Part Two

Models at the Cutting Edge

The second half of this book is centered on solutions. On the face of it this is a daunting challenge. Chapters 2 and 3 outlined a deepening problem set. Not only are we battling an entrenched male model that’s ill suited to realizing female talent, but we are dealing with one rendered newly robust and resilient by the growth of extreme jobs.

However, the analysis to date is also replete with good news. Chapter 4 developed a compelling, multifaceted business case for why companies may now be ready to mess with the conventional white male career model. Demographic shifts and global competitive pressures are creating a groundswell for action. This is a point of view bolstered by the track record of the Hidden Brain Drain Task Force. As mentioned in chapter 1, over the last three years, the thirty-four companies that constitute the task force have worked together to identify problem sets and sponsor cutting-edge research. More importantly, they have committed to spurring action on the ground and tackled the central challenge: how do you spearhead a second generation of policy capable of keeping talented women on the road to success?

Our June 2006 Hidden Brain Drain Summit—when change agent teams from thirty-four global companies gathered to share emerging best practices—was an important milestone. Over two extraordinary days these senior executives described setbacks as well as success stories and homed in on the key questions: Which policies and programs have the most traction? Is there a core package of options that constitutes a second generation of policy? And how can a company kick-start the process of becoming a second-generational player?

We were able to hammer out a collective vision. I’m not talking about a detailed or tight agenda here—the range of sectors and professions represented in the task force is too wide for that—but we did achieve a meeting of the minds. First, there was consensus on a core package: six essential elements that need to gain some real traction if a company is to fully realize female talent over the long haul. Second, there is a growing list of models at the cutting edge—some of them directly inspired by our new research—that can help a company get up and running. In essence, the emerging models of best practice described in chapter 5 through 10 provide a road map for companies embarking on a second-generational journey.

So what is this core package?

1. Establish a Rich Menu of Flexible Work Arrangements

These go to the heart of what women want most. As we saw in chapters 2 and 3, flexible work arrangements dominate women’s wish lists—indeed, on the 2006 Working Mother magazine list of best companies to work for, flextime is the lead benefit offered by 99 of the one hundred companies on the list.¹ Reduced-hour options, flexible stop and start times, telecommuting, job sharing, and seasonal flexibility—time off in the summer, balanced by long hours in the winter—are among the policies and practices women yearn for. Many see flexible work arrangements as a lifesaver, eliminating the need to quit a hard-won, much-valued job. The case studies featured in chapter 5 (Ernst & Young, BT Group, and Citigroup) present a multitude of creative ways of reimagining when, where, and how work is done. It’s important to note that in companies such as Citigroup, flexible work arrangements are not described as an accommodation to women’s family lives; rather they are positioned as a business imperative—a powerful weapon in the battle to retain key talent.

Flexible work arrangements are likely to become even more important. With jobs becoming more extreme, an increasing number of talented women will both want and need the ability to ramp down a little. Having a baby or coping with a fragile parent is that much more difficult when workweeks ratchet up from fifty-five to seventy hours and spheres of responsibility become global. If 30-plus percent of talented women are currently opting for scenic routes, that proportion is likely to increase into the future as the performance challenges inherent in contemporary jobs continue to escalate.

2. Create Arc-of-Career Flexibility

Flexible work arrangements provide flexibility in the here and now—over the course of a day, a week, a year. But a related set of policies are enormously important to women: policies that provide flexibility over the arc of a career and allow a woman to ramp up after having taken time out of the paid workforce. These initiatives are quite new. Indeed, the case studies featured in chapter 6 (Booz Allen Hamilton, Lehman Brothers, and Goldman Sachs) got off the ground in 2005 and 2006 as a response to the “Off-Ramps and On-Ramps” survey data and are still at an early, experimental stage.

It should come as no surprise that arc-of-career flexibility is a brandnew concept. These innovative policies do, after all, represent a serious departure from the white male career model, which at its heart is dependent on lockstep, full-time employment. As we will see from the case studies showcased in chapter 6, a particular challenge for companies attempting to craft these types of flexibilities is that they are multilayered and multistep. Reattaching talented women involves creating more and better on-ramps for sure, but successful reattachment also depends on access to flexible work arrangements (many on-ramping women need flexibility) and on reconnecting to mentors and networks.

A word on these new and more complex forms of flexibility: as the case studies will reveal, senior executives driving these new policies are beginning to conceptualize work in different ways. Jobs are being unbundled and unpacked, clients are being shared, and work teams are being deployed in ways that allow responsibilities to be handed off seamlessly. All this is happening with the goal of allowing high-value, high-impact work to be done by experienced professionals working in “chunks” or “nuggets” of time.

