The Talent Stampede

Introduction

While you’re reading the words on this page, thousands of our nation’s best and brightest women are seriously contemplating ways to leave their jobs in corporate or professional America.  According to some studies, women are leaving their positions in corporate America at twice the rate of men.[1]  Are you one of them?  Or are you a manager of one of these executive women, stunned that someone you had expensively recruited, trained, and developed, is “opting out” and leaving your company?[2] Neither side – the woman, nor her employer -- is satisfied with the results of current workplace policies and retention strategies for women executives.  Both sides register significant complaints and frustration.

The Woman’s Perspective:  If you are the executive woman, you may be asking yourself, “What if I left my job for a stint in a non-profit, or to serve as an Executive-on-Loan to a school?   Will I like that any better?  Will I be more fulfilled?”   You may wonder if you can begin a new career in a different industry, or whether you have the guts to start a new business of your own.   Do you feel that your company doesn’t provide you the support or advancement opportunities you need to stay with your current employer?   Do you wonder whether you would be better off going to work with a competitor, or are you already actively out there interviewing right now?    Are any of you trying to figure out how to spend more time with your kids, your elderly parents, or even with your friends?  Or are you looking around to discover if there’s anything interesting out there on a part-time basis, without suffering financial annihilation?

As you read this page, are you worried about taking time off to have children, privately afraid that you might not want to come back, but reluctant to say so out loud?  Do any of you wish you could even find the time to meet a man, let alone have a baby?  And is anyone wishing that you had the time and energy to develop a hobby, maybe something you had once spent time on, and then shelved as your career and home front responsibilities heated up?  Or do responsibilities for “elder care” increasingly conflict with work demands and your own values around supporting aging loved ones?

And finally, whether you’ll admit it or not, are some of you wondering whether you can leave your work simply because you’re exhausted, or burned out?   Is there any way that you can finagle a temporary “offramp”?   Or, if you could afford it, are you really looking for a longer respite?  Would you ‘downshift’ to part-time if you thought it could work for you?  Would your employer permit this?