By Melissa J. Anderson

“It’s very easy to be patronizing about emerging market women because we tend to see them as victims. It’s shifting one’s view,” said Sylvia Ann Hewlett, professor at Columbia University and founding President of the Center for Work-Life Policy, on Forbes Women.

CWLP has recently published its report on professional women in emerging markets – entitled The Battle for Female Talent in Emerging Markets – exploring how multinational companies can better cater to “highly ambitious women” in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and the United Arab Emirates.

Presenting the data at a recent event at the Asia Society in New York City, Hewlett explained, first of all, that we shouldn’t consider “women in emerging markets” as a homogeneous social group. The women in each of the countries studied were part of distinct cultures, and as a result, had different pulls and pushes, different desires, and lived in different contexts.

Even still, the study revealed some constants – and provides some good advice for how global companies can attract and retain professional women in emerging markets.

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By Melissa J. Anderson

As the competition for for high performing employees grows during the next five to ten years, companies are going to have to work harder to attract the Gen Y workforce. The policies your company implements now plays an important role in building the foundation to recruit and retain this newly important source of human capital.

But it won’t mean business as usual – a new study confirms the view of Gen Y as values-focused, digitally demanding, and flex-work inclined.

What can you do now to attract the workforce of tomorrow? Here are our top five tips.

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By Kate McClaskey

Being family friendly means more than just offering services to new parents. It means taking investment steps towards providing financial incentives for new parents to return to work – and stay there.

According to the May 2004 Current Population Survey, 27.5 percent of wage and salary workers had flexible work schedules. Too many companies do not realize the benefits of having such an option. A recent study from the Cranfield School of Management in the United Kingdom found that employees with flexible schedules tend to work more intensely and have higher job satisfaction than their coworkers with more rigid hours. Those with more flexible hours also had lower stress levels and greater company loyalty.

The average unpaid maternity and paternity leave in the United States is anywhere from eight to 12 weeks. Comparatively, Swedish mothers and fathers can receive 76 weeks between them, and in the UK mothers can receive 39 weeks paid leave and fathers can receive four weeks paid leave. This is important because according to a study published in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, mothers with more paid time off tend to have less health risks than mothers who don’t.

While smaller companies may not be able to afford to establish and administer family friendly policies, larger ones should realize that the benefits of adopting such practices can outweigh the costs because they can potentially reduce absenteeism, lower turnover, improve employee health and increase productivity.

An ever-increasing number of companies are finding that new moms and dads are demanding more such as longer maternity/paternity leave and flexibility after having or adopting a new child. As the corporate world changes, so does the importance of a family friendly work place. It takes more than just more time to keep moms and dads engaged and content in their new role as employee and parent.

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By Elizabeth Harrin (London)

You are offered a sideways move, either in your organisation or to transfer to another company. Should you take it? While it might be tempting to hold out for a promotion, don’t disregard the possibilities presented by taking a lateral move. We asked five experts for their advice on taking a step sideways.

1. Plan for the long term“A lateral move that is made capriciously may be a career limiting move; however, a lateral move that is part of an intentional plan can propel a career forward over the long term,” says Diane Youden, a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers specialising in HR effectiveness.Youden advises taking stock of your career path. Where are you now and where do you want to be? A sideways step might be the best thing to do to put you on course for your end goal and further career opportunities down the line.

   As well as considering the job prospects and how these fit with your overall career trajectory, think about who you work with now and who you could be working with if you said yes to taking that lateral move. “If your current supervisor is not a strong sponsor or champion for you, moving laterally can remove this obstacle and reset your career path,” says Youden. “A lateral move can be a strategic move when it broadens your network with key company decision makers, gives you more visibility, gains global exposure, or enhances management responsibilities. All of these attributes contribute to making an individual a more well-round and broader business focused resource – a desirable attribute in your career planning.”

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

With many employees reporting that they are primed for a job change in the coming year, managers must find new ways to keep employees from jumping ship. But this doesn’t have to mean costly or extensive new human capital initiatives.

A recent study by Leadership IQ has revealed one simple (and free) change management can make right away to keep employees energized and engaged in their company: provide more feedback.

The study shows that one reason for this widespread job dissatisfaction is because they feel they are being ignored by management. According to Leadership IQ:

“While 67% of employees say they get too little positive feedback, 51% also say they get too little constructive criticism from their boss. Perhaps most troubling is that employees who said they didn’t get enough feedback were 43% less likely to recommend their company to others as a great organization to work for.”

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By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

The National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) recently released their Report of The Fourth Annual National Survey On Retention and Promotion of Women in Law Firms. The survey program, which began in 2006, is, according to the report, “the only national study that annually tracks the professional progress of women in the nation’s 200 largest law firms by providing a comparative view of the careers and compensation of men and women lawyers at all levels of private practice, including senior roles as equity partners and law firm leaders, and data about the factors that influence career progression.”

