LAND THAT FIRST JOB

Flexible Resources, Inc., a staffing and consulting firm that has, for the past 20 years, helped moms land top jobs in Fortune 500 companies, has launched “The Launching Pad,” providing expert guidance and training to help college grads navigate and demystify the job-hunting process.

Nadine Mockler, a Flexible Resources founder, and Barbara Rittner, Flexible’s senior vice present, are the principals beyond The Launching Pad. Together they have helped countless parents of this generation strategize, negotiation, and ultimately land positions at top companies. (Visit us on Facebook @The Launching Pad).

The Launching Pad goes beyond mere career counseling by providing a completely practical, hands-on approach.

“We will teach them the skills they need to land that first job,” says Ms. Rittner.  We give our clients the inside scoop, the stuff you aren’t going to get from a college career counselor. Everything we teach will be practical, hands-on knowledge, such as:

How to find and use contacts, How to research a company, How to handle the ‘tell me about yourself’ question, How body language is interpreted, How to write a cover letter, How to navigate social media for jobs, How to negotiate, and How to nail the first five minutes of the interview so they get invited back:

We will help them prepare their “30-second commercial” about themselves. We know from working with hiring managers and HR professionals for more than two decades that the interviewer decides in the first five minutes of the interview if they will hire you or not. The rest of the interview is slanted to support that decision.

“The key is we are in the trenches every day working with recruiters and hiring managers and we know what it takes to get the job,” said Ms. Rittner.

The Launching Pad charges $1500 which includes four two-hour sessions that will take the candidate through everything from information gathering, to targeting effective job-hunting strategies, to how to approach the market, interviewing skills, and closing the deal.  The key is that after the sessions are ended, The Launching Pad will be there to counsel through the job-hunting process.

“Helicopter parenting is a part of this. There is a greater level of dependency than with previous generations, but we are also dealing with a very tough job market. We want to give them the start they need in their careers by getting them off the launching pad,” says Ms. Mockler.

Contact Nadine or Barbara at 203-351-1180 and check us out on Facebook. Media contact: Redbird Communications, 203-968-0786, jgfredo@Optonline.net

Helping Moms Find Work/Life Balance:

The Mommy Track is 21 and so are we — A Business Model For Good Times & Bad

This mother’s day, two baby boomer moms are celebrating 21 years in business helping women like themselves balance career and family with flexible jobs at top companies.

It’s also 21 years ago that the “Mommy Track” article appeared in The New York Times.

That article was the seminal idea for Flexible Resources, Inc. founded in 1989 by Nadine Mockler and Laurie Young, two “MBA moms,” who were working together at a top NYC ad agency and were disheartened when they were unable to obtain any type of flexible scheduling once their first children were born.

Today, Nadine’s and Laurie’s first-borns are in college, and in their two decades in business, they have helped not only boomers, but also women of Gen X, Gen Y, and now Millennials, achieve work-life balance.

Nadine and Laurie, authors of “The End of Work As We Know It,” are two of the nation’s leading experts in workplace flexibility. They have credibility other lack because they have worked on the front lines of this issue for more than two decades.

Having placed thousands of women in flexible positions at companies they know what it takes to break through corporate barriers to flexibility. They know that bottom-line concerns take precedent over ‘family friendly’ policies, and thus have been the most successful company ever at not merely preaching flexibility, but initiating practical applications for flexible professionals at companies large and small, companies like:

Starwood Hotels, Novartis, Aetna, Unilever, Kraft Foods, Dannon, Schick, L’Oreal, Revlon, Diageo, Cendant Mobility, Greenwich Financial, Pepperidge Farm, AT&T, Bayer Diabetes Care, and many more.

Nadine and Laurie are two bright, articulate, energetic, and attractive women who can talk about what young moms of today want and how things have changed - and not changed - in the 21 years since “The Mommy Track” became part of our work-life equation.

