Bullish on Moms
The bulls and bears are starting to welcome the kids.
For the first time, two Wall Street firms--Merrill Lynch and Bankers Trust--made the Working Mother list of the best 100 companies.
The 11th annual survey by Working Mother magazine also found greater use of flexible work schedules, a wider recognition of the child-care needs of employees working at branch offices and expanded leave benefits for new fathers and adoptive parents.
“We’re pleased to report that work-family issues are finally receiving the recognition and support they deserve from all types of companies,” said Judsen Culbreth, editor in chief of Working Mother.
Working Mother chooses its best companies based on pay, advancement opportunities for women, child care, flexible hours and family-friendly benefits such as adoption aid and elder-care resources.
The list doesn’t rank the companies, but notes the 10 best. They included the banking companies of Barnett Banks of Jacksonville, Fla.; MBNA America Bank of Wilmington, Del.; and NationsBank of Charlotte, N.C.; and computer companies Hewlett-Packard and IBM.
The Top 10 also included the pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly & Co. of Indianapolis and Merck & Co. of Whitehouse Station, N.J.; Johnson & Johnson, a New Brunswick, N.J.-based consumer product firm, the Patagonia clothing company, headquartered in Ventura, and Stamford, Conn.-based Xerox Corp.
Of the 100 best companies, 17 made the list for the first time, including Merrill Lynch and Bankers Trust.
While many companies fail to offer women any paid maternity leave, Merrill Lynch offers a whopping 13 weeks off at full pay, the most generous on the list. New dads get five days’ paid leave, and the primary caregiver who adopts a child gets five weeks’ paid leave.
The financial services company, which has 39,830 employees--42% female--last year instructed managers on how to make alternative schedules work.
Another financial services firm, Bankers Trust New York Corp., was one of the first Wall Street firms to offer employees alternative work arrangements, including job sharing, flexible hours, compressed workweeks and staggered schedules, in which an employee might work four days one week and six days the next.
The firm, at which 45% of the 7,685 employees are female, also offers emergency child care at three locations in the New York area. It provides a prenatal program, lactation rooms and a counseling program for employees and family members.
The list of best companies for working mothers is in the magazine’s October issue, which hits newsstands this week.
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Parent Friendly
Nine California firms made Working Mother magazine’s 1996 list of the 100 best companies for working mothers.
Firm: Amgen Inc.
City: Thousand Oaks
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Firm: Genentech Inc.
City: San Francisco
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Firm: Hewlett-Packard Co.
City: Palo Alto
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Firm: Hughes- Electronics Inc.
City: Los Angeles
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Firm: Lucasfilm Ltd., Lucas Digital Ltd., Lucas Arts Entertainment Co.
City: San Rafael
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Firm: Mattel Inc.
City: El Sequndo
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Firm: Morrison & Foerster
City: San Francisco
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Firm: Patagonia Inc.
City: Ventura
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Firm: Stanford University
City: Stanford
Source: Associated Press
