Off-Ramps and On-Ramps

Sylvia Ann Hewlitt's new book Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success is a book about how corporate America can restructure work to help women create non-linear careers. She uses a variety of case studies from companies like Ernst and Young and Lehman Brothers, who are implementing cutting edge policies, to discuss what work life balance can look like and mean for women employers. She focuses on the needs of mothers, but also of women who are elder caregivers, and generalizes to the entire working population who may need work flexibility. I found it somewhat interesting, but had a couple of general thoughts and some specifics.

This book is focused on a very narrow sub-set of working women: women who are high achievers in corporate America. Women at the top of a very particular group of employees. These are women who are earning lots of money in consulting, investment banking, and other such jobs who want to scale back their careers for a time. Maybe these are the early adopters who will pave the way for flexible work arrangements for a much wider variety of work, but the economic benefits of retaining women seems to be greater in a corporate setting than in many other employment arenas.

And what happens if the economy starts to shrink and companies need to downsize? Will they be able to maintain these same kinds of policies to keep women able to balance work and life? I also wondered about how applicable these types of policies are for small companies. They can't afford to have elder care consultants working with employees to solve problems with elderly and sick parents, for example.

It was also very much targeted at corporations who want to implement policies, making it somewhat less interesting for me as an individual concerned about these issues, but from the other side of the table. Yes, I'd love to find a flexible job arrangement!! How these policies relate to academic jobs is completely unclear and I have no idea what universities are doing in this arena. And how can I find a job that is flexible? I'm not sure.

But after reading, I thought maybe I should have gone into business or some other area that would be better suited for part time/flexible work. Some area where the skills are in greater demand than in academics. And I also started thinking (AGAIN!) about how to go about finding a job that is flexible and part-time. I need something. I want something. I keep thinking about that time (6 years from now) when all my kids will be in school and what I will be doing. I need to be doing smaller things now so that I can have an entry point then. So, I'm going to finish updating my vita and send it out to a bunch of places and send in that paper for review to see if I can't get it published. And look into as many options as I can find that might provide me some opportunity to use these skills