Workforce Developments

What do women want?

High paying jobs with good benefits, of course. Which is what the WANTO grant is all about.

Up to $1 million will be granted to three partnerships between community-based organizations and registered apprenticeship programs "to conduct innovative projects to improve the recruitment, selection, training, employment, and retention of women in apprenticeships in the construction industry."

Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) Grants are jointly administered by DOLETA's Office of Apprenticeship and the Women's Bureau. Some important links:

Summary of the solicitation (#SGA/DFA PY 07-08), 
Federal register announcement,
2007 awardees,
WANTO awardees from 1994-1999.

Proposals must be submitted by June 6, 2008.

Changing jobs and staying on top

If you're thinking about changing jobs, what's the best way to ensure you'll continue to turn in the same great performance for your new boss as you're doing for your current boss?

Be a woman.

Recent research by Harvard biz prof Boris Groysberg found that at least among star stock market analysts, when top performing men move companies, their performance tends to drop after the move, as does the new employer's market value. But when top performing women move, they do just fine and the new company thrives.

What do women do that's different? Two things (and I'm quoting straight from the Harvard Business Review brief):

1. Unlike men, high-performing women build their success on portable, external relationships—with clients and other outside contacts; and
2. Women considering job changes weigh more factors than men do, especially cultural fit, values, and managerial style.

Here's the catch. Groysberg found that women create these external relationships because they so often don't find the mentoring and support they need within the company. And they research their potential employer more because they know they can't count on the in-house support their male colleagues can.

Groysberg looked at star players on Wall Street - do these findings have any bearing for the job seekers we serve in workforce development?  My guess is they probably do, and we should help prepare both women and men clients for many of the same issues:

• Women need to be prepared to succeed in the workplace and in the labor market by building a support network beyond the people they work with.
• Men need to be prepared to succeed in workplaces where they will be working with and for women.
• When thinking about changing jobs, both men and women need to do more research about the culture of the company, and whether it fits their personality.

Click here to read the full article, and here for a brief summary.

Image credit: American Business Women's Association, Richmond, VA

New CEO + Woman = 3% stock price drop

If you've got an opening for a CEO, appoint a woman and your stock price will drop nearly 3% the next day. That's the key finding of a study by business school professors Dr. Erika James of the University of Virginia and Dr. Peggy Lee of Arizona State. They looked at CEO hiring announcements from 1990 to 2000, comparing share prices the day before and the day after. They found no similar drop in stock price when it's announced that a man will take the job.

The good news is that the fall in prices don't persist. Once women prove they're capable of running the ship, stock prices go back up. Still, this is another example of knee-jerk stock market reactions that just plain get things wrong (click here to read about the mistake stock markets make in rewarding corporate layoffs announcements). Wall Street reacts based on the bizarre assumption that women aren't up to the job. Somebody please explain to me why so much of our national economic policy is based on the beliefs of these neanderthals.

The James and Lee study, She'-e-os: gender effects and investor reactions to the announcements of top executive appointments, (click here for the abstract) was published in March in the Strategic Management Journal.

Image credit: Cogir USA

New Article Looks at Effect of Gender in Workforce Development In an upcoming article in the New England Journal of Public Policy, "New Directions in Workforce Development: Do They Lead to Gains for Women," authors Susan Crandall with the Crittendon Women's Union and Surabhi Jain with the National Council of La Raza look at demand-driven workforce approaches from a gender perspective. Interestingly, their research found that demand-driven approaches often place women at a disadvantage, as they focus on industries and occupations that are traditionally male-dominated. Simply put, women are less likely to enter these industries and/or occupations and more likely to enter jobs that pay less. The author's proffer several recommendations for achieving parity of outcomes for women, including: a focus on preparing women solely for jobs that lead to family economic self-sufficiency, promoting systemic change that help women gain access to male-dominated industries or occupations, building career ladders that facilitate women's promotion within these same industries, and increasing investment in math and science. To read the full text of the article, click here. Posted by Allison Gerber on May 30, 2007 in Allison Gerber, Policy, Wages, Women | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

In an upcoming article in the New England Journal of Public Policy, "New Directions in Workforce Development: Do They Lead to Gains for Women," authors Susan Crandall with the Crittendon Women's Union and Surabhi Jain with the National Council of La Raza look at demand-driven workforce approaches from a gender perspective. Interestingly, their research found that demand-driven approaches often place women at a disadvantage, as they focus on industries and occupations that are traditionally male-dominated. Simply put, women are less likely to enter these industries and/or occupations and more likely to enter jobs that pay less. The author's proffer several recommendations for achieving parity of outcomes for women, including: a focus on preparing women solely for jobs that lead to family economic self-sufficiency, promoting systemic change that help women gain access to male-dominated industries or occupations, building career ladders that facilitate women's promotion within these same industries, and increasing investment in math and science. To read the full text of the article, click here.

Debunking the "opt-out" myth

Despite what you may have read in the news, women aren't leaving the workforce in droves because they prefer to stay at home and raise families. Yet another study has been released demonstrating that NY Times writer Lisa Belkin's so-called "opt-out revolution" is a myth.

A new study by Joan C. Williams et. al. at the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings School of Law analyzed news coverage of women leaving the workforce. They found that opt-out stories tend to focus only on women in professional or managerial jobs (less than 10% of American women), give an unrealistic picture of how easy it will be for those women to return to the workforce, and seldom talk about divorced women. The study offers data from a wide variety of sources disproving the opt-out myth, including the fact that work hours for both women and men have declined as the U.S. economy has stalled in recent years.

That's on top of a 2005 study by Heather Boushey at the Center for Economic and Policy Research who analyzed Current Population Survey data from the Bureau of Labor Stats. Boushey found that since 1984 the share of women with children who are in the labor force has continued to increase, and that hasn't changed recently. In other words, she found no statistical evidence of a trend that women with children are choosing to stay home.

A Christian Science Monitor article by Marilyn Gardner explores other aspects of the myth as well. She talks to several women who've been pushed out of the workforce because their employers don't provide the flexibility they need to care for their families. These women would prefer to work, but often can't because of workplace policies. They're pushed out, rather than opting out. Furthermore, Williams tells Gardner, "Unions often, although not invariably, still have the impression these are professional women's issues. Unions do not receive the message that work-family issues are core union issues." 

Thanks to Jim Kissane's Workforce Development blog, where I first ran across this story.

Weakening DOL's Women's Bureau

The Feminist Daily News Wire reports that a coalition of more than 200 women's groups have sent a letter to Department of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao urging her to reverse recent efforts to diminish the department's Women's Bureau.  They say the bureau, which is "the only federal bureau devoted solely to the concerns of women in the labor force," is being weakened by outsourcing, by leaving vacant positions unfilled and by budget reductions.  The National Council of Women's Organizations (NCWO) organized the letter; you can download the letter or read the press release.