Lawsuit Filed Against News Service
Bloomberg L.P., the news and financial services company, was accused by the federal government Thursday of discriminating against women who became pregnant and took maternity leave. The company, which has 9,000 employees in 125 offices worldwide, said the allegations were meritless and said it would fight them. Houston Chronicle

Extended Leaves
Early one evening in March, Amal Shehata was giving her infant son a bath and noticed he was getting too big for his baby tub. Overwhelmed with emotion that she was missing her son grow up while she worked, Amal decided to quit a job she loved as a director for internal strategic projects at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she'd worked for 11 years. She wanted to be a full-time mom. After discussing the idea with her husband, Amal walked into her boss's office to resign. Her boss, however, had another idea. Since he didn't want to lose a valuable employee, he asked Amal to consider a six-month leave of absence instead. "My boss told me, 'You don't have to take this traditional approach and just leave,' " she says. Working Mother

Tourism and Women’s Rights
More needs to be done to guarantee equal rights for women in the travel industry as well as tougher laws against their exploitation in sex tourism, said the Vatican secretary of state. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone called for more attention in safeguarding women's dignity and promoting their rights in a letter marking World Tourism Day, celebrated worldwide Sept. 27. Catholic News Service

Haven’t read, The Secret? I’ll share one with you. There is nothing original about it. Read any translation of the Bible’s New Testament and you’ll find, verses about believing and receiving, “that what ever you ask for believing you will receive” and “all things are possible to those who believe.” The secret is not original or new.

Taking Care of Loved Ones May Mean Giving Up Career
For 10 years, Laura Wanless and her mother, Carol, worked side by side running a home day care in Appleton. Known to the children as Grandma, Carol Maher, 69, was "like another hand," Wanless said, chaperoning field trips, stopping in to play and acting as backup baby sitter. Then Maher started suffering severe headaches and nausea. Doctors found a brain tumor, and ordered emergency surgery. She was diagnosed with metastasized breast cancer, a cancer that had spread from her breast to her brain. Doctors estimated she had one year to live. In a matter of weeks, Wanless became what she calls "a parent to her own parent" and was forced to close her day care. PostCrescent.com

Are American Career Women Envied?
Go forth and travel the world before you change it but don't assume that women in other countries want to be like Americans, was some of the advice offered to hundreds of young women Saturday at Emma Willard School. "I probably learned as much from the places and the people I met," as her various schools, said Katty Kay, the Oxford-educated news anchor for the BBC's World News newscasts shown across the U.S. and the world. Kay gave the keynote address at the "Women, Power, and Responsibility" symposium, which explored the relationship between power and responsibility in today's world. TimesUnion.com

Grounding an Aeronautics School
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued a Tulsa aeronautics school for allegedly firing a veteran female instructor because of her gender. Spartan Aviation Industries, doing business as Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology, unfairly disciplined J.C. Shine based on her gender and then terminated her within two months after she complained about the discriminatory discipline, the EEOC alleged in its lawsuit. Tulsa World

About a week ago I was talking to someone about how I left the corporate world to become a business owner. He responded by saying that he respected me for taking that kind of risk. That wasn’t the first time that I’d had that kind of response. Usually they’ll say that I’m lucky that I’m able to work from home, or that I’m brave to have taken such a risk.

It all depends on how you define risk. I didn’t just get up one day and decide to quit my job.

Workplace Hanky Panky
In an effort to get real handle on what is going on in the workplace, CareerBuilder.com, the job search site, has commissioned polling company Harris Interactive to do a regular survey of the professional workforce called "Workplace Taboos." And the results of the survey, if they are representative, are sure to give you a chuckle. And if you work from a home office, like I have done for the past 11 years and as all of the employees at IT Jungle have done for the past six years, the CareerBuilder.com survey may make you yearn for a little of that old office environment. According to the survey, which was filled out by 5,727 workers in the United States from June 1 through 13, there are a lot of shenanigans going on in the workplace. IT Jungle

Gender Bias
Last February a federal appeals court panel in San Francisco decided, 2-1, to allow the largest class action employment discrimination case ever convened to go forward against Wal-Mart Stores. The class includes the more than two million women who have worked at any of the company's more than 4,000 retail stores nationwide since Dec. 26, 1998. The case, known as Dukes v. Wal-Mart, accuses the retailer of discouraging the promotion of women store employees to managerial positions and of paying them less than men across all job positions. CNNMoney.com

