Flexibility can boost staff morale, tenure
PROVIDENCE, RI December 23, 2006 - Jan Dane has three young children, and after her youngest was born, she was hesitant to resume the 55-hour-a-week schedule she'd had before becoming a parent.
"I was reluctant to re-engage in the way I had been working before . with beepers for everybody," she said. "That was the model for working I knew, and I knew I couldn't do that and be a mother."
For most working mothers this dilemma is familiar. And according to new research by Brown University sociologist Susan Short, it is compounded by the fact that working mothers are getting less and less of the traditional help at home from mothers, mothers-in-law and other females in the household.
"They're just as likely to live with mothers and mothers-in-law, but these mothers and mothers-in-law are more likely to be working themselves," Short said. In today's work force, "women are more likely to be working in non-agricultural activities, both as young mothers and as older women."
But many businesses - recognizing that the perfect balance of motherhood and career woman is increasingly difficult to achieve - are becoming proactive in an effort to retain employees.
Christine Heenan, founder and president of the Clarendon Group Inc., is one employer who has set out to make her business a desirable choice for mothers.
Read more ...