Large corporate companies such as KPMG and Morgan Stanley are now looking for women who left their careers to have a family and who are now considering re joining the workforce. These potential employees are considered ideal as their skills and knowledge are prized and flexible working becomes easier to deliver.

Historically women who left work to have a child had little choice when they decided to return to the workplace as flexibility of hours to work in with nursery and school times was very difficult to provide. Often women would work evenings in a retail situation or lately in some form of call centre, operating in a customer care environment, as these roles were the main ones with flexibility. Opportunities were also available in the “party selling” type roles with the likes of Avon and Tupperware. Again these were attractive to returning mums as they allowed a high degree of flexibility and the ability to Work From Home.

There has always been a need for extra retail cover, especially in the lead up to Christmas and this again has been an area where women returning to work after having children have found opportunities, predominantly over the last 20 years as evening shopping and Sunday shopping has become the norm. But even with good employers such as the ones named so far the flexible roles on offer until recently have not been career type ones. They have been just a way of adding extra income to the family funds and have offered women with a rather static role.

With the development of technology and the advent of the Internet Business all this is now shifting. We see the large organizations such as Barclays and Morgan Stanley actually making a conscious effort to recruit mothers back into the workplace and not only that, but the roles on offer are at a much higher level than those vacant before.

This type of development is due in part to the arrival of broadband, giving very quick download speeds to most of the country which in turn has allowed remote working to become an opportunity. The opportunity to work from home or at a satellite office close to home rather than travel into the city is a big advantage for a lot of women with child care to consider. Local school runs can still be dealt with and the travelling distance to an office is cut out altogether meaning that the actual time spent “at work” is totally constructive and there is more time for family life.

Another feature of the changing business picture that has provided opportunities for mothers to return to work in high flying jobs is the development of many internet businesses. These usually operate without a definite physical base and the majority of employees are able to work from home on Online Jobs using all the online technologies available and being developed.

It is therefore evident why the larger organizations are tapping into this rich seam of aptitude, as it offers them with the opportunity to get hold of individuals with a high skill level who need no more than some refresher training to be fully functional. It will be interesting to see if some of the SME’s start to understand this potential too and take advantage when the job vacancy numbers swell following the countries pull away from recession.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 3:06 am and is filed under Business and Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.