Sarah sat down to draft her EO Policies and Practices document ready for the management meeting the following week. She had studied the debate between the Managing Diversity approach and the traditional EO approach, knew the arguments from both sides and considered both had value. She was therefore determined to put in place a system that had the best of both worlds. She knew the locality had a strong ethnic element, mostly Pakistanis, making up around 8–10% of the population and that the workforces of most factories in the area were male dominated. An objective was set in her mind to recruit at least 8% from ethnic minorities and to include a substantial number of females into the short lists. There was a thriving publication so she included it on the list for advertising vacancies and designed an advertisement where the illustration included males and females, white and ethnic minority employees working together. However, she made no mention in the advertisements of an EO policy or any special wording to encourage it. The recruiting team consisted of a number of line managers and she made sure that those who had not attended an EO awareness course did so before the recruitment started. She also put forward a proposal for courses to be designed to help prepare employees for promotion. Although directed at all employees, she planned to ask managers to give special consideration to minority groups. If she could ensure that a number of women and Pakistanis had the ability, aptitude and drive for promotion to team leader and made a success of it, then they would act as role models. A small number of jobs on the site had been identified as possibilities for disabled employees. She planned to make contact with the Pakistani community group and arrange for a translator to be present on each of the occasions where application forms had to be completed and interviews took place. Finally, she contacted the external caterer to ensure that there was a sufficient range of meals suitable for all groups of employees. Another set of proposals she made covered family-friendly benefits. She put forward a plan for employees to job share throughout the site. This would need to be arranged between two employees who both wanted to work part-time. They would need to work with their team leader to ensure the shifts and skills needed were covered. Given the complexities of the shift system in the factory, flexible hours and flexitime would be very difficult to organise but this would be possible in the offices. At the management meeting, she was closely questioned by two production managers regarding the overall plan. Although not overtly racist, they indicated a small degree of hostility towards specific proposals, specifically the interpreter. They considered it essential that all applicants had a firm grasp of English so they could follow instructions, including those in Health and Safety. All the work was semi-skilled and skilled, requiring judgement and effective communication within the team. After considering the issues, Sarah agreed to drop that proposal. They also could not see the point of encouraging variable hours, having the viewpoint that this would simply lead to all female employees wanting to go part-time. Sarah was not happy to concede on this issue but took Scott’s advice to give way here, as it was not a key component, and made a note to raise it again in a year’s time. The recruitment process was not straightforward. Despite having a reasonable response from minority groups, there were objections from the two managers to a number of female and ethnic applicants going onto the short list. Sarah answered most of their points by indicating that organising an interview do not mean a commitment to select. When it came to the interviews themselves, the proportion of rejections for female and ethnic applicants was particularly high from the same two managers. The reasons given were petty and illogical and discussing the cases took up a considerable amount of time. Sarah did not want to make an appointment over their heads and it needed a roundtable meeting with Scott and the site manager to reach compromise decisions where a proportion went on to the final selection stage. Towards the end of the first batch of selections, Sarah received two letters of complaint. One was from a Pakistani who had not been selected for interview. She pointed out that her neighbour had been selected but had fewer qualifications and less experience than she had. She threatened action unless the matter was re-considered. The second was from the husband of an applicant who claimed that his wife had been insulted by a number of questions at the interview concerning her previous experience and aspects of her personal life, such as caring responsibilities. Sarah had not been involved in either of these cases; both interviews had been carried out by the two hostile managers. Sarah was very concerned that her ambition to introduce ‘best practice’ in the unit did not seem to be progressing very well.