Interview Essay: In 250 words or less, please describe a time when you contributed toward making a work environment or organization more welcoming, inclusive, and diverse

In 250 words or less, please describe a time when you contributed toward making a work environment or organization more welcoming, inclusive, and diverse.

In 2021, at COMPANYXX’s (CITY) corporate headquarters, I contributed toward making my work environment more welcoming, inclusive, and diverse when I introduced two proposals to support new parents in our office. I created these proposals as a member of our women's affinity group, WomenXX, whose primary objective was to improve the representation of women in leadership roles: women comprised 30% of XX’s entry-level consulting positions, but only 12% of partner-level roles.

To ensure that we evaluated the experience of all women at XX, not just those in leadership roles, I proposed that we look for factors that may be causing women to leave XX by compiling two years of HR data. Analyzing the data, we found that 45% of women who exited XX left after having their first child. Our team then compared the office’s maternal benefits package with six of our competitors using HR survey data, finding two key shortcomings: XX offered 12 weeks of maternal leave, versus 20 weeks for most of our competitors; moreover, ours was the only (CITY)-based company that offered no emergency childcare, placing an added burden on new parents.

I presented a proposal to our managing partner: extend maternal leave for eight more weeks and partner with a care network to provide as-needed childcare. The partner immediately approved the first change, but XX is still working on implementing the emergency childcare initiative. Once fully enacted, these proposals make XX (CITY) more welcoming and inclusive for over 50 new parents currently at the firm.