As a recent article on MSNBC’s Career website shares, the picture of professional success is no longer what we imagined it to be a generation or two ago. It is rare to have a man stay at the same company for thirty years, working eight hours a day and rising through the ranks of leadership and influence in order to earn the gold watch at age sixty, while his wife stays at home and watches the children. The man usually is not working from 9:00am to 5:00pm, but he may checking emails on his phone during dinner or participating in a teleconference from a home office at 10:30am. He probably changes jobs several times in his career, if not more. And, in 2010, the person who is the primary breadwinner for a family may not be a man at all.
Research indicates that women now constitute 51% of the workforce and they are changing the way that we define success and what a “typical” career looks like. Flexible hours to accommodate kids’ school schedules and the option to work from home are becoming more commonplace in companies across our country. Technology and changing societal expectations have come together to change the face of our working environment.
As William Doherty, professor and director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at the University of Minnesota shares in the article, “Women are reshaping the workforce, and I think a cultural change is underway.”
The article also poses a controversial question to its readers. Are women redefining what it means to be successful in their careers because they realize the success of which they once dreamed is not possible? Are women really just compromising but choosing to call it success?
This topic is at the top of my mind as my wife has just left her CFO position of a well-known company so that she can spend more time with our 3.5 year old son before he starts school. I am very supportive of her decision and after only 30 days, everything is working out much better than we expected!
As this is such hot topic and I would love to get some responses from you. If you are a woman, do you feel that you have been able to achieve the professional success you desire? Why or why not? If you are an employer, what accommodations has your company made to the needs of parents?
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