Stephanie Scharf, founder of the Survey and President of the NAWL Foundation which co-sponsors the Survey with NAWL, explained its genesis: “The old saying is that if you want to change something, first you have to measure it. An important purpose of the survey is to provide baseline benchmarks for how a typical law firm is performing. People can assess a firm against those benchmarks and determine where women in private practice stand.” Scharf was quick to state that the NAWL doesn’t publish firm-by-firm data—“we want answers without fear”—and instead, publishes findings based on objective measures like retention and promotion.

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by Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

Women may be less likely to encounter blatant sexism on the job than in prior years, but a recent study suggests “modern sexism” is still keeping women from achieving the highest level of success in corporate America. Modern sexism is often defined as a more subtle form of discrimination that is deeply ingrained in a corporate culture and can be as, if not more, damaging than overt acts of gender bias. Authored by chief scientist Ann Howard and senior vice president Richard Wellins of Development Dimensions International, a consulting firm, the study is titled “Holding Women Back: Troubling Discoveries and Best Practices for Helping Female Leaders Succeed.”

Howard and Wellins’ work points out that despite the fact women represent more than half of all employees in the U.S. and the fact that women are graduating from high schools and colleges at a higher rate than men, they are not being promoted to high-level positions at the same rate as men. In fact, as women advance in their careers from early management to senior management, the number of women leaders drop off significantly.

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Originally posted on www.theglasshammer.com, sister site to Evolvedemployer.com

To discuss how not to have your employees feel that they have to pump breast milk in the basement, contact Nicki Gilmour on 646 688 2318 for a full employee engagement and total inclusion program design.

When Lisa Powers joined Phillips Lytle LLP, a Rochester-based law firm, in 1999, she didn’t think to ask about the firm’s maternity leave policy. She was thinking about her career, not starting a family. However, in 2002 she got pregnant and discovered the firm had “one of most generous maternity policies.” Phillips Lytle offered a six- month leave that Powers says, “was almost fully paid.”

The long leave meant that even though Powers experienced some complications late in her pregnancy, she was able to stop working a month before her baby was due and still take off five months after the child’s birth.

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By Ruth Haag of www.ManageLiving.com

I remember my seventh grade teacher posing the question, “Does the time make the man, or the man make the time?”

We were supposed to debate this, but we had trouble, because seventh graders have very little life experience upon which to base deep philosophical discussions.

Making the person fit into the position

In business management, I continually see people trying to solve their problems by first creating a position, and then going out and looking for the “perfect person” to fill the position.

We actually tried this once at our company.  We decided that we needed more structure for our field teams.  We looked at the staff that we had, and decided that we needed some new supervisors to lead our teams’ day-to-day efforts.

We needed supervisors who were able to oversee HazMat/construction work, and who were diplomatic enough to handle interactions with clients and the public.  We advertised for these experienced supervisors. 

We must have interviewed 15 people for our three newly-created positions.  We finally selected three people, and all three were dismal failures.  We then took a look at our patient staff, and found three people who could take over some of the team leader/supervisor tasks. 

We had to match the field teams to the skills of each supervisor.  Thus, we had one crew focused more on construction, one that focused on sampling and one that handled the jobs that required interaction with other people.  This worked well.

The person makes the position

A supervisor must find the strengths of each of their employees, and then create positions that match these strengths.  Using this approach, we once had a scientist who did complex computer database work, cleaned the bathrooms and delivered special orders for our other business, a gift shop.  When he decided to go to graduate school, we did not go out looking for a database-manger-bathroom cleaner-delivery-person. Instead, we split up his various tasks among the remaining staff.

An amorphous system

To successfully get work done, first look to see who is willing, and has the skill set to do the work, then create a position for them. 

I say to you: “The person makes the position.”

Ruth Haag (www.ManageLiving.com)  is the President and CEO of Haag Environmental Company, a hazardous waste consulting firm.  Ruth is also a business management consultant. She trains supervisors to identify their shortcomings and tame them, while creating management systems that focus on their employees rather than themselves. She is also the author of several books, including a four-book series on supervisory management which includes Taming Your Inner Supervisor, Day to Day Supervising, Hiring and Firing and Why Projects Fail. She and her partner, Bob Haag, host the weekly radio show Manage Living, which can be heard on-demand on her site.

By Jenny Dedrick Krengel, Founder and CEO of Dream Jobs Inc. , in collaboration with advisory board members, Linda Glass and Kathleen Lucente

Although organizations talk a lot about strategic retention and re-sourcing, such banter does not always translate into meaningful abilities and action.  How can you make sure it does at your organization? 

You should begin by asking yourself: 

1. Can I track/support my best people who are in the midst of a career detour, and report metrics?
2. Can I keep my highest quality talent engaged when they are in the midst of this career detour, proving a true financial return to my organization?

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