Workforce Management
May 2008
While many people think diversity in the workplace is a numbers game—think headcounts and quotas—the truth is measuring diversity involves more than simple math. This series focuses on how one major Midwestern city, despite being beset with economic issues, is dealing with the issue of workforce diversity. Detroit’s experience can bee seen as an example for other metropolitan areas. By Laura Weiner
While many people think diversity in the workplace is a numbers game—think headcounts and quotas—the truth is measuring diversity involves more than simple math.
"It should all start with a plan," said Christopher Metzler, former director of Equal Employment Opportunity studies, diversity and inclusion at Cornell University and now the associate dean of human resources at Georgetown University. "What exactly do you want your diversity program to do?"
Some companies may want to increase their bottom line with new contract wins, while others want a staff that is more varied in their ideas.
Sometimes searching for the latter ultimately brings in the former.
"Back in 2005, with instruction from our board of directors, we started to investigate our diversity strategies," said Ed Dodge, vice president and director of human resources at Detroit-based SmithGroup, an architectural engineering firm.
"We knew there had to be some focus on the bottom line. As it turns out, we were recently selected for a project at Indiana University after they narrowed the pool down to our company and another firm, both of which had indicated above all the other firms that there was a diversity program in place. We were selected ... that is a very obvious case of how our program is affecting our bottom line."
Not all strategies have such a direct effect.
"Having a diverse staff is not necessarily going to increase your bottom line," said Metzler. "In order to do that, you may have to look externally, possibly at marketing strategies, like gearing products towards a more Latino customer base, for example."
Internally or externally, diversity is something that can be woven through an entire company, said Amri Johnson, executive vice president and partner at Cook Ross Inc., a Silver Spring, Maryland-based consulting company.
"You can look at every part of your organization and ask if diversity is showing up. A lot of the measurement with diversity comes from looking at your whole company. How is the corporate climate? Are employees satisfied? ... Look at every part from recruitment to external vendors," he said.
Diversity within a corporate staff is something that has caused angst amongst companies, as it is often hard to pinpoint what, if any, effect diversity has on overall revenue.
"I have seen from my own experience that if you don’t have diverse people on board you could be missing opportunities to be innovative," Johnson said. "You can prove this through surveys or even focus groups."
This is not to say that diversity trumps quality, experts say.
"You don’t just want talent or diversity, you want diverse talent," said Scott Page, professor of complex systems, political science and economics at the University of Michigan. He also is the author of the book The Difference, about how diversity in the way people think produces benefits. "It is good for a company to put together teams that are trained differently, from different age groups, genders or racial backgrounds.
"If you have a set of homogenous people, things could be running smoothly, but you may be blind to opportunity. I think it is important to reward people on how different they think from other people at the company."
Comerica Bank keeps scorecards to determine how it is faring with diversity.
"We want to recruit from that diverse population and connect with our customer," said Janice Tessier, Detroit-based Comerica vice president of business affairs: "We want to recruit from that diverse population and connect with our customer."
Southfield, Michigan-based Clayton & McKervey has seen its diverse staff help grow new business. The accounting firm has built a multilingual staff, with 13 to 15 languages spoken among its 65 employees. And, the firm holds cultural training. About nine to 12 months ago, the firm hired a Russia-born CPA, which ultimately led to a new Russian client. "We have had this happen with Chinese and Mexican clients as well," said Kevin McKervey, shareholder in charge of international services. [To see the entire article, go to: http://www.workforce.com/section/09/feature/25/55/58/index.html ]
Showing posts with label workforce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label workforce. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Stopping Hiring Bias Interview Questions
Workforce.com
How Do We Stop the Interview Bias of Hiring Managers?
We recently learned that, when interviewing candidates, some hiring managers are biased against people who have an accent. How do I convince them that this biased attitude affects our commitment to hiring a diverse workforce that is reflective of our community at large?
—At Odds, HR generalist, textiles, Vancouver, Washington
The short answer to your question is to show them research that supports the idea that diversity significantly contributes to an organization's competitive advantage. Examples of companies such as Toyota may help. Once they see the benefit for them and their organization, their paradigm may begin to shift.