To interview them for a fresh, insightful look at moms this Mother’s Day, contact:

Redbird Communications,

Joyce Fredo

203-968-0786

jgfredo@optonline.net

If you have been one of the lucky ones to be working part-time in your profession, and believe your talents and commitment to the job deserve greater commitment on the part of the company, now can be a good time to request full-time.

When budgets are still being  reigned in, how can you get your company to agree to a jump in compensation?

The best strategy is to negotiate to make flexible work arrangements the centerpiece of your transition to full-time, thus trading freedom and control over when and where you work for a compensation package that is more than you are making now, but is still less than a traditional full-time position would warrant.

Here are some strategies for using flexible work arrangements to obtain more hours and thus greater compensation while keeping your total package well within budget.

. Telecommuting allows you to work from home, sparing your costly and time-consuming daily commutes, and allowing you the freedom to work when you are needed most;

. Job-sharing — Two people with complimentary skills can provide greater depth and breadth of talent and experience at less than the cost of one full-timer who works long hours

. Permanent part-time — In exchange for keeping your hours short of full-time, you can request a transition to a permanent staff position that includes benefits, but still keeps your pay package less than full-time.

Once you have proven your value to a company by demonstrating a high level of productivity and commitment, you are in the best position to negotiate for full-time when you use flexible work arrangements to reduce the amount of compensation by trading for the freedom and control of flexibility.

We have created hundreds of flexible work arrangements for professionals at Fortune 500 companies for the past 20 years, so we did a “five steps to flexibility” formula for employees.

We’ve heard all the objections to flexible work arrangements over the past two decades. But we have the case studies, the research, and the testimonials to prove that flexible work arrangements improve productivity and help to create a workforce of people who like their jobs. They are also, we believe, the most effective way to permanently improve productivity and stop the endless cycle of over-employment and massive layoffs.

Here’s a good way to begin:

1. Request a Pay Cut - This attention grabber will get your manager to focus quickly on how a flexible schedule can have an immediate impact on the bottom line. If you want a four-day week, for example, agree to reduce your compensation by 20%.  If a paycut is unthinkable considering negotiating for flexibility in lieu of your next raise.

2. Think Outside the Box — If you want to maintain your full-time status but work flexible hours, or work from home at least some of the time, demonstrate how this will improve your productivity.   Working outside the 9-to-5 box, for example, enables you to better deal with overseas clients, a challenge today for even the smallest companies.  The focus here is to work the hours that make the most sense for business. You may, for example, start your day at 7 a.m. for overseas conference calls, or be available for late-night emailing or doing reports from home on your laptop, but the mid-afternoon may be downtime for you.  This way the hours you put in are all productive hours, leaving you the flexibility you crave for work-life balance.

3.  Make a ‘Work from Home’ proposal: Document how and when deadlines will be met; plan for regular conference calls and in-office meetings; Create a detailed step-by-step proposal that shows how every project will be completed on time; also document how telecommuting will allow you to give more time and focus to the job by eliminating daily commutes, endless, unproductive meetings, the frequent office interruptions and distractions of office politics and gossip. What do we do in the office?  We communicate; we write, review, and revise proposals, documents, presentations, and budgets; we schedule meetings and events - all of which can be done remotely.  Why not take full advantage of what technology can do for us, and work virtually?

4. Don’t make it a ‘mom’ issue. In our 20 years in business, the biggest objection to flexible work arrangements is always been: “If I give them to you, then everyone will want them.” No problem! Take the approach that flexible work arrangements are good for the company instead of a special favor reserved for one specific group.

Flexible work arrangements create more motivated, productive, focused employees and help attract and retain top talent.  When flexible work arrangements are a narrowly defined benefit only for moms they create resentment and smack of discrimination.  So while your mom responsibilities may be your main impetus for requesting flexibility, focus instead on how the company will benefit by making you more productive.

5. Take it Out for a Test Drive - If your manager is open to the idea but seems reluctant to give it the go-ahead, ask for a 30-day trial period, and then make it work. Make sure all commitments are clearly spelled out and deadlines are met. Certainly there are those who would try to sabotage your efforts.  But in the end it will be hard to argue with the bottom-line results - your new flexible hours will demonstrate your enhanced ability to meet clients’ needs, you will be available when needed, your deadlines will be met, and your output will increase.

