Human resources executives know any number of recruiters who would jump at the chance to present candidates from a niche pool of talented mid-career professionals. Who wouldn t want to bring on a cadre of individual contributors and managers who are capable and creative producers and represent a demographic that s often underrepresented in the upper ranks of large companies?

But a perennial problem has afflicted one such talent source: mid-career professional women who have taken leave from the corporate world to care for their small children and are now seeking to restart their careers. Many of these women take leave fully intending to return to their careers but are frustrated by employers who don t understand what they offer or what they need.

To harness the skills of these mothers who return to work - sometimes known as sequencing moms - employers must avoid these twin traps: recruiters and hiring managers who write them off and the rigid policies that work against working mothers, often for no good reason.

Women Can t Return If Employers Won t Consider Them.
Several studies have concluded that women turning back to the world of work after an extended leave typically get short shift from employers, even those that might have welcomed them as recent college grads.

"Off-ramps are around every curve in the road, but once a woman has taken one, on-ramps are few and far between - and extremely costly," write Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce in their Harvard Business Review article, "Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success."

"Our findings indicate that despite their business degrees, these women were not necessarily viewed as attractive candidates for full-time positions and were rarely presented as possible candidates for executive roles," says an independent study conducted in consultation with the Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management.

Many employers appear to lump sequencing moms together with all other candidates who have long periods of professional inactivity on their records. "Recruiters shouldn t be put off by long gaps in a resume because a woman stepped out," says Mary Gross, a co-author of the independent study and director of learning and development with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers in Plainsboro, N.J. Still, it s wise for human resources to assess whether a woman returning to work has made efforts to keep up or catch up with developments in her professional field.

Select companies in some industries - especially professional services - have made efforts to retain up-and-coming women who take years off to raise children. Accounting firm Ernst & Young has made such an investment. With less than 4% of its partnerships held by women, and facing employee replacement costs of 150% of annual salary, the New York accounting firm took several steps to lure women back from leave and retain them.

Ernst & Young distributed hardware for telecommuting to a wide range of workers; promoted mentoring and networking among women employees, allowed more flexible scheduling, and monitored project assignments and promotion opportunities to ensure that returning women were given opportunities on a par with their peers throughout the workforce. One return on the firm s investment: a tripling of the proportion of women among the firm s partners.

Are Returning Women Effective? It Depends.
Of course, employers can t assume that things will go smoothly when professional women return to the workplace after a change in family status.

"I ve hired half a dozen marketers returning to work after time off with children, sometimes with great success on both ends, and sometimes with little success," says James Chung, president of Reach Advisors, a marketing strategy firm in Belmont, Mass.

Mothers restarting their careers need to give as much flexibility as they receive. In exchange for their employer s flexibility, employees should be willing to make up for hours taken off on short notice, and to stay in close communication with coworkers and customers even while tending to family needs. When emergencies arise, these employees need to come up with solutions rather than offer excuses.

How do employers contribute to the success of failure of a sequencing mom's return to the workforce?  Among the factors, according to Chung: Whether the workflow of the industry can accommodate career sequencing and flexible schedules; and whether the boss has experience managing professionals as they reenter the workforce. 

What Companies Can Do for Sequencing Moms.
"Human resources needs to meet returning women halfway," says Taylor Hatcher, a work and family policy analyst with the National Partnership for Women & Families in Washington, D.C. "HR needs to be able to help these women achieve the balance."

"Companies that are willing to be flexible and creative get a huge return," says Gross. "Women who have stepped out feel like they have to prove something, so they give even more."

"Sick days need to mean that you can take two hours off to see the doctor for something urgent," says Hatcher. Working mothers and other employees should be able to take brief periods of time off on short notice, take off just a fraction of a day, and request leave without giving a reason, Hatcher says. (However, employees who ask for unpaid time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act can be required to justify their requests.)

Employers in the health care industry often go to great lengths to accommodate women returning from leave - if only because the demand for these workers often far exceeds the supply.

"The hospital has a huge initiative for flexible scheduling," says Judy Walker, lead occupational health nurse in the human resources department at Children s Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

"Each year employees get two weeks of free care in the home for a sick child, parent or other family member," says Walker.

Don t employees without children get jealous of a flexible-scheduling program that they believe was designed for working mothers? "We work through some of those issues," says Walker. "What managers try to do is sit down with those employees and ask, What would you want? "

About the Author

John Rossheim is a journalist in Providence, Rhode Island who writes about workplace issues, employment trends and changing relationships between employers and workers.  Johnregularly contributes to Workforce Insights, an online resource about emerging labor trends and issues produced by Veritude.

^©2005 Veritude,LLC.  Reprinted with permission.