Positive Impact
Companies with more women on their boards perform better than those with very few women, according to a study released on Monday, October 1, by Catalyst, a New York-based consultant. During the four-year span of the reporting for the study, Fortune 500 companies with the highest percentage of women on their boards saw equity returns that were 53 percent higher than those companies with the fewest number of women on their boards. Workforce.com

My children and I used to play Monopoly™ when they were younger. We had our own set of rules. It was the same when we played Scrabble™ or other games. As long as all of the players agreed on the rules, what’s the harm? When some of the players disregard the unwritten rules that the rest of us play by the results may not be what we expect.

Religion at the Office
What if your religion required you to wear a beard but your employer has a no-facial-hair policy for all its delivery drivers? What if your religion required you to pray every day at sunset, but your job on a factory line made it difficult to take a break during your shift? What if your religion required you to shun violence but your job entailed doing tech support for a client that makes violent computer games? MSNBC.com

Female Doctors’ Balancing Act
It wasn't that Deborah L. Pierce, DO, didn't like being the associate residency director of the emergency medicine residency program at Philadelphia's Albert Einstein Medical Center. She did. Indeed, she had hoped to direct the program someday. But with two young children at home, she was facing a dilemma all too common among female physicians: How best to balance career and family. American Medical News

A Computer and Crib
In today's economy, two-income families are a must for many households. But some first-time parents aren't facing the daycare dilemma, they're taking the baby to work instead. Rather than offer childcare assistance or on-site daycare, they're welcoming new parents and their infants back into the workplace. CBNNews.com

Friends come into our lives in a variety of ways and if the friendship lasts, we sometimes forget just how we first met. However, that doesn’t hold true when it comes to my friends who first began as former co-workers, since we tend to rehash old workplace issues over a glass of Cabernet with a side of laughs. Even though we’ve all moved on, there are only about four of us who stay in touch and I wonder if that would still be the case if e-mail were not an option. Hitting “reply all” does have its advantages when trying to arrange a get together.

A Stubborn Blemish on the Workplace
More than 40 years after federal law made it illegal, 30 years after courts widely began recognizing it as a form of discrimination and at least 20 years after many companies inaugurated programs to prevent it, sexual harassment remains a stubborn blemish on the American workplace that not only can be ugly but very expensive, as New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas and his employer, Madison Square Garden, learned Tuesday. Chicago Tribune

A Coincidence of Color
It is probably only a coincidence that the people who are at the center of two salacious sexual harassment cases are African Americans. But what a coincidence it is. On Tuesday, a jury in Manhattan decided that New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas, a Chicago native and retired NBA star, sexually harassed Anuche Browne Sanders, the Knicks' former senior marketing vice president. Browne Sanders had accused Thomas of making unwanted advances -- and of routinely calling her the b-word and h-word. Chicago Sun Times

Working It
When it comes to accessorizing a power suit, stilettos are hotter than a pocket square any day. Women are more than just decoration in the work place these days, but there's still a certain role society expects us play -- whether it's one of Snoop Dogg's biatches or a Disney princess. If a female boss knows what she wants, she's bossy. Men are strategic. Tribune Review

My daughter came home last week with an assignment to interview me. They were the typical questions; “what is your favorite food, what is your favorite color, etc”. The last question however, through me for a loop, ‘what are three words to describe yourself”. I found it a bit difficult to verbalize my positive traits. After carefully choosing my words, I chose mother, teacher, successful.

In Litigation
Last week the commission announced it was suing Bloomberg L.P. for demoting or reducing the pay of female employees who became pregnant or took maternity leave between February 2002 (by then Mr. Bloomberg had left for City Hall) and the present. Mr. Lewis would not comment on specifics, but the commission report accuses the firm of a pattern of demotions and a management attitude displaying a reckless indifference to antidiscrimination laws. New York Times

HIV and the Workplace
New research shows people who are HIV-positive may have a hard time on the job.
According to a new study out of France conducted among 478 people with HIV, about one-third had lost their jobs since getting the diagnosis. About one-third cited health reasons for the job loss and about one-fifth reported they were fired. Twenty people in the study reported outright discrimination due to their HIV status.Work-related problems hit women and those with lower levels of education the hardest. Ivanhoe Newswire

Promising Results
Efforts on Wall Street to re-engage women who are trying to return to the work force, many of whom left for family obligations, have started to yield results. During the last few years, some of the nation’s premier business schools began to address that demographic group with executive M.B.A. programs. Of those, perhaps the most encompassing is the annual program started last fall by the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, with a curriculum that combined academics and career opportunities. New York Times

On Sunday morning my neighbor opened her door to get her newspaper at the same time I did. As we were saying hello, my cat dashed out of the apartment and ran down the hall to her. He loves to play with her two cats. I followed him down the hall to watch them wrestle. We get such a kick out of our cats having play dates.

