For working mothers: after a baby, full time or part?

Corporate Voices for Working Families and Donna Klein were featured in an article in The Washington Post Sunday morning that looked at several topics involving working mothers, including how to negotiate for benefits and pay.

That article accompanied a very comprehensive feature story by Amy Joyce, “After a Baby, Full Time or Part?”

Before the birth of her now 9-month-old son, Sam, Joyce wrote the Life at Work column in the business section of the Washington Post. Now after returning from maternity leave, she is an editor for the Weekend section.  She writes:

“The job allows me to work more predictable hours than I did as a daily reporter with a weekly column. That helped me easily make the decision (for now, at least) to work full time.”

Then Joyce adds:

“But the decision isn’t so easy for many women. For those who have a choice, family, finances and career success are all major considerations when settling on a work schedule.”

This is the second consecutive week that The Washington Post has printed a comprehensive article on work-life issues.

by Rob Jewell

AT&T and workforce readiness

Interesting story Wednesday on Reuters and various national news media, including CNN. It pointed to the fact that AT&T is having a hard time finding enough qualified employees to fill all the 5,000 customer service jobs the company said it would return to the United States from India.Here’s one part of the story:

“We’re having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs,” AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told a business group in San Antonio, where the company’s headquarters in located.

Here’s another part:

Stephenson said he is especially distressed that in some U.S. communities and among certain groups, the high school dropout rate is as high as 50 percent.

“If I had a business that half the product we turned out was defective or you couldn’t put into the marketplace, I would shut that business down,” he said.

Stephenson’s concerns, and the dilemma facing AT&T in finding qualified employees, focus on an issue that is gaining increased attention in the business community and elsewhere: workforce readiness. It’s an issue that Corporate Voices for Working Families is very much involved with — and we know from research and from interactions with our partner organizations that this is a serious issue, one that threatens the ability of the business community to remain competitive in a challenging global economy.

In fact, improving the workforce readiness of young people is a growing priority within the business community. And businesses must play a leadership role in articulating the necessary changes necessary to prepare tomorrow’s workforce for the challenges of the 21^st Century and working toward achieving those changes.

This is an issue that we’ll visit often on this blog — and we would welcome your comments.

In the meantime, Corporate Voices for Working Families, The Conference Board, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and the Society for Human Resources Management conducted in 2006 an in-depth study of the corporate perspective on the readiness of new employees into the U.S. workforce. That study — Are They Really Ready To Work? – is available on the Corporate Voices Web site.

 

by Rob Jewell

Flexibility and career coaches

“Career or Family? Yes.” That was the headline for an interesting article in The Washington Post by Annys Shin on Saturday, March 22. The article focuses on the important issue of workplace flexibility from this perspective. A growing number of working mothers are turning to career and life coaches — the reporter calls them work-life gurus — to help them achieve a better work-life balance with employers.

The article says, in part:

While the demand for these services is real, questions remain about whether they can deliver. Despite the widespread acceptance of flex time and telecommuting, there is still resistance among employers, especially in time-intensive fields like law and finance, to accommodate parents who want to work reduced hours without harming their careers.

That view coincides with the results of a study Corporate Voices for Working Families commissioned last fall to assess executive perceptions of flexibility. One of the key findings: While business executives say that they view flexibility as a strategic solution to workplace issues, they report that their companies in practice use flexible work strategies as a way to accommodate individuals on a case-by-case basis.

Clearly, the results of that study — as well as The Washington Post article — indicate that more needs to be done to continue to demonstrate to chief executive officers and other business leaders that flexible work strategies are important to hiring and retaining the qualified workforce that is vital to financial success and competitiveness.

by Rob Jewell

Young people and graduation rates

Earlier in the week we blogged about the nation’s dropout crisis and its implications for the future of the U.S .workforce. Now, just days later The New York Times echoes many of the same concerns we expressed.

The article, entitled, “States’ Inflated Data Obscure Epidemic of School Dropouts” also makes the business case for why Corporate Voices is concerned about and focused on this issue. Making the front page of Thursday’s (March 20, 200 paper, the article paints the realities and dynamics of the dropout crisis. It sheds light on various states manipulating the data to boost the state’s educational reputation and ultimately its workforce readiness. In December 2005 all 50 governors agreed to standardize the way dropout rates are measured, but to date only 15 states have begun using the formula.

As mentioned in our previous blog about this issue, our Are They Really Ready To Work? report projects that in the next five years, college graduates will continue to increase in number among new hires. More than one-quarter of employer respondents (27.7 percent) say that over the next five years, their companies will reduce the hiring of new entrants with only a high school diploma. Nearly 60 percent project that their companies will increase the hiring of four-year college graduates and about half plan to increase the hiring of two-year college/technical school graduates.

If we desire to see a healthier more stable U.S. economy, we must provide our young people with the education and opportunities to succeed. Addressing the dropout crisis is at the core of this workforce readiness issue and vital to our success.

by Mia Hendricks

Dropout rates among young people and the implications for employers

While the workforce is expected to experience an increase in jobs, predicting 18.9 million more jobs, the verdict is still out regarding whether or not America’s youth will be ready to rise to the occasion. Although the boom in jobs is expected to occur through 2014, current high school dropout rates among young people are alarming.

An estimated 1.23 million students, mostly minorities, fail to graduate from high school. Findings are measured by the Cumulative Promotion Index (CPI), which considers the number of students that will complete high school in four years. According to an article in Education Week, Diplomas Count: Ready for What?, for every 100 students in the 9th grade, only 90 will remain in the education pipeline until their sophomore year, and of this number, 70 will actually graduate four years later.

