In International Shipping News 07/03/2016
But this mindset is slowly but surely changing. Many organizations have been working towards helping women join as well as re-join the workforce. Employers are also recognizing the importance of diversity and at the same time, are seeing women who are getting back to work after a break as a viable group when it comes to hiring.
Key highlights of the Back2Work (B2W)-Maersk Line provides live business projects requiring approximately 600 hours of engagement spread over 6 months on a flexi time basis.-These assignments are short-term and aimed at developing alternative talent pools.-Maersk Line will evaluate the B2W consultants for full time job opportunities within the Group. There is no placement guarantee at the end of the project.-All B2W consultants will go through a short induction programme and provided access to mentors and guides on the project and HR support.-B2W is an on-going program.-Projects will be added through the year.
More than anything else, it could be due to the fact that organizations are gradually coming to terms with the fact that the loss of productivity and costs associated with maternity leaves or retraining the proven talent is far less than the cost of attrition, recruitment and training of the unknown and untested new hire.
For the women who are seeking to re-enter the workforce after a long career break, the challenges have always been enormous. Women generally opt out when faced with family, children and social pressure. According to a report released by CII, titled “Second Innings: Barriers Faced By Indian Women On Re-Entering The Corporate Workforce”, some of the most common reasons associated with women taking long gaps from work are family related, often to do with childcare. Another reason identified is that women tend to take time off for educational attainment.
According to the report, more than 90 percent of the women (who participated in the research) said they were trying to get back into the workforce but the employer policies do not make it easy for them to play their second innings. There is an unspoken, but very real perception that once a woman has been out of work for a sufficient period of time, her skills become outdated, leaving her unemployable. Very few employers see the benefit of rehiring a woman after a long career break.
Innovative companies like Maersk Line India and its likes are not only innovating their HR policies to get skilled women back into the work place but are pulling all the stops to ease their transition back to the workplace.
A case in the point is the Back2Work (B2W) programme launched by Maersk Line India, the global containerized division of the Maersk Group. Maersk which has always been a strong believer in the workforce diversity understands the importance of having a gender diverse workforce and its role in improving the organization’s performance. The company believes that gender diversity today is an imperative that organizations can no longer choose to ignore.
Back2Work (B2W) is a Maersk Line initiative in this direction. It is a career transition programme for women professionals who have taken a break of 6 months or more for any reason (due to lifecycle, personal or any other reason), and wish to re-enter the professional space. The programme provides opportunities for such women to take on flexi-hour assignments with various Maersk Group companies in India.
As part of the programme, Maersk Line companies provide live business projects requiring approximately 600 hours of engagement spread over 6 months on a flexi time basis. Currently the B2W initiative is for women professionals who have worked for a minimum of four continuous years in any of the domain areas listed below, prior to taking a career break of 6 months or more.
The popularity of this initiative can be gauged by the number of applications. Since the inception of this program 200 applications have been received.
These assignments are short-term and aimed at developing alternative talent pools. Maersk then evaluates the B2W consultants for full time job opportunities within the Group, though there is no placement guarantee at the end of the project. The selected candidates undergo a short induction programme and are provided access to mentors and guides on the project and HR support.
-Applicants are encouraged to register with B2W to be part of a database that we will access to find suitable profiles for new projects.
Initiatives like Back2Work (B2W) of Maersk Group just goes on to show that organizations are beginning to become more sensitive to women’s needs and are tweaking their HR policies so that it could help women to stay the course and continue their careers with the organization.
Source: Maersk Line India
