Off-ramps and On-ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success [Hardcover]

Sylvia Ann Hewlett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2007

With talent shortages looming over the next decade, what can companies do to attract and retain the large number of professional women who are forced off the career highway?

By documenting the successful efforts of a group of cutting-edge global companies to retain talented women and reintegrate them if they’ve already left, Off-Ramps and On-Ramps answers this critical question. Working closely with companies such as Ernst & Young, Goldman Sachs, Time Warner, General Electric and others, author Sylvia Ann Hewlett identifies what works and why. Based on firsthand experience with these companies, along with extensive data that provides the most comprehensive and nuanced portrait of women's career paths, this book documents the actions forward-thinking companies must take to reverse the female brain drain and ensure their access to talent over the long term.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Despite advances in women's rights, as well as telecommuting, job sharing and flex-work, the components of corporate advancement have been largely unchanged since the 1950s; according to author and economist Hewlett (Creating a Life), these outdated criteria are decidedly stacked against women: lock step progression, face time, unreasonable hours, flattery and obeisance, golf and strip clubs and male bonding. The 60 percent of women workers who take a career-path detour ("off-ramp"), typically for family reasons, are welcomed back with un- or underemployment. Meanwhile, traditional male incentives-money and power-don't hold the same appeal for women, leading to substantial attrition rates among the business's upper echelons. Although Hewlett is admirably thorough in her research of "off ramping" as a strategy for women, and provides plenty of real-world examples, she's unconcerned with the larger implications for workers of either gender; though the female focus doesn't detract, it may leave readers with some unanswered questions (why should any employee withstand what resembles fraternity hazing just to get ahead?). Nevertheless, Hewlett looks at all areas of a constrictive work environment and offers intelligent solutions for reaching one's full potential within it.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

It is difficult not only to pinpoint the issues behind female "opt-outs" from the workforce but also to cite pragmatic, business- and women-friendly programs and policies that will retain female talent. Economist Hewlett, a workplace expert, author (When the Bough Breaks, 1991; The War against Parents, 1999; and Creating a Life, 2002), and recently cofounder of the Hidden Brain Drain Task Force, has blueprinted a new second-generation road map to success. Not content with merely chronicling the reasons for nonlinear discontinuous careers (ranging from motherhood to elder-care demands), she articulates the dramatic business case for diversity--retaining intellectual "goods," keeping an impressive amount of capacity, and diverse teams making better decisions--then identifies six elements critical to retention. Each of those six--flex-work arrangements, arc-of-career flexibility, reimagination of work life, continuation of ambition, harnessing of activism, and reduction of stigmas and stereotypes--is buttressed by actual corporate case studies, and a "toolkit" sidebar that captures the business case, how to begin, and critical elements. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business School Press; 1 edition (May 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1422101029
• ISBN-13: 978-1422101025
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.4 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #97,100 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #66 in Books > Business & Investing > Women & Business

More About the Author

Sylvia Ann Hewlett is an economist and the founding president and CEO of the Center for Talent Innovation, a Manhattan-based think tank where she chairs the "Task Force for Talent Innovation"--75 global companies focused on fully realizing the new streams of talent in the global marketplace. She also directs the Gender and Policy Program at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Century Association and the World Economic Forum Council on Women's Empowerment.

Hewlett is the author of 10 Harvard Business Review articles and 12 critically acclaimed nonfiction books including When the Bough Breaks (Basic Books, winner of a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Prize), Off-Ramps and On-Ramps (Harvard Business School Press, named as one of the best business books of 2007 by Amazon.com), Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets (Harvard Business Press, 2011) and Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor (Harvard Business Review Press, forthcoming September 2013). She is ranked #11 on the "Thinkers 50" listing of the world's top business thinkers--and featured by Forbes in "Women Changing the World." Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and the International Herald Tribune and she is a featured blogger on Harvard Business Online. In 2011 she received the Isabel Benham Award from the Women's Bond Club and Woman of the Year Award from the Financial Women's Association.

