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| Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success By Sylvia Ann HewlettHarvard Business School Press289
pp., $29.95 |
Hang on to those talented women!
In 'Off-Ramps and On-Ramps,' Sylvia Ann Hewlett urges companies to go the extra mile for women workers
By Christa Casefrom the July 31, 2007 edition
Page 1 of 2
It's Friday night and the hazy summer sun has long since retreated. I'm on the couch, alone. Working.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not asking for sympathy. Oh no, on the contrary. I'm young! I'm free! I can work as much as I want! And like a Tropicana machine, I squeeze time out of my day to do just that.
By my calculations, I can spend an extra 47 minutes working toward my career goals if I opt for a PB&J sandwich instead of cooking a real dinner. And if I download German radio programs on my iPod shuffle, I can chip away at a third language on my three-mile walk home and get exercise. Then I'll have more of the evening left for reading hefty history books, which, incidentally, provide a nice weightlifting workout if one holds them properly.
But life-goals I cherish deeply – like raising a family – will most likely require me at some point to exit this autobahn of career advancement. And that thought has more than once left me forlorn, wondering how I will ever negotiate what Sylvia Ann Hewlett so aptly describes as the "off-ramps" and "on-ramps" of my career, while staying true to my ambitions both at home and at work.
So it was that, one Friday evening, I eagerly picked up her new book Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success. And as I did, I almost immediately made a happy discovery: that rather than primarily addressing women like me, Hewlett – economist and author of several other books including "Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children" – was aiming her message at business leaders.
In fact, that's what is most refreshing about Hewlett's book: Rather than launching a plaintive feminist argument against the rigidity of male-oriented career models, "Off-Ramps and On-Ramps" presents a convincing economic case for offering more flexible work arrangements to highly qualified women.
Though Hewlett's writing is not as concise as her busy audience deserves and not all the data she uses to back up her theories is not always as relevant as it should be, on the whole she offers a thesis that is both solid and compelling.
With H1-B visas harder to get and countries like India and China wooing many expats to return home, the talent pool for highly skilled labor is being stretched thin Hewlett argues.
Women, who are graduating at higher rates than men from undergraduate, graduate, and many professional programs, constitute the most concentrated pool of highly talented labor. Savvy businesses willing to adapt to women's unique aspirations and constraints will reap tangible economic benefits as a result, she says.
The data Hewlett offers is admittedly persuasive. Consider that:
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