Building a Support Network to Create Work-Life Balance

support.JPGContributed by Alicia Anderson of AttacheServices.com

The key to work-life balance for female professionals is a holistic, comprehensive, trustworthy, and reliable support system.

As a woman in a key leadership role you must remain alert and sober minded, capable of making good decisions for your organization and clients. People are depending on you. Maybe you are the primary provider of income for your family, or single and therefore the sole provider. You may be juggling a career and the care of small children, teenagers, and aging parents. Your family is depending on you. Your organization is depending on you. Our economy is depending on you. YOU are depending on you. You have no choice but to take charge of your life and construct the type of support system you will need during this critical time.

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Work/life Balance Around the World

worldbusiness.JPGby Elizabeth Harrin (London)

Think you work a long week? Spare a thought for the Koreans, who work the longest hours, around 2357 a year: that’s over 45 hours a week, every week. The UK and Ireland have the longest working week of the EU states and the Japanese only take an average of 8 days holiday a year. Those long French lunch breaks? I spent two years working in Paris and I promise they are a myth. If we’re so chained to our desks, how do we fit in our personal lives?

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In Limbo Land at Lehman

fired.JPGby Paige Churchman (New York City)

When your coworker goes into quit-and-stay mode, it’s a drag but you can work around it. Your job gets a little harder when your boss does it. But when your company gets stuck in a holding pattern like that, even for a day or two, well, that’s when people start carrying their wedding pictures, potted orchids and Lucite deal tombstones out the door in cardboard boxes. We can’t stand the not knowing.

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Voices of Experience: Rachel Glaser, COO/CFO at Reunion.com

by Natalie Sabia (New York City)

Her journey started immediately after business school when she landed a much-coveted job at Disney. Over twenty years, she worked her way up in the company, holding various leadership positions in finance, operations and technology with studio entertainment, as well as corporate and consumer products divisions.

The imminent birth of her first child was a turning point. About to go on maternity leave with her first child, she was debating whether to take time off to be a stay-at-home mother. Her boss at the time talked her into coming back to work part-time. She was concerned, not sure how to manage the competing demands of work and motherhood. “I was nervous for the change, but I tried not to second guess my decision,” Glaser said. “If he hadn’t invited me back, I would never be in the position I am now.” By accepting the offer, she was able to raise her kids but also keep her foot in the door.

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Intrepid Women: My Life on the Street, Part II

by Paige Churchman (New York City)

The next morning, Genro and Paco marveled that we hadn’t been chased out, and we set off for breakfast at the St. Francis Mission, more than 50 blocks north. Outside a church on some midtown street, we joined a long line, spreading ourselves out among the real homeless people as Genro and Paco had urged. The streets hadn’t really come alive yet, but a few people in suits scuffed by without seeing us. I wondered what breakfast would be. I pictured a big basement room with tables and bowls of oatmeal. But when the line finally started moving, I found the payoff was a table on the sidewalk where a monk silently handed me two ham and cheese sandwiches in clear wrap. I gave one to another woman who hesitated and then took it with a smile. I saved the other for someone else later. I wondered, if I really were homeless, would I have to eat meat so as not to starve?

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Intrepid Women: My Life on the Street, Part I

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parkbench.JPGby Paige Churchman (New York City)

Labor Day weekend approached, and all week I’d answered what-are-you-doing-this-weekend with “oh, sticking around.” True, but… For the next four days and three nights, I would be living like, and with, the homeless. I had signed up for a Street Retreat run by the Zen Peacemakers. The street that I would be living on was as much a state of mind as the street that peppered financial conversations, but the two were worlds apart.

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Movers and Shakers: Real Estate

skyscrapers.JPGby Sima Matthes (New York City)

We try to focus on the positive here at The Glass Hammer, giving examples of women who’ve made it or are well on their way to the top of an industry. And much progress has been made, as can be seen from our reports on women in industries from pharmaceuticals to energy and everything in between. However, we were surprised at how few women could be found among the management of the top real estate companies listed on the Fortune 1000. Of the 10 real estate companies that made the list, not one has a female CEO, and two have no women at all in senior management.

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The Future of Investment Banking

by Lisa Novak (New York City)

financialdecline.JPGIn an interview on Bloomberg in July, Nouriel Roubini, a professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business at NYU and Chairman of RGE Monitor, had some dire predictions about the economy. Foreseeing no end to the current financial crises, he warned, “It’s a vicious circle between a contracting economy and greater credit and financial losses feeding on the economy.”

Roubini further prognosticated that, “in a few years’ time, there will be no major independent broker dealers as their business model…is bust and the risk of a bank-like run on their very short term liquid liabilities is a fundamental flaw in their structure…”

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3rd Annual Women & Wealth Forum

Now in its third year, the Women and Wealth forum was created to meet the specific needs of high-net-worth women and their advisors. In response to feedback from past attendees and industry experts, the all-new 2008 program will include more focus on hedge funds and other alternative investments, newly emerging ‘hot’ investment strategies, the role of women in family businesses, family governance, legacy planning and more! High-net-worth women and single family offices will benefit from candid discussion amongst their peers, and advisors and service providers will gain cutting-edge insights on how to achieve effective service differentiation for this growing population.

For more information and to download a brochure

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Legal Week Litigation Forum 2008

The program is now available – please contact Sara Thompson to receive a
copy of the program on +44 (0)20 7316 9722 or email sara.thompson@incisivemedia.com

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