Firms in the marketing, media and PR industry are being urged to encourage returning mothers back into the workplace by showing support for the forthcoming back2businesship programme.
Now in its second year, back2businesship – an initiative run by media agency Starcom MediaVest Group, recruitment specialists f1 and Golin PR – aims to help return-to-work female media and marcomms professionals who have been out of the industry for five or more years.
Through a number of courses, the programme will provide training and aim to improve confidence to enable re-entry to work.
Recent research has revealed that the marketing, media and PR industry is one of the poorest sectors for offering flexible working positions, with only 2% being advertised – well below the nationwide average.
“It is clear that returning parents in the media and marketing industry often don’t feel they have the help they need,” said SMG’s regional HR director, Liz Nottingham.
“So we wanted to develop a fully rounded programme to provide these parents with the confidence to return to work. This is the second year of our back2businessship initiative and we hope to build on last year’s success by attracting even more support from across the industry.”
It is estimated that for each year a mother is absent from the workplace her future wages will reduce by 5%, while the current full time gender pay gap remains at almost 10%.
Melissa Franklin, one of the speakers at last year’s course, went on to work as head of marketing at the University of Surrey and is set to take up a new role in September.
“The course jettisoned me back into the global media world,” she said. “It was fantastic to meet like-minded marketing and media mums and I was impressed by the experience in the room.
“Like me, they were all hoping to find the Holy Grail – flexible, interesting work we could fit round our families.”
The programme is currently looking for business placement opportunities for 2015’s 25 delegates.