These statistics vary geographically. Detroit is noted as having the lowest rate at 24.9 percent, followed by Cleveland at 34.1 percent, then Baltimore at 34.6 percent. The highest graduation rates are found in Jefferson County, Colorado, at 81.5 percent, followed by Baltimore County, Maryland, at 81.1 percent, then Fairfax County, Virginia, at 80.4 percent.

Findings from our Are They Really Ready To Work? report indicate that even those with a high school diploma, associate’s, and or bachelor’s degrees are not as ready for the workforce as they should be.

This same report projects that in the next five years college graduates will continue to increase in number among new hires. More than one-quarter of employer respondents (27.7 percent) say that over the next five years their companies will reduce the hiring of new entrants with only a high school diploma. Nearly 60 percent project that their companies will increase the hiring of four-year college graduates and about half plan to increase the hiring of two-year college/technical school graduates.

If this is the case, coupled with an ever-growing global competitive workforce, the odds for dropouts obtaining decent jobs are slim to none.

By Mia Hendricks

A workforce issue: “filling the corporate bench”

The What’s Offline column in The New York Times Saturday had several interesting items. One involved the hiring and retaining of executive talent. The other focused on interview tips. Who knows? Doubtful but maybe they are related.

According to the article in The Times, McKinsey & Company published a study 10 years ago, “The War for Talent.” It warned then of a coming executive shortage. Now a newly released report in The McKinsey Quarterly says the problem has “become worse.”

The authors argue that companies face a “demographic landscape dominated by the looming retirement of baby boomers in the developed world and a dearth of young people entering the work force.”

And in the same column there is an interesting summary of an article in Working Mother magazine that gives advice about how to deal with your …well, personal quirks when interviewing for positions. Do you babble, fidget, wave your hands and say “um” often. Take a look.

Do you want to receive your economic stimulus package rebate?

If your answer is yes, you must file your 2007 Federal Income taxes and the faster the better.

As you know President Bush signed an economic stimulus package into law earlier this year. The IRS has reached out to Corporate Voices to pass on some information about the package to our members to clear up confusion that you or your employees are having. The most important piece of information that you need to know is in order to receive a stimulus payment you must file a 2007 Federal Income Tax Return.

Even if you aren’t normally required to file a federal income tax return, you must file one if you want to be among the 130 million individuals who will receive a check from Treasury beginning in May of this year. The IRS will use information on the 2007 tax return filed by the taxpayer to determine eligibility and calculate the amount of the stimulus payment.

In most cases, payments will range from $300 to $600 for individuals and $600 to $1200 for joint filers. Parents and anyone else eligible for a stimulus payment will also receive an additional $300 for each qualifying child (subject to income phase-outs).

For more information on this subject we encourage everyone to visit the IRS website for updated information.

By Susan Holbrook

Flexible Work Strategies: Still an accommodation for many

We released yesterday the results of a survey that we conducted last fall to assess executive perceptions of flexibility. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation sponsored the survey.

An executive summary and the news release we distributed nationally are available on our Corporate Voices for Working Families Web site. Here are the key findings:

• Respondents reported an overwhelmingly positive experience with flexible work strategies.

• More then 75 percent of the business executives interviewed define flexible work strategies as an alternate time or location arrangement; for instance, a nonstandard 40-hour workweek or working from home.

• The respondents, by a ratio of 9-to-1, report that flexible work strategies have a positive effect on helping organizations reach business goals.

• However, in practice, the respondents said that the primary reason that their organization provided flexibility was to help employees achieve a better balance between work and family – and that various accommodations were made available to some employees on a case-by-case basis.

• From the standpoint of their organizations, those interviewed said flexible work strategies are not recognized as being the most important contributor to attracting and retaining qualified employees or for being the most effective option for driving business results.

• Very few of the businesses represented in the survey offer flexible work strategies as a recruiting tool; none view flexibility as a way to save money.

Based on the findings of our initial research, there are some key courses of action that can be taken to increase awareness of the importance of flexible work strategies through improved messaging on the topic.  One major area of focus would be the positive experiences with flexible work strategies that executives overwhelmingly reported.  An effective messaging strategy should leverage these positive experiences, as well as the high level of familiarity with these strategies.

Second, messages should connect flexible work strategies to both attracting and retaining qualified employees, and to driving business results.  Results of this research indicate that flexible work strategies are often not a consideration in achieving these two business goals.  However, by reframing them as strategic solutions rather than case-by-case accommodations, flexible work strategies can play a bigger role in attracting and retaining employees and driving business results, ultimately benefiting both employees and businesses.

Testing these messaging strategies will represent the second phase of this important research project.

We welcome your comments on this important issue of flexible work strategies.

Fortune 100 companies and paid family leave

The Joint Economic Committee has issued a report that finds that Fortune 100 companies overwhelmingly offer 6-8 weeks of paid family leave. Highlights include:

•  Three-quarters (73.6 percent) of the Fortune 100 companies that responded offer mothers a specific paid  parental leave program — such as paid family or disability leave — for the birth of a child, typically lasting six to eight weeks.
• A significant share of Fortune 100 companies (39.6 percent) provide employees with both paid (including leave policies, pregnancy-related disability leave, and the allowable use of paid sick days) and unpaid leave for the birth of a child.

The report concludes:

“Workers need  a new set of workplace policies that allow them to meet the competing demands of work and family.”  

Corporate Voices for Working Families — Welcome

Welcome. We’re the folks at Corporate Voices for Working Families. We’re going to use this blog to talk about our work, our partner organizations and issues involving working families. Please join us in this conversation.