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Relaunching Your Career: Notes from the iRelaunch Forum

Featured Guest Blogger November 16th, 2009

Carol Bryce-Buchanan is the Director of Development for the Families and Work Institute. She served as moderator for the employer panel at the Career Relaunch Forum. Please note that the views of our guest bloggers do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network.

On October 29th, I represented the Families and Work Institute at the Career Relaunch Forum at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. I am a relauncher myself, having returned to work after a 14 year hiatus raising my children and organizing community programs, so the Forum was of particular interest to me. I wish these services had been available 11 years ago when I began my search to return to the workplace!

With more men than women having lost their jobs in the recession and with the increasing alignment of attitudes and behavior between young men and women concerning child care, ambition, and home chores (see the Families and Work Institute publications Times are Changing: Gender and Generation at Work and at Home and The Impact of the Recession on Employers), women who have taken career breaks are needing or wanting to return to work.

The Career Relaunch Forum was a one-day return to work conference educating mid-career professionals on career break about the return to work process, and bringing them together with employers interested in meeting them. The goal of the Forum was to educate the participants on the realities of their re-entry to the workforce and to give them confidence on the opportunities in front of them.

I moderated the panel entitled Employers Discuss How Relaunchers Should Approach Today’s Job Market with Allison O’Kelly, CEO of Mom Corps (specializing in the “flexible” exployment market); Trish Pescatore, US Recruiting Director for Accenture; Priya Trauber, Director of Diversity for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Elana Weinstein, Learning and Development Professional with Bloomberg, Inc.

Issues addressed by the panelists included:

  • What the job market is going to be like in their industry over the next 12-18 months;
  • What the driving forces for company diversity initiatives are and how the economy will affect those efforts;
  • Opportunities available at each company that are especially suitable for relaunchers; and
  • The panelists’ advice on the two or three things relaunchers must do and on mistakes they should avoid.

Participants were high-caliber professionals with significant experience prior to leaving the traditional workplace. One hundred percent of participants had an undergraduate degree and approximately 80% had graduate degrees. More than half of the participants are looking to return to the workforce or make their transition within the next six months. Their backgrounds are varied with the majority in the following categories: financial services, management consulting, consumer products, advertising, or PR.

The Forum is designed to offer guidance on defining next career stages; help participants determine skills, training and knowledge necessary to re-enter; learn more about how the workplace has changed since they left; and facilitate networking with peers and potential employers. Interestingly, 10% of the participants were men.

The participants heard some heartening stories about successful relaunches including that of a woman who had been out of the traditional workplace for 21 years and was now rising in the ranks at Goldman Sachs. Allison O’Kelley emphasized the importance of looking at small and medium sized companies if you are searching for flexible work options, as they are more likely to offer them. Priya Trauber said that Morgan Stanley Smith Barney was eager to train relaunchers to enter their sales force, but that relaunchers shouldn’t initially expect to work part-time in corporate settings. Bentley University and MIT offer educational programs for would-be relaunchers. The group brain-storming sessions on skill-based future work options were very effective and gave participants and injection of optimism and new ideas.

Fox News broadcast from the event and Examiner.com ran a story by Amy Impellizzeri on the Relaunch Forum.

Co-founders of iRelaunch, Carol Fishman Cohen and Vivian Steir Rabin, introduced participants to The 7 Steps to Relaunch Success, Dr. Pamela Stone from Hunter College moderated a panel of successful relaunchers who told their stories and the afternoon breakout sessions covered “Assessing Your Career Options, and “Networking and Marketing Yourself.”

For more information on future iRelaunch events and Carol and Vivian’s book Back on the Career Track, you can go to www.irelaunch.com. And if you are a relauncher and are interested in sharing your story, please comment below.

Sick in the City

Julie Schwartz Weber November 11th, 2009

The Community Service Society of New York (CSS) and A Better Balance (ABB) just released a report entitled “Sick in the City: What Lack of Paid Leave Means for Working New Yorkers.”  This report concerns the importance of paid leave, particularly in light of the recent H1N1 outbreak.  In this report, authors Jeremy Reiss (CSS) and Nancy Rankin (ABB) analyze 8 years of data extracted from annual surveys concerning lack of paid sick leave for working New Yorkers, outline economic and public health arguments in support of paid sick leave legislation, and conclude with a call to pass paid sick leave legislation.  Highlights from their report include the following:

  1. Nearly half (48%) of working New Yorkers do not receive paid sick days, while 44% receive no paid vacation.  A full 39%–or 1.3 million workers in New York City–receive no paid leave (sick or vacation).
    • 66% of low-income workers in New York City lack paid sick leave, with Latinos faring the worst; more than 7 out of 10 Latinos lack paid sick leave.
    • 60% of low-income working moms in New York City lack paid sick leave for themselves and for their children.
  2. Availability of paid sick leave is declining across income spectrums.
    • Where 56% of the near-poor had paid sick leave in 2007, only 33% have it in 2009.
    • Where 82% of moderate to high-income workers had it in 2004, only 63% have it in 2009.
  3. Workers in unions are more likely to receive paid sick leave; 64% of those in union jobs have paid sick days versus 48% of those in non-union jobs.

  4. Workers in small businesses in New York City are the least likely to receive paid sick leave; nearly two-thirds of those in businesses with 10 or fewer employees lack paid sick leave.  The authors underscore that these small businesses hire over 26% of all New Yorkers.

  5. Workers in the service sectors, construction and manufacturing are the least likely to receive paid sick leave, with a full 68% of working New Yorkers lacking paid sick leave in the leisure, hospitality, retail and wholesale areas.

  6. When no paid sick leave is provided, low-income workers who take time off to care for themselves or a sick child are more likely to be threatened with retaliation in the form of docked pay, job loss, or suspension.

  7. The lack of paid sick leave results in public health consequences, including the spread of contagious illnesses, like H1N1, and higher health care costs. Low-income workers without paid sick leave are more likely to go to work sick, and more likely to rely on emergency room visits to tend to routine medical issues. Even when these workers have health insurance coverage, the ER provides care outside of work hours and does not jeopardize job security.

  8. Most New Yorkers, across income and political party lines, support the passage of a paid sick law.

For more information on paid sick days, generally, visit our mini-brief and topic page on the matter.

Vacations–Who Needs Them?

Judi Casey November 4th, 2009

This blog by our Director/Principal Investigator Judi Casey originally ran on The Huffington Post on October 27, 2009.

Summer vacation season is over and we have definitely moved into fall. As we celebrated National Work and Family Month this October, I wanted to look back to see if workers took vacations this summer, identify the benefits of vacations and discuss the status of vacations in the U.S. Vacations are a critical work-family issue as they provide an opportunity to relax, reconnect with the important people in our lives, and have time to pursue our personal passions.

A poll conducted from August 1-September 11, 2009 on the Sloan Work and Family Research Network website found the following among 74 respondents:

Are you taking vacation time this summer?

Yes, I am taking the time that I desire ….. 23%

Yes, but I am taking less time than I want to ….. 30%

No, I don’t have the money for vacation this year ….. 27%

No, I’m too busy at work ….. 14%

No, I am afraid that it will put my job at risk ….. 7%

So, what does this tell us? Granted, this is a small, rather unscientific sample, but only about a quarter of respondents took the time that they wanted. Another 30% took some time, but wish that they could have taken more. Just under half (48%) did not take vacation time because they didn’t have the money, were too busy, or were afraid that it would put their jobs at risk. Half of the respondents did take some time off, but almost half did not. Should we be concerned?

An interesting article by David Rock in Psychology Today found that if you are a knowledge worker who thinks for work, there are benefits to a break. He reports that time away from a problem allows you to get unstuck from your typical way of viewing situations and promotes new perspectives. Research also finds that we are more effective at solving difficult problems when our minds are less cluttered, which is more likely to occur if we get our heads out of work — for example, by taking a vacation.

A new report by the Families and Work Institute, “The State of Health in the American Workforce,” found a decrease over the past 6 years in the number of employees indicating that their overall health is “excellent” (from 34 to 28%). Co-author Ellen Galinsky says, ” …organizations can promote wellness by monitoring overwork and providing and encouraging employees to take their vacations.” Other indicators of poorer health include more stress, clinical depression, difficulty sleeping, and medical conditions such as high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol. Read more here.

Author Joe Robinson echoes these findings in his book, Work to Live. People who take vacations are less likely to have heart attacks or other illnesses compared to those who don’t take vacations. “But it only starts to work that way when you take at least a two-week block of time,” says Robinson. A long weekend or a few days off doesn’t promote better health; we need a chunk of time off to reap positive health benefits.

Compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. is an outlier around vacation time with 137 countries (including all industrialized nations) mandating a minimum of 4 weeks of paid vacation time. In the U.S., there are no laws requiring employees to have any paid vacation time so employers offer paid vacation time at their discretion. As noted by Julie Weber here on the Work and Family Blog,

“The Center for Economic and Policy Research reports that about one fourth of the U.S. workforce has no paid vacation in the course of their work year. Part-time workers, low-income earners, and workers in small establishments (fewer than 100 workers) are less likely to receive paid vacation and paid holidays, and when they do, these workers receive fewer paid days off.”

Thankfully, there has been some recent attention in the U.S. to mandating vacation time. In May of this year, Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) introduced the Paid Vacation Act of 2009, which would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to require that employers provide a minimum of 1 week of paid annual leave to employees at companies with at least 100 employees. Advocates of the bill note that vacations are important for family well-being as well as for improving workplace productivity.

Vacations — who needs them? We all do! What is it going to take to move us from a nation of overworked, unhealthy, stressed out Americans with no time to relax, explore our passions or engage with our families? Of course, we have to start by taking care of ourselves as much as that is realistic given our financial and employment situations these days. We definitely need to prioritize taking vacation time, but this can’t just be an individual responsibility. Supervisors and managers have to support our efforts to take a vacation, so we can return to work as more productive and healthier contributors.

Employers have to support the use — not just the availability — of vacation time. This requires changing the culture of the workplace and moving our thinking from vacation as a burden for the work team and for the organization to an opportunity for employees to recharge so they’ll return to work more creative and engaged.

Geography Plays a Part in Access to Work-Family Benefits

Julie Schwartz Weber September 23rd, 2009

The Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire recently published a new brief, “Family-Friendly Policies for Rural Working Mothers.” This brief, authored by Assistant Professor and Faculty Fellow Rebecca Glauber, analyzes the differences in access to family-friendly policies between rural and urban mothers. Glauber concludes that rural women are less likely than their urban counterparts to have access to family-friendly policies, including paid sick days, parental leave, flextime, and health insurance.

Importantly, Glauber asks why this difference in access exists. She writes that there are a “number of factors that contribute to the rural- -urban gap in mothers’ access.” While she indicates that education is a “strong predictor of access to family-friendly policies,” she asserts that approximately 50% of the gap in access to sick or vacation days is due to differences in rural mothers’ versus urban mothers’ work establishment size, occupation, and industry, and unionization. That is, rural workers tend to work in smaller places and in industries that provide fewer benefits.

In addition, Glauber finds that a particular subset of rural mothers – single mothers – fare particularly poorly concerning access to family-friendly policies. For instance, according to Glauber, 41% of rural single mothers do not have access to paid sick days compared to 38% of all rural mothers and 30% of urban mothers. Similarly, Glauber finds that over one-fifth of rural single mothers do not have access to any paid days off (sick days or vacation days) compared to 16% of all rural mothers and 14% of urban mothers. Again, Glauber concludes that single rural mothers have the least access to family-friendly benefits because they have less education, work for smaller firms, and work in jobs that are less likely to offer benefits.

To find more information on rural families and work-family issues, please see our Work and Family Encyclopedia entry “Rural Families and Work-Family Issues,” by Lisa R. Pruitt.

Results of Network Polls: Paid Sick Leave and Telework

Judi Casey August 5th, 2009

We asked “What is your experience with telework?” for our Network poll from May 19-June 25, 2009. Forty-seven percent indicated that they “occasionally work remotely,” while 23% noted that they ”work remotely several days a week.” Twelve percent indicated that “I wish that I could work remotely but my employer does not support this,“ while 10% “work remotely every day.” Eight percent of the 73 respondents reported that “my job is not suited for telework.”

For more on telework, see the Topic Page, the Effective Workplace Series, the Policy Briefing Series, and the Fact Sheet.

From June 26 - July 31, 2009, we asked “When you or a family member is sick, who do you think should provide your pay when you stay home from work (please select all that apply)?” Of the 63 people that responded, 41% said “my employer” while 11% said, “my employer, but not if it’s a small business.” Twenty-four percent indicated “my local government, state or country,” and 22% replied, “no one, it’s my responsibility.” One person commented, “Assuming I can work from home–and why not?–my employer should pay.” For more on paid sick leave, see our Topic Page, Policy Brief, Mini-Brief, Fact Sheet, and our Network News interview with Sherry Leiwant.

