Kim Whiteley, SVP at MeeDerby, sat with Tammi Heaton, Co-CEO of Pridestaff, and Eric Gregg, CEO & Founder of ClearlyRated for a fantastic webinar: “Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Strategies from the Best Staffing Firms for Women.”
Here are a few excerpts from the webinar:
Eric: “What are some of the things you think you do well to kind of foster that environment so that you are able to attract and retain top females for decades not days?”
Kim: “You know I think I can start with myself as the prime example because Robin has fostered this from the beginning. So I started 16+ years ago and I came from running a very large IT Staffing market for Spherion and made the decision to leave after I had my son because I knew I did not want to commute an hour, two hours each way, and have my son be raised by someone else. So it was important to me to find an environment where I could work a schedule I wanted to work, be performance driven, control my destiny and the amount of money I wanted to make but still have opportunities to learn.”
Eric references ClearlyRated data finding that 68% of the industry is female yet only 33% of leadership roles are filled by women in staffing:
Eric: “What causes that to go from 68% to 33% in your opinion?
Kim: “The correspondence of a female who is starting to climb the ladder in her career and move up, is the exact same timing as key childbirth years. And so unfortunately what typically takes women out is during those childbirth years, they either get passed over or [they say] oh she’s not going to be able to do that because she has children at home. How will she ever be able to work those hours, do that job, travel. So I think there has been the tendency to overlook them versus include them in the conversation. So I think when we can include them in the conversation and ask them what they can handle, what they can manage, we will learn they can manage a lot more than we think they can manage as long as we give them the opportunity to do it and the flexibility.”
