Voices » HBR Voices » Sylvia Ann Hewlett » Women's Winning Role in the War for Talent
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1:04 PM Friday July 27, 2007
Last month, over 100 senior executives from 35 of the world's most powerful companies (including such heavy hitters as Randy Falco, CEO of AOL and Joe Gregory, COO of Lehman Brothers) gathered together at the Time Warner Conference Center in New York City to share some cutting edge ideas about finding female talent in this talent-starved world.
These companies are all part of the Hidden Brain Drain, formed in 2004 with the mission of fully realizing female and minority talent. This task force has developed rich data sets that demonstrate the competitive advantage to be gained by not punishing women for pursuing flex time options. More importantly, this task force has driven real change in the workplace.
Center stage in NYC were some radical initiatives that seek to redesign career paths so as to retain female talent. The initiatives are eye-catching. Take Ernst & Young. This big four accounting firm is embedding flexibility in its culture -- making it possible for high potential women to climb the career ladder on a flex schedule. Lisa Kennedy -- a New Jersey-based employee -- was recently promoted to partner on an 80% schedule. A star producer, Lisa has no intention of ever going back to full time employment.
Or consider GE. Despite its macho reputation, this industrial colossus is newly committed to accelerating women's careers. By dint of investing in a sophisticated women's network and linking this network with Session C (GE's leadership development and performance management system), GE has almost tripled the number of women in corporate officer positions over the last few years.
Companies are vesting in the task force not because their hearts are in the right place -- though this may well be true. They're doing this because a "war for talent" is heating up. The danger signals are everywhere: a recent study by the Washington-based Corporate Executive board found that the quality of candidates has declined 10% since 2004, but starting salaries for newly minted MBAs have increased 17% and signing bonuses have proliferated. Add in the fact that growth rates are robust -- particularly in Asia -- and it's easy to see why companies are newly in the business of wooing female talent.
So where is your company on this enlightenment curve? Are females in your workplace pushed off the success track for taking a flex time option?
HARVARD BUSINESS ONLINE RECOMMENDS:
Women in Business Collection: Insights for Executive Women and Their Organizations (2nd Edition)
Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success (Hardcover)
Required Reading for Executive Women--and the Companies Who Need Them (HBR Article Collection)
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Sylvia Ann Hewlett is an economist and the founding president of the Center for Work-Life Policy where she directs the "Hidden Brain Drain"—a task force of 50 global companies committed to fully realizing female and multicultural talent. She also heads up the Gender & Policy Program at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. She is a member of the World Economic Forum Council on the Gender Gap.
She is the author of eight critically acclaimed nonfiction books including When the Bough Breaks, Creating a Life, Off-Ramps and On-Ramps, and six Harvard Business Review articles. Her articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Financial Times, and International Herald Tribune. Her new book, Top Talent: Keeping Performance Up When Business Is Down (Harvard Business Press), will be published in October 2009.
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