Our current poll asks “Are you taking vacation time this summer?” Please answer on our home page or on our blog; thank you!

Nurses Returning to Work in Droves; Taking a Closer Look

Featured Guest Blogger July 20th, 2009

Carol Fishman Cohen is the co-author of the acclaimed career reentry strategy book Back on the Career Track and the co-founder of career reentry programming company iRelaunch.com. She can be reached at info@iRelaunch.com. Please note that the views of our guest bloggers do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network.

In June, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Workforce Studies at Vanderbilt University’s School of Nursing released a study about 2007-2008 nursing employment patterns.  Here’s what caught my eye:

“Many nurses who had left the field have re-entered the work force to compensate for a spouse’s lost income or health benefits, the study said. About half the increase over the [2007-2008] period came from nurses over age 50.”

A look at the career paths of four relaunching nurses here in Newton, MA, where I live, will give you a sense of the wide range of possibilities open to returning nurses:

  • “Jane,” an operating room nurse who used to fly on medical helicopters bringing in transplant organs, returned as an elementary school nurse.  She was concerned this position might feel like a big step down from her high level, high pressure previous nursing career, but that hasn’t been the case.  Jane is responsible for monitoring some very complicated and serious health conditions among her students.  She also saved a student’s life by recognizing a child was in early stage, undiagnosed, diabetic shock, and made sure he went directly to the emergency room.
  • “Silvia,” a hospital nurse who volunteered as a La Leche League leader while on career break, returned to what she calls her “dream job” as a lactation consultant/nurse at a major teaching hospital.
  • “Diane,” also a hospital nurse, returned to a corporate nursing agency.  Nurses from this agency go into companies and set up mini-clinics for administering flu shots and dispensing health information.
  • “Sheila,” formerly an obstetrics R.N., returned to a minimal part-time schedule by teaching a weekly childbirth class.  She then went back to school to get a Master’s in nursing and certified as a nurse practitioner.  She is now a nurse practitioner in private practice.

Formalized career reentry programming in all fields is a fairly new phenomenon, as most of the growth has occurred since 2004.  Nursing reentry programs are no exception, as we have witnessed the emergence of programs offered by employers, educational institutions, and governments over the last few years.  Here are four examples:

  • Northern California’s Sutter Health’s New Grad/RN Re-entry Program combines classroom and clinical experiences to update nurses returning to acute care environments.
  • Online educator Nursing Knowledge International offers a Return to Nursing Refresher Program.  Seven units covering pharmacology, IV therapy, communication techniques, and care of the chronically ill, are included in this 40-60 hour program.
  • Australia has introduced two government programs for returning nurses to help cope with a severe nursing shortage.  The Royal College of Nursing National Nurse Reentry Scheme is specifically for nurses “whose registration has lapsed and/or who have not practiced for 3 years or more.” The Australian Government’s Bringing Nurses Back Into the Workforce program gives nurses returning after a leave of at least 12 months up to $6,000 Australian in cash bonuses.

Some nurses on career break wonder how to stay connected when they have family or other obligations that keep them from a full time work commitment.  Here’s how one nurse did it:  “I was lucky enough to add various jobs that worked around motherhood. I covered a shift [at the hospital where she used to work full time] every other week or so, and at one point I temporarily covered one day a week for a couple of months until someone was hired for a position. I also did some phone triage for pediatricians’ offices overnight. I would be nursing my daughter and answering the beeper, talking to parents with sick children in the middle of the night.”

The Vanderbilt study indicates the surge of first time entrants and re-entrants into the nursing profession over the 2007-8 period helped ease but not eliminate the current nursing shortage.  The study estimates a shortage of 260,000 nurses by 2020, demonstrating that nursing will remain an excellent career choice for the long term. Nurses on career break should not hesitate to take advantage of an online or employer updating program and start working on their “relaunch” immediately!

Trial Court Finds That Milwaukee’s Paid Sick Days Ordinance is Invalid

Julie Schwartz Weber July 1st, 2009

Last month, I blogged about the paid sick days ordinance in Milwaukee that had been enacted by voters last November and had been opposed by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC).  I shared then that the MMAC had challenged the legality of the ordinance via a lawsuit and that the trial court was going to rule on the matter soon.  Back then, we were still waiting for the trial court’s ruling on the matter.  Today, we know more.

