Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success

by Sylvia Ann Hewlett

With talent shortages looming over the next decade, what can companies do to attract and retain the large number of professional women who are forced off the career highway? By documenting the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1422101029
• ISBN13: 9781422101025
• Release Date: April 2007
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Length: 299 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

New Ideas for Women in the Workplace

Despite all the print about the "Mommy Wars" and whether women should or shouldn't be in the workplace, the fact is that half the U.S. workforce is currently made up of women - and the workplace will have to change to accommodate them. Sylvia Hewlett's "Off-Ramps and On-Ramps" adds new, crucial information to this discussion. She provides data about women in the work force and provides models of flexible workplace structures now being used in corporations. The book gives a convincing business case for work force diversity and for the restructuring of our career model. Hewlett's book is a must read for anyone concerned about the work force of the twenty first century.

A Win-Win Book!

This is a rare how-to book for both career women and the corporations they serve that is based on extensive research into what the author calls "the hidden brain drain" -- the loss of talented women workers to marriage and motherhood who may want to work later in life but can't find an "on-ramp" back to their career. Hewlett argues convincingly that it would be in the interest of all concerned for businesses to be flexible enough to retain or rehire the talented women who also want to be married and mothers. She also presents case studies of firms that have done it successfully. Solidly researched, lucidly analyzed, persuasively argued and a good read. This is a win-win book that is both good for business and good for talented women workers. If employers followed its advice they would retain talented employees --and these talented women would at last be able to have it all: marriage, family and a career. A book that all career women --and the employers that ought to love their work enough to want to retain it-- should read.

Another Great Book by Sylvia Ann Hewlett

This is a wonderful book and should be read by all women regardless of age as well as by all employers. Finally, someone has analyzed, researched and addressed the issue of how women who are raising families as well as caring for elderly relatives can balance it all. This book gives insights, direction and ideas as to how one can maintain a career as well as handle the important family responsibilities that matter to all.

Finally! A green light for high achieving women!

Sylvia Ann Hewlett looks at hard data and offers creative solutions to the question of how to have a personal life in the hard-charging world of business and law. Off-ramps and On-ramps should be required reading for young women entering the business world as well as their employers who are at risk of losing them. It's a wonderful graduation gift for every newly minted MBA and/or JD!

5 Stars for another GREAT work!

It is an honor to be the first to comment on this book. Sylvia Ann Hewlett is truly a visionary in the pressing arena of work-life programs and policies. Congratulations to Ms. Hewlett for reframing the "opting out" debate in to a much more useful discussion about non-linear careers. She challenged the assumption that most women leave full time employment because of pure family reasons, and sure enough, uncovered many other reasons that lie squarely on the shoulders of corporate America. Many progressive companies, especially Lehman Brothers, get it! They care about promoting, retaining, and recruiting female talent. Will others follow suit? Well now they have no excuse. Ms. Hewlett has given them clear strategies and I hope more women will hold the companies they work for accountable for implementing them.