My neighbor mentioned she was going to Riverside Church to hear Jesse Jackson preach. I decided to go with her. We live nearby, and she told me, “When we hear the church bells ring we can leave and be right on time.”

Giving Parents a Break
AMERICAN women sometimes joke that they plan to move to Sweden or France before they become pregnant, to take advantage of the generous paid maternity leave those countries provide. In fact, would-be moms may not realize they have many more options than just those two: 170 countries offer some paid maternity leave, and 98 of them offer at least 14 weeks off with pay. The United States is not one of them. New York Times

Setting a Precedent?
Bloomberg LP, the world's largest financial news and data provider, is the latest corporation to be slapped with accusations of sexual discrimination, part of what experts told ABC News is a coming tidal wave of such complaints as more women continue their ascent in the workplace. With women making up approximately 46 percent of the work force in America, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more and more companies may be forced to decide how flexible they are willing to be with employees' schedules – particularly those of expectant or new mothers. ABC News

A Man Offers Women Suggestions for the Workplace
John McKee, author and business coach, president of BusinessSuccessCoach.net, is the author of Career Wisdom and 21 Ways Women in Management Shoot Themselves in the Foot. His Web sites are www.BusinessSuccessCoach.net and www.BusinessWomanWeb.com. He offers counsel on dealing with tough workplace challenges. Salt Lake Tribune

So there I was in Budapest. Exhausted, exhilarated and say it with me now: downright happy. Close to the end of a two week whirlwind eastern European group tour I couldn't have been more relaxed and as you may have guessed, more tired. So it's no surprise at dinner when my new friends were chatting about going out later on I simply said I probably wouldn't go. After all, Vic was wiped out! Or so I thought.

To which my friend from Ontario responded with two little powerful words, "Why not?"

The Effects of Societal Changes
When it comes to happiness, women seem to be losing the battle of the sexes. A Wharton study released last month shows that women have become less happy relative to men, a turnaround from thirty years ago when women were the more satisfied sex.Business and Public Policy professor Betsey Stevenson, who, along with professor Justin Wolfers, authored the study, said the results "raise provocative questions about whether women have been made worse off by societal changes." Daily Pennsylvanian

Good News for Some Female Employees
Female employees of real estate brokerage CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. may recover as much as $150,000 in damages each under terms of a class-action sexual harassment lawsuit settlement reached this week.The total cost of the settlement is unclear, but women who worked for the Los Angeles-based company in the last eight years may pursue claims, according to papers filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Chicago. Los Angeles Times

Be a Risk Taker!
A leading advocate for building a truly representative democracy where women lead alongside men told a UCF audience Thursday that in order for women to succeed, they must advance new ideas along with those of their male counterparts. “The American public is comfortable with having women in top government roles,” but oftentimes women need more encouragement to enter other fields, added Marie Wilson, the founder and president of The White House Project and a former president of the Ms. Foundation for Women. UCF.edu

No matter how many web sites I searched, I was surprised to find that the lyrics to Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, from the Disney movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, weren’t as I expected. I thought that it was “Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho, it’s OFF TO work we go.” Every site I checked, Disney included, had them as, “Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho it’s HOME FROM work we go.” What’s the biggie about off to or home from work you ask?