The somewhat longer answer: The ability of an organization to commit to hiring a diverse workforce is challenging for a number of reasons. First, there are only so many positions available for a qualified pool of people to hire. Second, people within the organization might not be committed in full to hire a diverse workforce. Third, the organization itself may not have systems in place to engage a diverse workforce. To get everyone on board with having a diverse workforce, try the following strategies to get people thinking in new and creative ways:
Analysis First: It's important to take a look at the organization itself to understand its relationship with diversity. This means a closer look must be taken at the organization's policies, procedures, hiring strategies, orientation, training, performance appraisal system, goals, mission and values. Do these structures support or inhibit diversity?
Understand Diversity: Many times, "you don't know what you don't know," as the saying goes. In other words, some people haven't been exposed to diversity issues, challenges and opportunities. Improvement can be made by having "brown bag lunch talks" in which diversity is the featured topic. A seminar on the competitive advantages of diversity also might be worthwhile for all your employees.
Senior Leaders/Diversity Champions: The senior leadership needs to talk about diversity in a public setting. Employees need to hear from the top that diversity is important. And, when leadership positions are being hired for, hiring managers must do their part to seek diverse candidates. Also, special attention must be paid to "diversity champions": those who get it and want to do something about it. These are the folks who can act as catalysts to get others excited about diversity.
Orientation and Training: Diversity must be a keynote topic during orientation and throughout training. The more people hear about diversity, the more opportunities they will have to look at what it means to them and their department or program. For hiring managers, this implies being more open when hearing a person with an accent. Instead of shutting the person off, it instead implies keeping an open mind and working to discover the individual's unique strengths.
Institutionalizing Diversity: It's one thing to talk about diversity. It's quite another thing to have a systematic approach for embracing it. Institutionalization comes down to proactively discovering ways to integrate diversity within the organizational culture. For instance, diversity might be integrated into the organization's training program, where people learn more about diversity. Diversity could also become an organizational value, where people discover ways to bring the value to life and create a diverse work environment.
Moving Diversity Forward: All organizations seek to improve in some way. By embracing diversity, an organization can significantly improve by gaining new perspectives and insights. The key is to look at diversity as a way to grow the organization and take it to the next level. The more positive outcomes that are achieved with diversity, the more diversity gets branded as a positive employee experience. The "diversity experience" will begin to take on a life of its own with proper maintenance and dedication.
Branch Out: Organizations often put their public relations and/or public affairs departments in charge of projects of social responsibility. This is another way for organizations to learn about a community's diversity assets. Not only could organizations contribute to their communities, but they can also team up with diverse individuals, who might one day be an employee, customer, vendor or board member.
SOURCE: Dana E. Jarvis is human resources director for Auberle and an adjunct professor at Duquesne University, where he teaches, among other courses, diversity and ethics.
LEARN MORE: A successful diversity effort creates a culture in which people of various backgrounds are happy, productive and successful.
How Do We Stop the Interview Bias of Hiring Managers?
We recently learned that, when interviewing candidates, some hiring managers are biased against people who have an accent. How do I convince them that this biased attitude affects our commitment to hiring a diverse workforce that is reflective of our community at large?
—At Odds, HR generalist, textiles, Vancouver, Washington
The short answer to your question is to show them research that supports the idea that diversity significantly contributes to an organization's competitive advantage. Examples of companies such as Toyota may help. Once they see the benefit for them and their organization, their paradigm may begin to shift.
The somewhat longer answer: The ability of an organization to commit to hiring a diverse workforce is challenging for a number of reasons. First, there are only so many positions available for a qualified pool of people to hire. Second, people within the organization might not be committed in full to hire a diverse workforce. Third, the organization itself may not have systems in place to engage a diverse workforce. To get everyone on board with having a diverse workforce, try the following strategies to get people thinking in new and creative ways:
Analysis First: It's important to take a look at the organization itself to understand its relationship with diversity. This means a closer look must be taken at the organization's policies, procedures, hiring strategies, orientation, training, performance appraisal system, goals, mission and values. Do these structures support or inhibit diversity?
Understand Diversity: Many times, "you don't know what you don't know," as the saying goes. In other words, some people haven't been exposed to diversity issues, challenges and opportunities. Improvement can be made by having "brown bag lunch talks" in which diversity is the featured topic. A seminar on the competitive advantages of diversity also might be worthwhile for all your employees.
Senior Leaders/Diversity Champions: The senior leadership needs to talk about diversity in a public setting. Employees need to hear from the top that diversity is important. And, when leadership positions are being hired for, hiring managers must do their part to seek diverse candidates. Also, special attention must be paid to "diversity champions": those who get it and want to do something about it. These are the folks who can act as catalysts to get others excited about diversity.
