facing roles where they are more likely to succeed and enjoy their time.

 

The organization's social media platforms have been inundated with calls to boycott the organization and a protest march has been planned for outside of the company's office in a few weeks. Public attention from this video has characterized Jordan and the organization as sexist and misogynistic, and it has highlighted that only 10% of senior executives are women (although 35% of employees at the organization are women). The engineering sector has historically seen underrepresentation of women in the field, and these most recent comments reinforce negative stereotypes about the industry. 

 

These comments come after a Board member, who is Facebook friends with Jordan, saw private social media posts by Jordan citing research articles discussing how research has demonstrated that certain racial groups have different skills and IQs than Caucasian individuals. The Board member didn't raise these concerns at the time because it was on Jordan's private account, but is now worried that it is only a matter of time before these posts could also become public knowledge and hurt the organization.

 

Jordan has been responsible for some of the companies most creative and powerful moves in recent years, annually bringing in new investors, large projects, and unexpected profits. Jordan is well liked by other members of the C-suite, and every performance evaluation has indicated excellent outcomes (and there has never been performance management required). Earlier this year Jordan had proposed creating employee resource groups for women, racial minorities, and employees with disabilities, but the Board had rejected these ideas due to their potential cost and lack of utility. Losing Jordan would be a significant risk and the Board is not ready to risk returning to poorer financial performance or losing Jordan to another organization. 

 

This outburst is receiving particular negative public attention given the fact that Jordan recently won an award for one of Canada's 50 most powerful women in leadership. 

 

Your task is to investigate the issues facing the organization, both at an individual level and more broadly related to the concerns raised. The Board wants you to provide evidence-based recommendations, as well as provide evidence of how other organizations handled similar incidents. How can the Board remedy this issue and prevent future issues from occurring?

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