On June 12th, Judge Thomas R. Cooper ruled that the paid sick day ordinance was invalidly enacted and unconstitutional.  More specifically, while the trial court upheld the part of the ordinance relating specifically to providing paid sick days to tend to the illness or preventative care of an employee or employee’s family member, he rejected the provision concerning time off for domestic violence victims to seek shelter or pursue legal action.  He ultimately concluded, “The provisions regarding domestic violence and sexual assault are not rationally related to the ordinance’s overall objective of protecting the public welfare, health, safety, and prosperity of the city”.

An appeal is likely.

A Better Balance has a more detailed analytical discussion about the trial court’s ruling available at its website.

What’s New From the Network?

Karen Corday June 19th, 2009

New from the Network:

New, free work and family content online:

Marrying Social Security and Paid Family Leave

Julie Schwartz Weber June 17th, 2009

While the majority of Americans agree that individuals should be able to take paid time off from work to attend to their family at critical times, including the birth or adoption of a child or the serious illness of a family member, there is substantial disagreement, especially among businesses, as to how that paid leave should be funded and administered. Heather Boushey, Senior Economist at the Center for American Progress, has newly provided a thoughtful and detailed proposal, a proposal that she herself states is a variation on some themes that fellow colleagues have been discussing for some time: funding and administering family leave insurance via the already existing social security system.

According to Boushey, this new program, which she calls Social Security Cares, is an “ideal way” to finance paid family leave.  She argues that the bureaucracy is already in place to finance the system and deliver checks, and the system, that contends with retirement and disability matters already includes a structure to “establish the criteria for eligibility that takes into account a variety of circumstances.”

She also states that Social Security Cares would benefit nearly all workers by being inclusive of low wage, young, or part-time workers in addition to full-time and middle and upper wage workers.  Furthermore, she indicates that Social Security Cares would encourage both men and women to take time off to provide care, an interesting point where today the majority of men and women are in the workforce and most families no longer have a stay-at-home caregiver.

Social Security Cares would entail the following:

  • Workers will be able to access social security benefits for income when they experience birth or adoption of a child, the worker’s own serious illness, or to care for a seriously ill family member, for 12 weeks per year;
  • The program will cover every worker currently covered by Social Security, which covers almost the entire labor force;
  • Eligibility will be based on a worker’s lifetime employment history and will use reasonable terms to enable young, part-time, and low-income workers to qualify;
  • The cost of the program will be minimal, and could be financed in many ways, including adding a small increase to the payroll tax.

Boushey makes sure to provide substantial detail throughout her proposal.  She also underscores that the Social Security Cares program is not a panacea, and that additional changes need to be made to other laws, including the FMLA, to ensure that the program would be fully effective.

A Federal Paid Vacation Mandate?

network June 3rd, 2009

Andrew Kang is a Graduate Policy Assistant  for the Sloan Work and Family Research Network.

Anyone who works knows that the vacation is vanishing in America. Indeed, only 14% of Americans take two weeks of vacation each year. One recent poll revealed that 50% of all Americans take less than one week of vacation each year.  In challenging economic times, the trend is even more pronounced.

The U.S. Congress recently announced the Paid Vacation Act of 2009, sponsored by Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL). Under the Act, employers of 100 or more people will be required to provide at least one week of paid vacation time to every eligible employee.  After three years, the Act will expand the requirement to companies employing 50 or more people, and increase the paid vacation to two weeks for employers of 100 or more. To be eligible, employees need to have worked for the company for one year. Part-time workers are also eligible for the paid vacation as long as they work at least 25 hours per week and 1250 hours per year.

This bill is the first ever proposal to federally mandate paid vacation in this country. Historically, the Federal Government has been reluctant to impose a paid vacation requirement on U.S. businesses. Unlike most industrialized countries, including all of Europe, which typically requires four weeks of paid vacation per year, U.S. workers are not guaranteed any paid vacation time. Around the globe, there are currently 147 countries that have some form of paid vacation law. In addition to the political implications, the bill directly addresses and supports the health (both physical and mental) of the American worker. Numerous medical studies have established that regular vacations can reduce the rates of heart disease and depression by nearly half.

The bill was introduced on Thursday, May 21, at the Cannon House Office Building Terrace in Washington, D.C. by Congressman Grayson together with John de Graaf, Executive Director of the public policy group Take Back Your Time. We will certainly keep you posted as the bill makes its way through Congress.

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