Orientation and Training: Diversity must be a keynote topic during orientation and throughout training. The more people hear about diversity, the more opportunities they will have to look at what it means to them and their department or program. For hiring managers, this implies being more open when hearing a person with an accent. Instead of shutting the person off, it instead implies keeping an open mind and working to discover the individual's unique strengths.
Institutionalizing Diversity: It's one thing to talk about diversity. It's quite another thing to have a systematic approach for embracing it. Institutionalization comes down to proactively discovering ways to integrate diversity within the organizational culture. For instance, diversity might be integrated into the organization's training program, where people learn more about diversity. Diversity could also become an organizational value, where people discover ways to bring the value to life and create a diverse work environment.
Moving Diversity Forward: All organizations seek to improve in some way. By embracing diversity, an organization can significantly improve by gaining new perspectives and insights. The key is to look at diversity as a way to grow the organization and take it to the next level. The more positive outcomes that are achieved with diversity, the more diversity gets branded as a positive employee experience. The "diversity experience" will begin to take on a life of its own with proper maintenance and dedication.
Branch Out: Organizations often put their public relations and/or public affairs departments in charge of projects of social responsibility. This is another way for organizations to learn about a community's diversity assets. Not only could organizations contribute to their communities, but they can also team up with diverse individuals, who might one day be an employee, customer, vendor or board member.
SOURCE: Dana E. Jarvis is human resources director for Auberle and an adjunct professor at Duquesne University, where he teaches, among other courses, diversity and ethics.
LEARN MORE: A successful diversity effort creates a culture in which people of various backgrounds are happy, productive and successful.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
How Do I Overcome Resistance to New Diversity Initiatives?
Workforce.com
Dear Workforce, April 3 2008
How Do I Overcome Resistance to New Diversity Initiatives?
What challenges/resistance should I expect as our organization begins examining workforce diversity? Conversely, how can we also illustrate the potential benefits to people who may be skeptical that this effort is "just another program" being imposed on them by HRM?
—Angling for an Angle, education, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
You should expect challenges from those who don't see themselves as part of "diversity." This will happen if you cast diversity primarily in terms of race, gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Instead, to prove that you're serious about workforce diversity, and not political correctness, include equal emphasis on a realistic variety of diversity dimensions, such as age, marital and parental status, education, personality type, communication style, the four previously mentioned dimensions, and others. Emphasize—and mean it—that everyone is part of the diverse workforce.
There will be resistance if the amount of time devoted to training, education and other diversity interventions is seen as taking away from what some will refer to as "real work," especially if allowances aren't made for time away from the job. Telling someone he has to take a day to attend diversity training, but that there won't be any slack on that project deadline, is a good way to breed resentment toward the entire effort.
The best defense against resistance to an examination of diversity is education, but not limited to the classroom variety. Leaders throughout the company, not just in HR, must help everyone in the workforce grasp this concept: If Company A has developed systems, procedures, policies and a culture that allow men and women from a variety of backgrounds to contribute productively, and Company B's systems, etc., seem to work only for certain types of people, Company A is going to perform better.
Changing an organization to adapt to a more diverse workforce requires changing culture, systems, behaviors and more. This takes time. And it takes realistic expectations.
Nothing converts skeptics like success. Demonstrating strong performance while building an organization that manages a diverse workforce helps convince the doubters and cynics that managing diversity, which we could simply call "managing reality," is a smart business strategy.
SOURCE: Richard Hadden and Bill Catlette, co-authors, Contented Cows MOOve Faster, March 19, 2008.
LEARN MORE: Learn how Denny's used diversity efforts to overcome an image of corporate racism. Also: a counterpoint suggesting that diversity programs don't measure up to the hullabaloo that surrounds them.
Dear Workforce, April 3 2008
How Do I Overcome Resistance to New Diversity Initiatives?
What challenges/resistance should I expect as our organization begins examining workforce diversity? Conversely, how can we also illustrate the potential benefits to people who may be skeptical that this effort is "just another program" being imposed on them by HRM?