Speaking Up
When the Heinz School of Public Policy’s Linda Babcock noticed that male Ph.D. students were getting more opportunities to travel to conferences, get exemptions from course requirements, and teach their own classes, she began to question the system. What she found was surprisingly simple — the reason men get more opportunities than women, and the title of her book on the subject, is Women Don’t Ask. The Tartan

A Matter of Personal Choice
Recent research also reflects the ambivalence with which many mothers regard their own decisions about working or staying home, and many feel harshly judged for their choices. There is a widespread belief that today's parents are not measuring up to the standard that parents set a generation ago, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. More than half of Americans (56%) say that mothers are doing a worse job today than mothers did 20 or 30 years ago, the study found. USA Today

How To Wow Them
Dear Annie: I'll be getting my MBA in the spring, and I'd like to meet some prospective employers at a job fair that will be held on campus in a couple of weeks. The only problem is, because of my work schedule, I can only go to the fair for an hour or so. (It's a five-hour event with at least 50 companies expected to show up.) Is it even worth bothering, with so little time? If so, how can I get the most out of it? -Tick Tock CNNMoney.com

SMB owners find themselves tasked with quickly becoming business operations and strategic executives. While your talent might be sewing children’s clothes, interior design or photography, you also have to balance the check book, hire the staff, run the payroll and market the business. Today’s Internet-based technologies can help.

If you are a small business owner or individual professional, there are many options for making the operations of the business easier so you can concentrate on the core business – the reason you started the company in the first place.

Keeping an Office Romance a Secret?
SOON after word spread that Sarah Kay and Matt Lacks were conducting an office romance, Ms. Kay found herself in the office of the director of human resources. There was a time when such a meeting would have signaled a death knell for the relationship, and even jeopardized the employees’ careers. New York Times

Male Dominated Environment
The potentially cutthroat nature of the business world has for many years seemed to caution women away from excelling in that male-dominated environment. And the 'glass ceiling' phenomenon, where women can see what is going on above them but are unable to get there, is widely reported and there are few signs of it abating. Sprinkle on the stresses of these common perceptions, a poor return on work/life balance in business, that there is no support network for women and that many women in their early 30s may be starting a family while attempting to excel in business and you may have a reason for why women are so under-represented, especially at board level. News Blaze

A Top Company
Once again, Cornell has received recognition both from the American Association of Retired Persons and Working Mother Magazine for its workplace environment. This is the third consecutive year that Cornell was placed on the AARP’s list of “Best Employers for Workers over 50” and the second time Working Mother magazine placed Cornell on the “100 Best Companies” for working mothers. The AARP ranked Cornell 24th on a list of the top 50 companies to work for. Cornell Daily Sun

Book Causes Lawsuit
It may be the 21st century, but one state agency's workplace rules for women may seem a bit dated. Some are calling them sexist and a throwback to the 1950s. The hit show "Leave It To Beaver" invokes a time when women weren't often in the workplace. The problem is the State Department of Corrections handbook for female officers has rules that seem to go back to the same decade. WCBSTV.com

Questions from Anita Hill
Back then, she was either a charlatan or a heroine, depending which side you took in the epic, gut-wrenching showdown that was the Clarence Thomas confirmation battle. Sixteen years later, Anita Hill can be found on a tranquil New England college campus, sifting through thousands of documents to try to answer this question: Have things gotten any better in our nation's workplaces? Associated Press

Fired for Being Gay
Heather C. works for a major biochemical firm in Northern California. Thanks to state law, she can’t be fired for being gay – indeed, she’s the volunteer chair of her workplace’s diversity committee – yet she’s only selectively out at work. “It just doesn’t feel safe,” she said. “You don’t know who’s watching, judging you.” Heather’s partner, who works for the same company, is not out at all. 365Gay.com

What are you attracting? Years ago a career coach told me that I had to work on becoming “irresistibly attractive.” I didn’t completely understand it at the time, but now I do. When we hear the word, “attractive” we usually think of physical appearance. That’s what makeovers usually focus on, don’t they? Changing the outside and expecting that the inside will just fall into place.

Self-Employed Women Not Taken Seriously
Women in business, one of the fastest growing segments of the self-employed, and yet we know very little about them. Half of America's workers are women. More and more women are entering the workplace and more and more women are entering at the business and professional level than ever before. American Chronicle

Too Tough to Pull Off?
The long march of American mothers into the workplace has ground to a halt. And the reason will come as no surprise to the millions of women now trying to balance kids and a job: It's just getting too tough to pull off. The numbers are complicated by the swings of the U.S. economy. But the trend is clear: The labor force participation of women with children, which peaked in 1997 after rising steadily for generations, has stayed flat or even declined in the last decade. Chicago Tribune

Encouraging Words for Women
Her message was unmistakable: Women need to care for themselves, especially if they are also caring for others. Delivering that message in spirited remarks yesterday at the Burlington County College Enterprise Center was Mariska Hargitay, the actress who stars in NBC's “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.” The occasion was the third annual Virtua Health Women's Health Symposium, which attracted more than 500 women from the region who gathered for a day of sessions on everything from metabolism and knee replacements to loss of sex drive and spider veins. Phillyburbs.com

Well I'm actually going to do it. I'm tired of fighting myself. I've been told to listen to my heart. The heart has all the answers. Perhaps I've been ignoring that soft-spoken voice all these years.
And maybe I was afraid, but I now believe the heart does speak the truth.

