Tuesday Newsday

Bloomberg Businessweek recently featured an article entitled, "Keeping Women On the Job in India." The article discussed the increasing programs that Multinational Companies are offering to women employees in India. For example, companies such as Google, Ernst &Young, Boehringer Inelheim, Wipro and Infosys are offering on site nurseries, flexible schedules, taxis so women can leave work quickly to attend to personal matters, on-site day camps when school is out, sabbaticals, extended maternity leave and enhanced training. I thought this was an especially interesting progression given that India, as the article reports, has one of the lowest rates of female participation in the labor force compared to other BRIC countries.

Ernst & Young made an exceptionally good point in the article. The company pointed out that they have spent a lot of money training these employees prior to their having children. The company has invested resources, so it is in the company's best interest to provide employees incentives to stay. I completely agree. The costs associated with employee turnover with regard to training are exponential. If more employers calculated the true costs associated with employee turnover versus offering more accommodating work environments that would encourage employee retention, I firmly believe that employers would choose providing various accommodations. Exceptional employees are hard to come by, and when a company finds one, it is important to do what they can to retain that employee even if it involves making changes to the work environment. Additionally, providing a work environment that employees enjoy, generally breeds more efficient work practices.