—Angling for an Angle, education, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
You should expect challenges from those who don't see themselves as part of "diversity." This will happen if you cast diversity primarily in terms of race, gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Instead, to prove that you're serious about workforce diversity, and not political correctness, include equal emphasis on a realistic variety of diversity dimensions, such as age, marital and parental status, education, personality type, communication style, the four previously mentioned dimensions, and others. Emphasize—and mean it—that everyone is part of the diverse workforce.
There will be resistance if the amount of time devoted to training, education and other diversity interventions is seen as taking away from what some will refer to as "real work," especially if allowances aren't made for time away from the job. Telling someone he has to take a day to attend diversity training, but that there won't be any slack on that project deadline, is a good way to breed resentment toward the entire effort.
The best defense against resistance to an examination of diversity is education, but not limited to the classroom variety. Leaders throughout the company, not just in HR, must help everyone in the workforce grasp this concept: If Company A has developed systems, procedures, policies and a culture that allow men and women from a variety of backgrounds to contribute productively, and Company B's systems, etc., seem to work only for certain types of people, Company A is going to perform better.
Changing an organization to adapt to a more diverse workforce requires changing culture, systems, behaviors and more. This takes time. And it takes realistic expectations.
Nothing converts skeptics like success. Demonstrating strong performance while building an organization that manages a diverse workforce helps convince the doubters and cynics that managing diversity, which we could simply call "managing reality," is a smart business strategy.
SOURCE: Richard Hadden and Bill Catlette, co-authors, Contented Cows MOOve Faster, March 19, 2008.
LEARN MORE: Learn how Denny's used diversity efforts to overcome an image of corporate racism. Also: a counterpoint suggesting that diversity programs don't measure up to the hullabaloo that surrounds them.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
BLS Report: Get Ready for a Smaller, More Diverse Workforce
Workforce Management
December 13, 2007
The Hispanic workforce will climb by 30 percent by 2016, while nurses make up the largest increase of any occupational group tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Anthony Olvera’s career prospects are promising. He is young, Hispanic and has five years of nursing experience—characteristics that bode well in an environment where the workforce is aging rapidly, there’s a dearth of skilled talent and diversity is on the rise.
Olvera’s demographics are a virtual mirror of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest workforce projections and predictions through 2016. The Hispanic workforce will climb by 30 percent by that year, while nurses make up the largest increase of any occupational group tracked by the BLS.
Overall, the civilian labor force will increase by 12.8 million, bringing the number of workers to 164.2 million by the middle of the next decade. While the figure appears to be a healthy increase, longtime HR executives may recall that 17.5 million workers entered the labor force between 1996 and 2006.
“It’s clear that the workforce growth rate is decelerating,” says Mitra Toossi, an economist at the BLS in Washington. Indeed, the current rate of growth is 8.5 percent, significantly less than the 13.1 percent rise in the previous decade.
What’s more, the portion of the population that is actively employed or seeking employment—known as the labor force participation rate—is declining and is expected to level off at 65.5 percent by 2016, Toossi notes. By comparison, workforce participation was at 67.1 percent in 1997.
Toossi attributes this to several factors, including an aging population.
“The reality is that as workers get older, they begin to drop out of the labor force,” Toossi says. “When that happens, participation rates take a hit.”
The number of workers 55 and older is expected to reach about 23 million in less than a decade. This represents a growth rate of 46.7 percent, which is almost 5.5 times the projections for the overall labor force.
Yet employers shouldn’t worry about an overnight exodus of workers, says Bob Morison, director of research at the BSG Concours Group, a consultancy based in Kingwood, Texas. Many baby boomers—people born between 1946 and 1964—intend to remain active, but it will be on their terms. In fact, some three-quarters of baby boomers say they plan to work at least part time in their retirement years, Morison says.
[To view the entire article, go to: http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/25/26/71.html]
December 13, 2007
The Hispanic workforce will climb by 30 percent by 2016, while nurses make up the largest increase of any occupational group tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Anthony Olvera’s career prospects are promising. He is young, Hispanic and has five years of nursing experience—characteristics that bode well in an environment where the workforce is aging rapidly, there’s a dearth of skilled talent and diversity is on the rise.
Olvera’s demographics are a virtual mirror of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest workforce projections and predictions through 2016. The Hispanic workforce will climb by 30 percent by that year, while nurses make up the largest increase of any occupational group tracked by the BLS.
Overall, the civilian labor force will increase by 12.8 million, bringing the number of workers to 164.2 million by the middle of the next decade. While the figure appears to be a healthy increase, longtime HR executives may recall that 17.5 million workers entered the labor force between 1996 and 2006.
