Untapped resources

There is a forgotten population out there who need some help: working women who were circumstantially forced or chose to quit work. Nina Alag Suri, managing director, Rec2rec recommends what can be done to tap into these resources

A study by the  Singapore Department of Statistics, 2002, shows a 75% increase in number of unemployed women in age group 30-34 years compared to the women in the age bracket of 20-24, and 175% increase in the unemployment in the age group of 35-44 years whereas in a similar comparison the unemployment rate reduced by 200% for their male counterparts.

Nearly everyday we all come across women who chose to quit work, to either raise children or care for an elderly at home, or those who have had to give up working to accompany their husbands for that prime expatriate-cannot-be-refused assignment. Many of these women studied as hard as their other batchmates to get their coveted degree in university and worked equally as hard as any of their colleagues to make a mark for themselves and have a promising career.

While they know that they want and need to get back to work, most of them do not know where to start. They develop a gap in skills or are set back in keeping abreast of the latest technology, but probably the most visible disadvantage is their lack of self-esteem and direction and as time goes by, they get more and more caught up in a vicious cycle - the gap continues to grow.

We can either choose to moan about the unfairness of it all or get up and do something to bring a change. How? Companies need to embrace the fact that there definitely are some deserving women, and make a deliberate attempt to help them in re-employment.

Initiatives such as 'Work from home' and telecommuting are extremely popular overseas. If there is an intent, implementing the concept is not very difficult, probably more than the logistics, it really is the mind set which needs to be overcome. Companies need to shed the fear that bottom-lines will be negatively affected or there will be discipline issues in the office if they were to introduce these initiatives, on the contrary these efforts help create a loyal and committed workforce who appreciate the companies' efforts and serves as a great retention strategy.

Re-employing women after a gap in their career can help many of these deserving professionals to get back into the workforce through structured training and progressive development programmes.

If companies in Singapore could be more forthcoming in adopting these initiatives, it will certainly help in alleviating the government's concern over labour shortage and the growing reluctance of women to have more children.

+    Rec2rec endeavours to employ 20% of its workforce, yearly, on the flexi-work from home model. The company also helps other organisations who are keen to work on this initiative but don't know how to begin. Nina Suri is also involved in launching a new training academy to train recruiters and one of the courses offered are targeted to this section of work force-retraining them for re-employment. Rec2rec is a niche recruitment firm which recruits recruiters for search firms and in-house recruiters.

Nina Alag Suri, founder & managing director, Rec2rec