I'm leaving. I'm leaving California and am heading East next year. I'll be leaving my job, everything that I've worked for, my degrees, my friends, my family to pursue my dream of being an artist.

It’s Her Business
Brenda Barnes hit the big time a decade ago, but not the way she had in mind. The self-effacing native of blue-collar Chicago made headlines around the world when she quit her post as chief executive at Pepsi-Cola North America to spend more time with her three young kids. On the Today Show back in 1997, host Katie Couric told her viewers that Barnes had made "a very surprising decision to some." Chicago Tribune

Veterans Returning to the Workforce
Employers are facing the largest re-employment of "citizen soldiers" in our nation’s history. Companies must prepare now to address the impact of returning military employees on the business organization, especially on the owners of small and medium-sized businesses, for whom employees’ extended tours of duty abroad have been unanticipated. Workforce.com

How to Respond to Harassment Charges
THE $11.6 million jury award in Anucha Browne Sanders's sexual harassment case sends a strong message to the New York Knicks sports franchise that sexual harassment will not be tolerated. But the value of the message will be lost if the Knicks and other sports teams respond by hiring fewer, not more, women managers. Boston.com

Apparently, I’m a little “out there”. My ideas seem to be different than everyone elses. My vision seems to be coming from the other side of town. Some people get me and some don’t. Am I strange or just a visionary?

Mired in the Past
Silicon Valley boasts that the future is invented here, but a critical study released today suggests that tech companies are mired in the past when it comes to promoting women to top posts. Valley companies based in Santa Clara County ranked dead last in the state, elevating fewer women to executive ranks and corporate boards than any other county. Mercury News

Family Leave Grants
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday proposed giving $1 billion in grants to states that enact paid family leave laws and said that she would support requiring employers to provide workers seven days’ annual paid sick leave. Mrs. Clinton, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, also called for expanding the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which protects the jobs of workers who take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. The law covers businesses with more than 50 workers. Mrs. Clinton would lower that to 25, covering an additional 13 million people, her campaign said. New York Times

Travel Wide and Far to Get Ahead
Go west young woman, go west — and east, and north, and south too. That is the advice of Westonite Stacie Nevadomski Berdan in her new book, Get Ahead by Going Abroad: A Woman’s Guide to Fast-Track Career Success. In the book, Ms. Berdan, a successful marketing communications executive, recounts her personal experiences and those of other women who catapulted their careers by spending time in another country. The Weston Forum

April 2006 was the first time I attended a "Women for Hire" Career Fair. I had been job searching for about 4 months submitting dozens of resumes on-line, completing several interviews but to no avail I was still unemployed. I saw an ad for the “Women for Hire" Career Fair in the Houston Chronicle so I decided why not attend even though I dread career fairs. I attended the breakfast and workshop sessions and thoroughly enjoyed the speakers. It was emphasized in the sessions to learn the power of networking and to go to events alone without a friend because it forces you to step outside your comfort zone to meet new people. It was time for me to step "Outside the Box” and make my presence known if I wanted to have a career instead of just another job.

Email and Productivity
Ken Siegel doesn't beat around the bush. He doesn't like e-mail. "I don't even have an e-mail account," he says. "When I tell that to the executives I work with, first they look at me with surprise, and then they look at me with envy." Dr. Siegel, a psychologist and president of Impact Group, management consultants in Los Angeles, is on a bit of a crusade. He wants there to be less e-mail in the world. So he's helping his business clients organize activities such as a "no e-mail Friday" in order to increase productivity. Alternet.org

A Career Killer?
Snack. Just one little word, but it was enough to jolt me up at 4 a.m. and send me racing to the kitchen in a cold sweat. I had forgotten -- how could I have forgotten? -- that I had volunteered to bring snack food for 30 children to my daughter's preschool at 8:30 a.m. And not just any snack food. It had to consist of fruit and/or vegetable plus protein and/or complex carbohydrate and be prepared in individual, child-sized servings. Decades ago, when most mothers didn't work outside the home, there was far less cultural anxiety about child development, safety and "parenting skills." Los Angeles Times