“It’s clear that the workforce growth rate is decelerating,” says Mitra Toossi, an economist at the BLS in Washington. Indeed, the current rate of growth is 8.5 percent, significantly less than the 13.1 percent rise in the previous decade.
What’s more, the portion of the population that is actively employed or seeking employment—known as the labor force participation rate—is declining and is expected to level off at 65.5 percent by 2016, Toossi notes. By comparison, workforce participation was at 67.1 percent in 1997.
Toossi attributes this to several factors, including an aging population.
“The reality is that as workers get older, they begin to drop out of the labor force,” Toossi says. “When that happens, participation rates take a hit.”
The number of workers 55 and older is expected to reach about 23 million in less than a decade. This represents a growth rate of 46.7 percent, which is almost 5.5 times the projections for the overall labor force.
Yet employers shouldn’t worry about an overnight exodus of workers, says Bob Morison, director of research at the BSG Concours Group, a consultancy based in Kingwood, Texas. Many baby boomers—people born between 1946 and 1964—intend to remain active, but it will be on their terms. In fact, some three-quarters of baby boomers say they plan to work at least part time in their retirement years, Morison says.
[To view the entire article, go to: http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/25/26/71.html]
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
BLS Releases Women in the Workforce Data
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its 2007 report on women in the workforce. This report of historical and current labor force and earnings data for women and men is drawn from the Current Population Surveys that BLS conducted based on 2006 data. The report indicates that:
* The educational attainment of women age 25 to 64 has substantially increased since 1970: one-third of these women had college degrees in 2006; one-tenth had degrees in 1970. Approx. 8 percent were drop-outs in 2006; 34 percent were drop-outs in 1970.
* In 2006, 50.1 percent of all managers were women. The percentages of women managers, professionals and related occupations differed according to occupations, however. While 33 percent of lawyers were women, only 7 percent of engineering managers were women.
* Women who worked full time had median weekly earnings of $800, approx. 80.8 percent of the earnings of men. Women college graduates age 25 and older earned 81 percent more than women with a high school diploma. This difference increased sharply from 1979, where women college graduates earned 43 percent more than women with only a high school diploma.
- Women in the Workforce: a Databook (2007 Edition) October 24, 2007: http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook2007.htm
[To see the highlights and the entire report, go to: http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-intro-2007.pdf ]
* The educational attainment of women age 25 to 64 has substantially increased since 1970: one-third of these women had college degrees in 2006; one-tenth had degrees in 1970. Approx. 8 percent were drop-outs in 2006; 34 percent were drop-outs in 1970.
* In 2006, 50.1 percent of all managers were women. The percentages of women managers, professionals and related occupations differed according to occupations, however. While 33 percent of lawyers were women, only 7 percent of engineering managers were women.
* Women who worked full time had median weekly earnings of $800, approx. 80.8 percent of the earnings of men. Women college graduates age 25 and older earned 81 percent more than women with a high school diploma. This difference increased sharply from 1979, where women college graduates earned 43 percent more than women with only a high school diploma.
- Women in the Workforce: a Databook (2007 Edition) October 24, 2007: http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook2007.htm
[To see the highlights and the entire report, go to: http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-intro-2007.pdf ]
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Mom, the next corporate titan
Hungry for talent, big companies have started to pursue women who have dropped out of the workforce. How this could redefine the whole notion of a career.
The Boston Globe
By Drake Bennett, Globe Staff September 2, 2007
ROBIN GUGICK MAYER had the qualifications, but couldn't find the job she wanted. She had been a corporate bond analyst at Prudential Securities for 10 years, then had worked at a smaller firm for five more. But Mayer had stopped working in January 2005 when her third child was born, and when she wanted back in, the headhunters she spoke to were reluctant : A woman who takes time off is a tough sell.
Mayer managed to get a handful of interviews using her own connections, but even companies that were interested weren't willing to allow her to work from home one day a week to be with her kids.
``It was hard, very hard," she recalls. ``I didn't know anyone in my area of specialty who had taken time off and come back."
In March of this year she was part of the inaugural class of a new program at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, designed to recruit and retrain women like her. Over three days, Mayer and her classmates took classes on finance, strategic communication, marketing theory, and decision-making. They met in small groups with career coaches. Each was assigned a mentor at the investment bank UBS, the program's sponsor, and each spent a day with recruiters at the bank's New York City headquarters. And afterward, Mayer was one of three women hired to work there - except for Fridays, when she works from home.