3. Reimagine Work Life

Talented women also need work-life policies that offer accommodation for responsibilities associated with elderly relatives and reliant individuals outside the immediate family circle. As has already been shown, conventional work-life policies tend to focus on the nuclear family. For many years the best benefits—and finest support programs—within large corporations have gone to a specific demographic: employees who are married with young children. This doesn’t work for half of all women. As we discovered in chapter 2, a large proportion of highly qualified women are childless—and almost as many are single. But if these women don’t have two-year-olds they do (or will) have serious elder-care and extended-family responsibilities. The data shows that a significant number of women are forced to off-ramp because of an elder-care crisis.

The case studies featured in chapter 7 (Citigroup, Time Warner, and Johnson & Johnson) illustrate ways in which companies are beginning to honor and support work-life challenges that go beyond biological children and the nuclear family.

4. Help Women Claim and Sustain Ambition

The data presented in chapter 2 shows a serious fall-off in ambition as women move through their thirties. Confounded by the escalating pressures of extreme jobs and penalized for taking an off-ramp or a scenic route, many talented women downsize their expectations for themselves. This is a huge issue. An employer cannot promote a woman if she herself is not enormously vested in this endeavor. The case studies featured in chapter 8 (Johnson & Johnson, Time Warner, and General Electric) demonstrate how ambition can be sparked and rekindled through women’s networks and other leadership initiatives.

Women’s networks create a myriad of leadership development opportunities. At the simplest level they boost confidence by connecting women to their peers. All too often, executive women feel isolated—marooned in a sea of men. In addition, networks provide access to senior women who can act as mentors and role models; serve as a “showcase” for presentation and organizational skills; and expand business relationships—both within the company and on the outside.

5. Harness Altruism

As we learned in chapter 2, the aspirations of talented women are multidimensional and tend not to be centered on money. Financial compensation is important to women, but it’s not nearly as important a motivator as it is for men. The data shows that while men list money as either the first or second priority on their wish list, women tend to rank this goal much further down on their list of career drivers. Career goals such as working with “highquality colleagues,” deriving “meaning and purpose” from work, and “giving back to society” tend to be top priorities for women. In focus groups women talked eloquently about the friendships they found in the workplace, the importance of being able to believe in the products they sold and the services they rendered, and their commitment to giving back to their communities (both their corporate community and those on the outside.)

The case studies showcased in chapter 9 (Goldman Sachs, Cisco, and American Express) demonstrate that recognizing and rewarding altruism gives an important lift to women’s careers and cements loyalty to a company.

6. Reduce Stigma and Stereotypes

In many corporate environments, flexible work arrangements and other work-life policies and programs are heavily stigmatized, either through overt disapproval (a manager says quite openly that telecommuting will hurt a career), or because of subtler cues in the corporate environment emanating from gender-based stereotypes. For example, someone who has taken a reduced-hour schedule is simply never considered for promotion, or such an option is deemed suitable only for those who are not very ambitious, and in many companies this may be “code” for young mothers. Either way, flexible work arrangements—no matter how well designed or cutting edge—quickly become illegitimate or “off limits” to those with serious career ambitions. Naturally, this has a dampening effect on take-up rates. In focus groups, we found that women—often high-performing, ambitious women—routinely quit rather than take advantage of flexible work arrangement options that were on the books but had become stigmatized. In the words of one executive: “These policies label you as some kind of loser.”

Reducing stigma and stereotyping is perhaps the most challenging element in this core package. Ask any HR director. They’ll tell you it’s relatively easy to create a set of exemplary policies and programs. But such initiatives are meaningless options unless they are supported and celebrated by senior managers in the corporate environment. As we shall see in chapter 11, one of the most effective ways of combating stigma is to “walk the talk” at the top. When senior executives take a scenic route and shout it from the rooftops—letting everyone in the office know they’ve done so—it can have a transformative effect on what is possible for everyone else. Suddenly, flexible work arrangements become legitimate—even desirable.

The case studies featured in chapter 10 (Lehman Brothers, Cisco, and Ernst & Young) show how companies are beginning to battle stigma and stereotypes head-on—and in so doing are kick-starting the process of transforming corporate culture.

A closing thought. I would like to stress that this core package is not a stand-alone deal. These six new initiatives are meant as add-ons to existing policies and programs. Large, progressive companies have already developed a valuable set of first-generation programs: they actively recruit well-qualified women and offer a conventional set of work-life policies—mostly focused on the nuclear family. But as discussed in chapter 1, this first round of policy and practice has gotten women only partway there. This first generation of policy served to make the white male model somewhat more accessible to women rather than creating alternatives to that model. It’s this deeper agenda—the creation of alternative career models and alternative pathways to power—that lies at the heart of the second-generation challenge.

In hopes of encouraging other companies to take up this challenge—by adopting any or all the components of the core package—following each case study I’ve included a toolkit—a brief but succinct outline of how to institute the initiatives described in the preceding case. These toolkits are meant to give the reader, at a glance, a grasp of the essential elements needed to craft, launch, and sustain these efforts. I’m optimistic these toolkits will convince companies that these efforts are both doable and supportable.