Hewlett is the founder of Hewlett Chivée Partners LLC advisory services that focus on helping organizations leverage talent across the divides of culture, gender, geography and generation.

Hewlett has taught at Cambridge, Columbia and Princeton universities and held fellowships at the Institute for Public Policy Research in London and the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at Harvard. In the 1980s she became the first woman to head up the Economic Policy Council--a think tank composed of 125 business and labor leaders.

Hewlett is a sought-after speaker on the international stage. She has keynoted International Women's Day at the IMF, given the featured address at Pfizer's Emerging Markets Leadership Summit in Dubai, and spoken at the White House. She is a frequent guest on TV and radio, appearing on Oprah, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose, ABC World News Tonight, The Today Show, The View, BBC World News and Talk of the Nation--and she has been lampooned on Saturday Night Live.

A Kennedy Scholar and graduate of Cambridge University, Hewlett earned her PhD in economics at London University.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars It's more than a "working mom" issue June 9, 2007

By Diane K. Danielson

Format:Hardcover

I actually hesitated to read Off-Ramps and On-Ramps, as it looked like a boring textbook at first glance. But, as I got into it, it was quite a provocative read and even brought up some interesting points that applied to both men and women. Here are a few highlights that struck my fancy:

Chapter 1 - Why Mess with the Male Competitive Model. Good way to start a book. I think we'll be hearing more about this as generation y gets further into the workplace. While a hardcore minority will stick to the traditional Gordon Gecko "greed is good" model, we'll see countless others rebel against the values of the generations before them (as all generations before rebelled against their parent's values).

Chapter 2 - Looks at how large a factor elder-care already plays in women's lives. In fact, it's larger than child-care as this affects all women. This is only going to increase as Boomers start being the ones needing care.

Chapter 3 - Extreme Jobs, Extreme Demands. Thought this chapter could make a whole book. It's a great overview of how corporate America has changed. I have a friend whose parents were both big executives at major companies, yet all the time growing up, she swears that both made it home for dinner almost every single night. This is practically unheard of even for middle management these days.

The latter half of the book gives examples of companies who are launching innovative programs to resolve the situation. This makes it a must-read for any management team who is struggling to keep women, OR, better yet, recognizes what a great asset they have and wants to boost them up even more! However, it still begs the question of what to do for the majority of women who do not work for the handful of Fortune 500 companies who get it, and have the funds to produce such innovative programs.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 Stars for another GREAT work! May 17, 2007

By Sharin Between

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

It is an honor to be the first to comment on this book. Sylvia Ann Hewlett is truly a visionary in the pressing arena of work-life programs and policies. Congratulations to Ms. Hewlett for reframing the "opting out" debate in to a much more useful discussion about non-linear careers. She challenged the assumption that most women leave full time employment because of pure family reasons, and sure enough, uncovered many other reasons that lie squarely on the shoulders of corporate America. Many progressive companies, especially Lehman Brothers, get it! They care about promoting, retaining, and recruiting female talent. Will others follow suit? Well now they have no excuse. Ms. Hewlett has given them clear strategies and I hope more women will hold the companies they work for accountable for implementing them.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Win-Win Book! May 24, 2007

By Peter Winn

Format:Hardcover

This is a rare how-to book for both career women and the corporations they serve that is based on extensive research into what the author calls "the hidden brain drain" -- the loss of talented women workers to marriage and motherhood who may want to work later in life but can't find an "on-ramp" back to their career. Hewlett argues convincingly that it would be in the interest of all concerned for businesses to be flexible enough to retain or rehire the talented women who also want to be married and mothers.

She also presents case studies of firms that have done it successfully.

Solidly researched, lucidly analyzed, persuasively argued and a good read. This is a win-win book that is both good for business and good for talented women workers. If employers followed its advice they would retain talented employees --and these talented women would at last be able to have it all: marriage, family and a career. A book that all career women --and the employers that ought to love their work enough to want to retain it-- should read.