The collaboration between UBS and Wharton is part of a burgeoning movement among some of the nation's top banks, accounting firms, and management consultancies to recruit talent in a new way. Instead of chasing the recent graduates of top business schools, or raiding the competition, the idea is to woo highly skilled women who have left the workforce, usually to have children.
In just the past few years, spurred largely by a tight market for white-collar labor, firms such as the investment banks Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs have launched targeted recruiting programs. A new class of headhunters and human resources consultants has emerged to help smaller companies do the same. Other companies, including the accounting firm Ernst and Young and management consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton, have programs that allow women taking time off to keep in touch with the firm and even do occasional work until they're ready to return. Elite business schools like Dartmouth's Tuck School and the Harvard Business School have programs similar to Wharton's, and the how-tos of finding and hiring women coming off a career break - women who are ``onramping," in the current human-resources parlance - are hot topics in business school classrooms.
So far, these efforts are still new, and small: Wharton's Career Comeback program had 60 graduates this fall, and Lehman Brothers, a company with 28,000 employees, has hired 31 women and three men through its Encore program. Nonetheless, the idea of creating a systematic recruiting process for women looking to get back into the workforce, rather than something more ad hoc - or rather than ignoring them completely - marks an important shift. And the fact that the companies instituting these programs are hard-charging financial services firms with reputations for making few concessions to their employees' lifestyles could be a sign, some believe, of much broader changes to come in the corporate world.
[To read the entire article, go to: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/09/02/mom_the_next_corporate_titan/?page=full ]
The Boston Globe
By Drake Bennett, Globe Staff September 2, 2007
ROBIN GUGICK MAYER had the qualifications, but couldn't find the job she wanted. She had been a corporate bond analyst at Prudential Securities for 10 years, then had worked at a smaller firm for five more. But Mayer had stopped working in January 2005 when her third child was born, and when she wanted back in, the headhunters she spoke to were reluctant : A woman who takes time off is a tough sell.
Mayer managed to get a handful of interviews using her own connections, but even companies that were interested weren't willing to allow her to work from home one day a week to be with her kids.
``It was hard, very hard," she recalls. ``I didn't know anyone in my area of specialty who had taken time off and come back."
In March of this year she was part of the inaugural class of a new program at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, designed to recruit and retrain women like her. Over three days, Mayer and her classmates took classes on finance, strategic communication, marketing theory, and decision-making. They met in small groups with career coaches. Each was assigned a mentor at the investment bank UBS, the program's sponsor, and each spent a day with recruiters at the bank's New York City headquarters. And afterward, Mayer was one of three women hired to work there - except for Fridays, when she works from home.
The collaboration between UBS and Wharton is part of a burgeoning movement among some of the nation's top banks, accounting firms, and management consultancies to recruit talent in a new way. Instead of chasing the recent graduates of top business schools, or raiding the competition, the idea is to woo highly skilled women who have left the workforce, usually to have children.
In just the past few years, spurred largely by a tight market for white-collar labor, firms such as the investment banks Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs have launched targeted recruiting programs. A new class of headhunters and human resources consultants has emerged to help smaller companies do the same. Other companies, including the accounting firm Ernst and Young and management consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton, have programs that allow women taking time off to keep in touch with the firm and even do occasional work until they're ready to return. Elite business schools like Dartmouth's Tuck School and the Harvard Business School have programs similar to Wharton's, and the how-tos of finding and hiring women coming off a career break - women who are ``onramping," in the current human-resources parlance - are hot topics in business school classrooms.
So far, these efforts are still new, and small: Wharton's Career Comeback program had 60 graduates this fall, and Lehman Brothers, a company with 28,000 employees, has hired 31 women and three men through its Encore program. Nonetheless, the idea of creating a systematic recruiting process for women looking to get back into the workforce, rather than something more ad hoc - or rather than ignoring them completely - marks an important shift. And the fact that the companies instituting these programs are hard-charging financial services firms with reputations for making few concessions to their employees' lifestyles could be a sign, some believe, of much broader changes to come in the corporate world.
[To read the entire article, go to: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/09/02/mom_the_next_corporate_titan/?page=full ]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)