How to Design a Great Returnee Program for Women?
All world-class companies well understand the importance of workplace diversity. Diversity fosters a more creative and innovative workforce. One of the crucial aspects of Workforce Diversity is gender balance and companies have been consciously striving for diversity in hiring. The news of “Unilever achieving gender balance across management globally” became a hot topic of discussion across business circles.
Corporate Alumni Programs with a particular focus on returnee programs for women can significantly contribute to diversity in organizations. Here we take a unique look at how organizations can build very good & inclusive corporate alumni programs.
Women take Career Breaks due to multiple reasons
Many women tend to take career breaks due to personal reasons like relocation, wedding plans, childbirth, and taking care of children or the elderly. These short breaks many times turn into an un-intended career-ending gap.
Research has proven that guilt never goes away from women on a career break. While they are happy with their child, they are skeptical and anxious about resuming their career. Many others put their wedding/childbirth plans on hold, as they worry that it may impact their career. Yes, the struggle is real for women, but we can help them ride the wave.
Returnee Programs for Women can help bridge the gap!
Companies recognize the advantage of hiring back their skilled and talented women professionals who are on a career break. One of the major benefits is, that the cost of hiring new talent would be far more expensive than re-hiring former female talent. Also, if companies are able to support them during this crucial life stage, they will be able to retain high potential talent on a long-term basis. The other added advantage is, that the onboarding process when they come back, would be easier for both the company and the employee. A well-designed returnee/come back program can actually help women to overcome their challenges and have them back on board.
How to design a great Returnee program for women?
Below is a list of 9 key points that can be included to design a very good Returnee program for women.
- Communicate: Firstly, the company should communicate and let the female talent know that there is a Special Returnee Program/Channel initiated to lend a helping hand for their comeback. Design a write-up or Booklet (which brief’s about the benefits of this Special Returnee Program) that can be shared with every female talent, both during their entry and exit interviews. This documentation should be specially featured on a dedicated section of the alumni platform.
- Mentoring and Guidance: Create a dedicated helpline for women who would want to discuss their career plans and questions with mentors in the company. These mentors can be women leaders who are working with the company and have been able to successfully grow in their professional life while balancing their personal life. This will aid in boosting the employee’s confidence to join back.
- Share Success Stories and Experiences: Conducting webinars with such women leaders(referred above) might leave a huge impact and encourage the women on a career break to understand how well they can handle work-life balance and help them come back. This can be achieved by just listening to these real-time experiences.
- Counseling Psychologist Onsite: Companies can periodically arrange for a medical counselor onboard at the workplace to personally address the day-to-day concerns and challenges faced by women who join back the workforce. This might enable them to open up and share work-life balance issues one on one with the Psychologist(if they are not open to expressing to their fellow employees). Small gestures like these might make a big impact. It leaves a personal touch on the employee.
- Help with Self Assessment Programs: Sometimes, women on career break might feel awkward to even reaching out to someone for assistance. In such a situation, conducting self-assessment programs like technical, business, hr, etc., might help them understand how updated they are with the current technology, where they are standing with the business knowledge, and also would help them understand how much they are really willing to join the workforce.
- Help with Upskilling: Provide training, webinars, and resources that help them learn and acquire new skills. Assign a specific group in the companies to personally address close specific skills gaps and define clear short-term and long-term career goals and work on them with confidence
- Gig Opportunities: Gig opportunities will allow women the flexibility to work from home. Such projects will allow them to contribute to the organization while working at their own pace. After a couple of such projects, they will gain the confidence to tackle bigger projects and perhaps even come back to full-time employment.
- Flexibility for women who join back: Allow them to choose the type of projects and location of their choice, also provide them extended work from home policies, etc. Assigning each woman returnee a ‘workplace buddy’ who co-owns the project with the returnee and guides for a specific period of time( six months).
- In-house Services: Explain the various value-added services in the company policy, and the way they are enabling a very safe and caring environment for new mothers and women with kids. Like having dedicated creches/play areas, summer camps to serve the employee kids within the office premises, etc.
As a world-class company, we should recognize that the challenge for this set of women talent exists and will continue to exist but we should make sure that they return by allowing them to stay connected with the workforce through Alumni Programs and assuring them that ‘WE ARE THERE FOR YOU’.
Companies have been designing very good returnee programs and here are 25 such initiatives by top-notch companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc: Click Here
Our team at Vaave has been pioneering meaningful alumni relations and has worked with companies like Qualcomm India, Hero Motocorp, KPIT Technologies, and RPG Enterprises.
For more information on how we help corporates plan their alumni programs, please visit www.vaave.com or write to us at hello@vaave.com
