Frank Guerra didn't know it at the time, but in 1995, a
competitor nearly hired the woman who's now his partner. Tess
Coody was pregnant when she talked with Guerra about becoming a
partner at his San Antonio advertising, marketing and PR agency.
She was on the verge of accepting another job with lower pay so she
wouldn't have to leave her first child in day care while she
was at work.
But Guerra was prepared to do almost anything to get and keep
Coody onboard. The two eventually decided on a schedule that would
allow her to telecommute two days a week and be in the office the
rest of the time.
Since then, Guerra, Coody and partner Trish DeBerry have turned
Guerra DeBerry
Coody, an ad agency with $30 million in annual billings, into a
showcase of ways to help employees who are moms. The firm lets
workers telecommute, work part time, and make other arrangements to
meet their needs. Also, the offices include a child-care center for
employees' children.
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"We want the women who work for us to make whatever
decision will make them happiest," says Guerra, 44. "If
that means staying in the work force, it's our responsibility
to do everything we can to help them achieve that."
Guerra's focus on keeping moms in his work force reflects
more than a personal bent toward family friendliness. That's
smart business, says Joan C. Williams, an expert on working moms
and director of the Program on WorkLife Law at American University's
Washington College of Law in Washington, DC.
Williams says replacing a woman who leaves costs a company 75 to
175 percent of her annual salary. Given that cost, employers have
little choice but to try keeping moms on board. But they're not
doing well. The U.S. Census Bureau found that the percentage of
mothers in the labor force dropped from 59 percent in 1998 to 55
percent in 2002. That's the only time that number has fallen
since 1976, when the Census Bureau began gathering such data.
"This is a particular problem for small businesses,"
Williams says. Small firms may be more reluctant or less able to
spend on solutions such as on-site day care. And managers are often
stretched so thin that flexplace, flextime and telecommuting are
viewed as unwieldy solutions. But those are still the best
solutions.
A more recent innovation calls for exceptionally flexible
schedules, such as those allowing what Williams calls
"bites"--an hour or two taken from work to attend events
like children's recitals. Another new concept is the flexible
career, which allows workers to shift from part-time to full-time
work and vice versa. Perhaps the most powerful and still
unfortunately rare change is one of attitude, from refusing to
accommodate child-care requests to being determined to find ways to
make motherhood work at work.
That's what Guerra has done. The result is that he not only
attracted and retained his partners, both of whom have worked
through pregnancy and motherhood, but also boasts sky-high hiring
and retention rates with moms at all levels. "When you have an
exceptional candidate you're trying to hire, this is an amazing
tiebreaker," he says. "And no one ever leaves
us."
Although some mom-friendly firms have experienced resentment
from employees who don't have children, that didn't happen
at Guerra DeBerry Coody. Coody feels it's because employees
know the company's accommodating attitude extends to all
workers. "The message they take from it," she says,
"is that if you have a situation, we'll work with you to
help you find balance."
Mark Henricks writes on business and technology for leading
publications and is author of Not Just a Living.