Managing The Career Break Available to Purchase

Schemes for managing the career break will not only assist women in long‐term career planning but will also ensure that the employer retains a group of trained people who will be returning to work, whether full‐ or part‐time or with flexible working arrangements. A review of the appropriate legislation, and some workable examples provided by National Westminster Bank, F International, ICL, and Rank Xerox, indicate a range of alternatives open to employers. A complete programme should include such main elements as equal opportunity measures; remedial measures (e.g. induction courses emphasising women's career opportunities, special re‐training for those returning to work); and support measures (day‐care provision, flexible hours, paternity leave, extended maternity leave). It is vital that employers do not ignore the 50 per cent of the country's human resources which happen to be female; schemes for managing the career break, within the framework of a comprehensive programme of positive action, will provide a strategy for ensuring that this does not happen.