Missing Women
The topic of gender equality in the workplace is a very tricky subject for discussion. There is no doubt that men and women with the same education and work experience should be given the same opportunities for advancement in the workplace. A recent survey compiled by the University of California at Davis shows that Apple is among the 30 percent of companies located in California that does not have a single woman serving as a top executive or sitting on the board of directors, according to Science Daily. Ars Technica

"I only get four weeks of vacation a year," says Harley in his adorable New Zealand accent. After all, the twenty-something from Auckland was disappointed he didn't have more time to enjoy in Europe but you know what? He took every day of those four weeks off from work and traveled the world. Cell-phone less, e-mail free, Blackberry who?

This got me thinking. After recently writing a What If piece for the latest issue of Women for Hire Magazine as it relates to having a liberal personal day policy like the French for example, his comment couldn't have resonated with me more profoundly as I proudly took 2 1/2 weeks from work for the very same vacation (an amazing group tour with contiki!!) Thoughts further ensued: as Americans, why don't we use all of our vacation time? As in truly, madly, deeply use them as in detach and detox. Completely. No checking emails. No voicemails. No nothing.

Keep Emotions in Check
It could be a reaction to incompetence, unfairness, work overload. It could be from a thousand daily cuts that bleed your enthusiasm for your job. It could be one major incident -- a layoff, a demotion, or someone else's promotion. So you blow your top at work. Wrath is one of the original seven deadly sins -- but in today's workplace displaying anger is just not acceptable. Dallas Morning News

Profanity at the Office
Serial swearers take heart: Profanity in the workplace can be a morale booster and inspire a sense of team spirit. It depends, of course, on how it's done and at what levels. "Social" or "annoyance" swearing can be effective in many office and workplace environments while vulgar or abusive cursing should never be allowed, according to a recent study. MarketWatch.com

National Business Women’s Week
National Business Women's Week (NBWW) is held the third week in October and celebrates the contributions of women to the society, economy, and the family.According to the Business Women and Professional Women/USA Web site, the idea for NBWW originated with Emma Dot Partridge, Executive Secretary of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs from 1924-1927. The first annual observance was held April 15-22, 1928, when Business and Professional Women/USA President Lena Madesin Phillips opened NBWW with a nationally broadcast speech. In her remarks, she stated that the purpose of the week was “to focus public attention upon a better business woman for a better business world.” News Tribune

Ok, so I’m 36 and single. Never married, no kids. Woe is me. I really want to be happily married with a family, but it hasn’t happened. So I have been asking my friends to tell me what I’m doing wrong. They all say the same thing. Your personality is too strong and men don’t really like a strong, somewhat aggressive woman. So how do I go about being “less” Lora?

That Narrowing Pay Gap
When it comes to the advancement of women in the workplace, progress is almost never sudden. But often it is steady. And so it is with women’s wages. In 1979, women working full time made only 63 percent as much pay as men, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Now working women make 81 percent as much as men. Yes, that’s an improvement, but it still means that median weekly earnings were $600 for women last year, compared with $743 for men. New York Times

The Future of Management
Flexible-work arrangements have been used by organizations for more than a decade as they try to retain valued employees and respond to demographic and social changes.
These efforts, the authors of this new book contend, turn out to have been no more than stopgap solutions to fundamental cracks in the traditional career model. Just as Gary Hamel, in his new book, "The Future of Management," says we need innovation in how we organize work in the 21st century, so Cathleen Benko and Anne Weisberg argue that we need a radical overhaul of how careers are organized. Los Angeles Times

Income Needs and Social Security
The rich are different from you and me. They have more money in retirement.And it may be that the gap between those who have lots of money for retirement and those of us with less will grow. In part, that's because the rich are getting richer. But there's another element: Workers are depending on a system that may provide low- and moderate-income people with less money for their retirement. News Journal

I had an interesting lunch meeting recently with a woman who wanted to learn more about the publishing industry. We’d never met in person, but before our menus were delivered to our table, I could tell that this woman was hungry and I’m not referring to the meal we were about to have.