Your motto should be: Measure results, not face-time.

Our unique perspective on making flexible work arrangements work is to focus on the bottom line by demonstrating increased productivity, greater expertise, and the ability of both small and large companies to attract and retain the very best talent there is.

We’ve making “making it work” for thousands of working moms at hundreds of businesses for the past 20 years. We look forward to sharing our expertise with other workplace and HR experts.

See you on the 27th!

WHAT MAKES A GREAT WORKPLACE IN 2010

Inspired by the recent release of a national magazine’s list of “Top 100 Companies to Work For,” Flexible Resources wanted to find out what women think makes a great place to work. And here’s what they told us:

Being valued and trusted is what matters most, and trust is what ultimately leads to flexible work arrangements.

Making the most money didn’t make anyone’s list.

Companies may tout ‘family friendly’ policies but in reality they don’t exist because they are left to the discretion of individual managers with no mandates in place.

We have always seen companies that brag about having on-site childcare and liberal maternity leave policies, but on a day-to-day basis they require long hours in the office, with no latitude for flexible hours, job-sharing, or working from home.  So we wanted to obtain the ‘inside story’ of work-life policies, told by the women who work there, not by the HR department.

Flexible Resources recently surveyed via email more than 4,000 candidates (nearly all female) and received responses from just over 400, a 10 percent response rate. We asked them:

· What was the best company you ever worked for, and why?

· What work/life benefits did they provide that really worked?

While the types of companies are widely varied, the responses strike a common theme: What does ‘being valued mean?’

For most of the respondents, it means being appreciated, being thanked, being trusted. And it appears that trust is the essential ingredient in allowing employees to work flexibly, meaning employees were generally free to work from home or other remote locations, and create their own hours, because these companies placed the highest value on results over face-time.

Sometimes being appreciated meant as small a gesture as having free coffee and breakfast every day. But nearly all respondents said work-life benefits topped the list.

“It really seems less about the money these days and more about the balance and benefits, especially with the high percentage of both parents working,” one woman told us.

Some of the responses were based on past work experiences, and in some cases, the circumstances at the particular company may have changed.

Here are some of our findings:

· Bristol Myers-Squibb – “A true 9-to-5 job even with both parents in senior positions, paid maternity leave, and on-site childcare were cited;

· Pepperidge Farm – A contract worker there told us: “The people around me appreciated what I did and told me so. The employees seemed happy to be there and had regular contact and dialog with upper management.”

Another respondent cited Pepperidge Farm “they truly valued the work output and quality over hours logged at the office and showed a profound interest about improving us as professionals.

· Unilever – Women with ‘a fair amount of responsibility’ were allowed to work three/four day work weeks, and work from home. And Sun Products – a Unilever spin-off—has extended those benefits by allowing women to continue their careers “in a position that does not require five full days in the office.”

· At a retail sales position at a major women’s clothing brand, one woman told us that despite making close to minimum wage she still loved her job because it gave her the flexibility she needed to continue her freelance writing;

· Proctor & Gamble – “Allowed telecommuting following maternity leave and ability to leave early when necessary.”

· Pepsi – Work from home, flexible hours, and an on-site gym

· Deloitte & Touche – Cited as “cutting edge” in work-life balance

· Liz Claiborne – One former employee and a new mom gets almost melancholy when citing here benefits here like 3 months’ paid maternity leave, generous sick pay and vacations and emergency child care services.

Small companies included:

· HRH Construction – When interviewing for a position here, the candidate reported that during her interview she told the company about here 3 pre-school children and the HR person offered a flexible work arrangement right on the spot.

· Hoffman Education – The company’s current managing director cites an “entrepreneurial environment” for permitting her to work a part-time flexible position that enables her to also handle additional consulting projects on the side.

