Large corporate companies such as KPMG and Morgan Stanley are now looking for women who left their careers to have a family and who are now considering re joining the labour force. These prospective employees are considered perfect as their skills and knowledge are prized and flexible working becomes easier to deliver.

Historically women who left work to have a family had little choice when they decided to return to employment as flexibility of hours to tie in with nursery and school times was very hard to provide. Often women would work evenings in a retail setting or more recently in some form of call centre, operating in a customer care environment, as these roles were the main ones with flexibility. Opportunities were also presented in the “party selling” type roles with the likes of Avon and Tupperware. Again these were attractive to returning mothers as they offered a high degree of flexibility and the capability to Work From Home.

There has always been a demand for extra retail cover, particularly in the lead up to Christmas and this again has been an area where women returning to work after having a child have found opportunities, predominantly over the last 20 years as late night shopping and Sunday shopping has become the rule. But even with decent employers such as the ones named so far the flexible roles on offer until recently have not been career type ones. They have been just a way of adding further income to the family bank account and have offered women with a fairly static role.

With the enhancement of technology and the advent of the Internet Business all this is now shifting. We see the large firms such as Barclays and Morgan Stanley actually making a conscious effort to recruit mothers back into the workplace and not only that, but the roles on offer are at a much higher level than those seen before.

This sort of development is due in part to the coming of broadband, providing very quick download speeds to the majority of the country which in turn has allowed remote working to become a possibility. The opportunity to work from home or at a satellite office near to home instead of travel into the city is a big benefit for a lot of women with child care to consider. Local school runs can still be dealt with and the travelling time to an office is cut out altogether meaning that the real time spent “at work” is entirely constructive and there is more time for family life.

Another feature of the changing business picture that has given opportunities for mothers to return to work in high flying jobs is the growth of many internet businesses. These generally operate without a definite physical base and the majority of employees are able to work from home on Online Jobs using all the online technologies available and being developed.

It is therefore evident why the larger organizations are tapping into this rich seam of talent, as it provides them with the opportunity to get hold of individuals with a high skill level who need no more than some refresher training to be fully operational. It will be interesting to see if some of the SME’s start to realize this potential too and take advantage when the job vacancy numbers increase following the countries pull away from recession.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 20th, 2009 at 5:54 am and is filed under Business and Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.