Diversity in the Science World
For at least a decade, universities and federal agencies alike have been engaged in an interdisciplinary arms race, competing to expand interdisciplinary programs and opportunities at ever faster rates in the hopes of achieving that transformational breakthrough in research. At the same time, federal and local programs have been working against the clock, seeking to broaden participation of women and members of minority groups in science, mathematics, and engineering before the U.S. loses its competitive edge. Inside Higher Ed

A Democratic Workplace
This is the dawn of the most entrepreneurial and socially aware generation in history. Workers under 40 are passionate about corporate social responsibility, a greener environment and human rights - and we're creating businesses to advance those causes in the process. The challenge is, however, that we're not necessarily building workplaces that do the same. Instead, we're often relying on the same old command-and-control structures that are inconsistent with the progressive causes we've created our companies to support. The Baltimore Sun

Being Geeky
A venture capitalist who rejected Mary Hodder's start-up for funding later told her he did so in part because Hodder had no male co-founder, and he thought she would quit because she's a woman. Hodder didn't quit. Her video search and social networking Web site, dabble.com, is doubling its registered users every 2 1/2 months. Gender stereotypes like those, what they say about the male-skewed culture of Silicon Valley and its impact on the growing number of women in tech, were at the heart of the She's Geeky conference that convened Monday. San Jose Mercury News

Maybe you work in an office, or maybe on the road, or maybe at home. No matter where you work or what kind of work you do, I think staying energized is so important to having a successful day. As a multitasking mom and business owner, my energy level takes major dips throughout the day. I have tried to find things that work for me and for my schedule, while balancing all of my responsibilities.

Women In Business
Big things are happening over at the offices of Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business (WIB). Two weekends ago, the ladies threw a successful undergraduate business conference in Boston, and last weekend, some of the gang jetted off to Omaha, Neb., to meet Warren Buffett, every aspiring businessman’s (or businesswoman’s) idol. WIB is the largest business organization at Harvard College, and it comprises a bunch of very ambitious girls. The group, according to its mission, “seeks to empower a dynamic group of enterprising young women by uniting them through business education and experience.” The Harvard Crimson

Riding on Politics’ Coattails
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York is not the only one trying to capitalize on the historic nature of her presidential candidacy. At least two companies that cater to women see joining the hoopla as good for business. Both WE: Women’s Entertainment, the cable channel geared toward female viewers, and BridesDecide.com, a site for recently engaged and newly married women, are starting comprehensive efforts to educate women about the election — and, in the process, to raise their brands’ profiles. The New York Times

Easier Access
More than a decade after employers began cracking down on those who view online pornography at work, porn is continuing to create tension in offices across the nation — in part because laptop computers, cellphones and other portable devices have made it easier for risk-takers to visit such websites undetected. USA Today

It's a funny thing about passion. When you love what you do, it doesn't feel like work! After interviewing the author of The 50 Best Jobs for your Personality for a piece I was working on for ClassesUSA, I couldn't help but wonder. It's all so obvious but sometimes blatant things are sometimes the most obtuse: our career personalities are really extensions of our own personalities. They're one and two in the same. And when people are unhappy (aside from things like having a bad boss or being underpaid), maybe it's the actual job. It may not be a fit with the true you. Or it may be the environment. Or it could be both.

Demands of Parenting for Working Women
Women view childlessness much more favorably than men do, likely because parenting places greater demands on mothers, especially those juggling work and family responsibilities, a new University of Florida study finds. Parenthood has very different consequences for women compared with men, said Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox, a UF sociologist whose study is published in the November issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family. University of Florida News

Looking Again at the Supreme Court’s Decision
While some of us women were busy studying for midterms, editing research papers or just simply living our small lives here in Long Beach, the Supreme Court basically took away a woman's right to equal pay in the workplace. According to an article in Ms. Magazine, Lily Ledbetter was stripped of her civil rights in the Supreme Court's Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. Inc. 5-4 decision back in May, but nearly nobody noticed or cared. The case tells how Ledbetter found out on the day of her retirement that she was getting paid 20 percent less then her male counterparts. Daily 49er

Gay Women Less Discriminated in the Workplace
University of New Hampshire research shows that employers discriminate more against gay men than against gay women in the workplace. The researchers found that gay men who live together earn 23% less than married men, and 9% less than unmarried heterosexual men who live with a woman. According to the study by UNH's Whittemore School of Business and Economics, discrimination is most pronounced in management and male-dominated occupations such as construction and production. WCAX TV