]]> http://flexibleresources.com/blog/archives/71/feed http://flexibleresources.com/blog/archives/68 http://flexibleresources.com/blog/archives/68#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:30:30 +0000 Flexible Resources http://flexibleresources.com/blog/archives/68 Today on Westchester County (NY) public TV station, PCTV76, Nadine Mockler discusses job trends for 2010 and how hiring flexible professionals enable companies to obtain a higher level of talent well within budget.

Flexible work arrangements allow big companies to staff up and deal with fluctuating workloads without see-sawing between full employment and layoffs, and they help small companies compete with big companies by enabling them to acquire top talent as, needed without committing to full-time.

Watch now @:

http://pctv76.org/show.php?epid=456

PART-TIME AND CONTRACTORS

WILL BE BIGGER FACTOR IN WHITE-COLLAR WORKFORCE

Any hope of a rapid return to ‘full employment’ is wishful thinking, according to Flexible Resources, Inc., a staffing and consulting firm that has been working with small and large companies to provide interim professionals while companies have been dealing with layoffs and hiring freezes over the past 18 months.

“Companies have been operating for more than a year now with dramatically pared down workforces and the payrolls to go along with them. We don’t anticipate a dramatic V-shaped upswing in employment,” according to Nadine Mockler, president of Flexible Resources, Inc.

“I think we are seeing a major change from what we have come to recognize as ‘full employment’ - that is very low unemployment numbers, with the vast majority of white collar workers employed in full-time permanent positions with a full package of benefits.

Instead, Flexible Resources sees the continuing growth of full- and part-time contract assignments, in part because companies have grown accustomed to a high level of productivity and talent available to them without committing to permanent positions.

“We are seeing most of our contract employees’ relationships with their employers extended again and again throughout the downturn, well beyond the initial term of their employment,” says Mockler. “That says to us that companies are enjoying the benefits of top-quality professionals in the most cost-effective way.

It’s a good news/bad news scenario, according to Flexible Resources, which has for more than 20 years created a wide array of flexile work arrangements at the professional level.

“We think fewer professionals will be engaged in permanent positions with full benefits, but on the other hand, there will be more flexibility, with less-than-fulltime arrangements, and companies will embrace employees who will telecommute, thus keeping overhead costs low,” says Ms. Mockler’s partner Laurie Young.

“We have always promoted flexible work arrangements at the most cost-effective way to attract and retain talent, improve morale and focus, and increase productivity. And the economic crisis has forced companies to consider new ways to work.”

Tell us in 140 characters

Working Mother Magazine annually publishes its “100 Best Companies” to work for.

But we want to know: What do women think?

That’s the question Flexible Resources is asking working women professionals.

The focus has been on reporting what companies say they are doing for their female employees and how they have created what they say is work-life balance for all employees. But if you look closely at the Working Mother results, many flexible and other so-called ‘work-life options’ are offered, but in many instances, fewer than half the employees are taking advantage of them. That’s because in spite of policy, it all comes down to the individual manager.

But for the first time someone is asking women who they think are the companies that give working moms what they really want, and most important - the ones that actually put into practice what they preach - providing a work environment that allows moms to be productive and focused while giving them the time, control, and ability to handle responsibilities at home without undue stress.

“From 20 years’ experience interviewing MBA moms and other highly qualified women who are trying to balance career and family,” says Laurie Young, a founder and principal of Flexible Resources.  “We know that there’s a serious disconnect between what businesses say they are doing, and what they actually do. There’s also a considerable distance between the types of benefits that companies offer working moms and what really matters to them.  Since the Top 100 Companies list was first published, we’ve had women job seekers — many of whom work at some of the ‘Top 100′ companies - saying they want out,” says Ms. Young’s partner Nadine Mockler.

“We find that many of the so-called perks offered to working parents are mostly for show, and that women are not getting what they really need to be at their best. We are setting out to find out what that is, and what companies are the most successful at attracting and retaining the best female talent there is.”

To vote for your favorite company for women, go to www.twitter.com/flexresources and tell us what current or past employer created the best work environment that allowed women to be successful both at home and at work. And tell us why - what was the benefit they offer that make (or made) a real difference in your life.