Here's a story from earlier this week that I didn't have time to comment on but that I think says a lot about our changing culture: working women derail their careers in favor of family life.
The exodus of working women is now occurring in numbers too large for employers to ignore. According to the Harvard Business Review, 43 percent of professional women with children step off the fast track at some point. On average, they stay off for 2.2 years.
Perhaps the best part of the story is the bit about how companies are willing to change their whole employment paradigm to keep good employees around in some capacity.
Faced with this giant leak in the talent pipeline, more employers have begun actively recruiting off-rampers, or trying to ensure they never leave.After Deepa Varadarajan gave birth to premature twins, she reluctantly told her supervisor at Deloitte & Touche she would have to stop working in the first place.
"I told him, 'I guess I'm just going to have to leave. I cannot pursue my career at Deloitte," she said.
But through a pioneering program the company calls Personal Pursuits, Varadarajan can now take an extended leave without derailing her career. Deloitte helps her stay connected to the company, hoping she'll eventually return. ...
And her employer is just as happy with the arrangement.
"How often can you get someone with great maturity and judgment to step into a more junior role and be really happy with it?" said Anne Erni, chief diversity officer at Lehman Brothers.
A fellow at my company recently had to move to Chicago because his wife was accepted to medical school. The company didn't have any jobs in Chicago, so he was going to quit. We didn't want to lose him though, so he became a "virtual" employee, kept his same job, and is allowed to work from his new home and travel when necessary. What a sweet deal, largely enabled by the internet!
These changes will end up affecting everyone, not just career women. Imagine millions of retirees with invaluable knowledge lured into part-time virtual employment. The potential gains for workers and employers are enormous; the effects on social phenomena like social security and retirement are unimaginable.
One of the things that makes me bitter is the fact that companies refuse to allow IT workers to telecommute, but are plenty willing to hire someone from India or the Philippines that they will never even meet.
I'm a contract developer, and for the vast majority of what I do, I don't actually need to be in the office.
It's nice that employers are willing to use technology more flexibly. But it's wonderful that more women are taking the production and raising of children more seriously. A civilization has no future if its women have little interest in making babies.
I've held the same job for the last 6 years, though for the first 5.5 I was employed by a consulting agency. When we found out last October that I was pregnant, the plan was for me to be a stay-at-home mom. My clients were willing to work with me, though, in what ended up to be a working-from-home relationship as many hours as I'm able to handle.
The baby was born July 1st. I work about 15 - 20 hours a week. A wonderful lady from church watches my son in my house (with me there) 10 hours a week, so I'm still able to see him and interact with him. I also have the gift of mental stimulation and don't fall behind in my career and am able to contribute to the family financially as well as in the more important mom role. I have a job I can take with me anywhere, too - we could move across the country and it wouldn't matter a lick. It's working really, really well.
Telecommuting is a wonderful, wonderful option. I appreciate my son more because of the time I have away from him (but I can run in the other part of the house and hug and kiss him whenever the need - his or mine - arises).
hln