Employers’ Smoke-Free Programs
Corporate America has made big strides toward the smoke-free workplace. Its next goal: the smoke-free worker. Many businesses are seeking to reduce their medical bills by paying for programs to help employees stop smoking. A decade ago, such programs were rare. But recent surveys indicate that one-third of companies with at least 200 workers now offer smoking cessation as part of their employee benefits package. Among the nation’s biggest companies, the number may be nearly two-thirds of employers. New York Times

One State Approves Maternity Leave
The Ohio Civil Rights Commission has voted to require that companies with at least four employees offer mothers 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave. That's more specific than the current state law requiring that women get a "reasonable" period of time off to care for a newborn. A legislative committee must still sign off on the change, but that step is generally just a formality. The new policy would put Ohio among at least 19 states that provide more generous maternity benefits than required by federal mandates. Associated Press

Accepting Imperfections
In 20 years as an obstetrician and gynecologist, Dr. Hilda Hutcherson has helped poor women and very wealthy women. What they all have in common, she says, is a basic dissatisfaction with their bodies. Her mission is to change that. She's a professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology, and an associate dean at Columbia University's medical school, a magazine columnist and the author of three books. Newsweek

The October 22 Associated Press article regarding the Sioux City Airport identifier, which happens to be SUX, brought to mind an incident with my Mother regarding appropriate and inappropriate language use in society. Let’s face it; people, especially kids, like to use language that shocks.

How We Plan for the Future
There's no cookie-cutter answer for a woman's financial future, but for financial professionals like Kim Huber and Jennifer Haney, there are methodical steps that a woman can take to be more financially secure. Huber, who has been a financial planner for 14 years and is now with Spelts Wealth Management, says women tend to put themselves and their interests behind others. "If a man and a woman sit down to write their financial goals, the woman will put her children's education at the top of the list, before retirement. A man will list his children's education as second or even third," said Huber. Enterprise Record

Identifying Home Problems in the Office
WHEN an associate at the law firm Greenberg Traurig first told Cesar Alvarez, the chief executive, that domestic violence was a workplace issue that the firm needed to address, he was skeptical. Greenberg Traurig now trains employees to identify domestic-violence victims, and offers benefits for employees who are victims, including leaves of absence and referrals to outside agencies. The firm has also advised other companies about how to protect their own employees. New York Times

Politics and Gender
When asked about the record number of women running for the Legislature this November, Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose summed up the opinion of many female legislators when she said: "It's about time." Given that Democrats have put 39 female candidates forward and Republicans have tapped 21 women, as many as one in four lawmakers could be a woman in the new Legislature. "Party leaders have decided that, obviously, women are capable and good for the ticket," said Ingrid Reed, an analyst at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. Courier Post

My co-workers know all about my passion for fashion, obsession for all things that glitter, and my affinity towards pretty purses. After all, it's hard to hide it when you're sitting in a cubicle with all your shoes out in the open strewn about underneath the cubicle.

I simply had to count them. Nine pairs of shoes (mostly black) and two pairs of sneakers.

Jobs Dominated by One Gender
Jonathan Gapilango grew up taking care of his grandmother, so when it came time to choose a profession, nursing only seemed logical. But when he told his family about his decision, he could feel himself being second-guessed. After all, the thinking went, men should be doctors, lawyers or engineers. Gapilango is someone who has defied the odds to find a career and ignored stereotypes about the jobs men and women should take. Asbury Park Press

A Decline in Unemployment Benefits
The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell by fewer than had been expected last week.The Labor Department reported Thursday applications for unemployment benefits totaled 331,000, a decline of 8,000 from the previous week. That improvement was smaller than the decline of 17,000 claims that economists had been expecting and was certain to raise concerns about whether the severe slump in housing and a serious credit crunch were beginning to adversely affect the overall economy. CNN Money

Rankings on Law Firms
Law students at Yale and other law schools are working to improve the quality of life at top law firms. And the firms are taking notice. The group Yale Law Women also released a ranking this month of the top ten family-friendly law firms. Jennifer Broxmeyer LAW ’09, president of Yale Law Women and a board member of Building a Better Legal Profession, said Yale Law Women’s list evaluates law firms based on factors such as the amount of paid paternity and maternity leave they offer and how many billable hours they expect lawyers to work. This is the group’s second year releasing its ranking. Yale Daily News