Workplace Buzz: Today's Headlines

Workplace Buzz on July 2, 2007 9:27 AM

Is Staying Home with the Children Career Suicide?

Leslie Bennetts, contributing editor at Vanity Fair and author of The Feminine
Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much? and Vivian Steir Rabin,Vice president of search firm Salovey & Associates and coauthor of Back on the Career Track debate the question at FastCompany.com.

Leslie Bennetts: Two-thirds of women who opt out of the workforce want to return later on--but most are unprepared for the barriers they will face, including ageism, sexism, discrimination against mothers, and a strong bias against returning workers. The majority will not find full-time jobs, and many will be unable to reenter the workforce at all.

Vivian Steir Rabin: Returning to work after an absence isn't easy--but the climate for "relaunchers" has changed dramatically. Employers realize they have to get this "woman issue" right, which means allowing women (and men) to work flexibly and take extended leaves if that's what they want.

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Keep That Door Opened

Paul B. Brown for the New York Times writes, in a tight labor market like this one, making sure you handle departing workers well is good for business — and your remaining employees — HR magazine writes. “The way an organization treats exiting staff members is very telling,” Gail Gunderson of Ohio State University says in the article by Nancy Hatch Woodward.

Employees should be treated as well when they depart as when they were hired, she adds.

For one thing, if you treat departing employees with understanding and respect, they may decide to change their minds, no small thing if they are valued employees. For another, parting on good terms could leave the door open to have them return at some point.

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Who’s the Boss?

DesMoinesRegister.com weighs in on a new study.

Men may still have more power in the workplace, but apparently women really are "the boss" at home. That's according to a new study by a team of Iowa State University researchers.

The study of 72 married couples from Iowa found that wives, on average, exhibit greater situational power -- in the form of domineering and dominant behaviors--than their husbands during problem-solving discussions, regardless of who raised the topic. All of the couples in the sample were relatively happy in their marriages, with none in counseling at the time of the study.

Associate Professor of Psychology David Vogel and Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies Megan Murphy led the research.

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