October 31, 2003

Alliance attracts, promotes, retains women employees

LOUISVILLE — The gap is steadily shrinking, but women still struggle to carve their space in the traditionally male-dominated corporate world.

While salary discrepancies between the sexes maintain attention in the media, other issues that affect profession choices and job-retention rates for women are coming under more scrutiny.

For instance, women represent 21.9 percent of the general science and engineering work force, according to a study conducted by the National Science Foundation. Universities, women’s organizations and groups affiliated with various disciplines are looking at the imbalance with an eye to developing what women need in order to step into and stay in jobs in science, engineering and other technology fields.

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Corporations in these industries are addressing the problem in various ways, realizing that women have as much to bring to the fields as men, as well as a unique perspective.

Boulder Valley companies like Storage Technology Corp. in Louisville, Sun Microsystems Inc. and GE Access in Broomfield, IBM in Boulder and Coors Brewing Company in nearby Golden are working to support their women employees by setting up in-house structures.

According to the president of the coordinating council for the StorageTek Women’s Alliance, women employees there rate networking with other women in the workplace as a primary benefit of the group.

“A group of women went to a Women’s Vision Success Forum, got inspired, presented a PowerPoint presentation to the executive management team and got backing,´ said Connie Brenton, president of the StorageTek Women’s Alliance coordinating council. That was in 2001.

The alliance now has more than 250 members — both men and women.

“Our mission is to attract, retain and promote talented women,” added Brenton, whose official job title is subcontract administrator. “Like most women’s organizations, this one is relationship-based — very inclusive and very dynamic. Relationships are critical for women.

“Our women members love getting together with other women,” she added, explaining the bottom-line benefit of in-house networking. “The alliance helps women network, grow in their careers and develop mentoring programs.

“It’s also given me the opportunity to meet women here who I wouldn’t have met otherwise. You find out the scoop on other areas and get a better idea of the whole picture that way. It really helps when it comes to making decisions in your own area.”

Networking opportunities for women are built around activities and presentations geared to benefit all employees as well as the community. One of those activities, called Lunch and Learns, focuses on presenting information on topics such as balancing work and life, mentoring and professional growth. The presentations are open to all StorageTek staff as well as the general public.

Volunteering together for causes such as the Komen Denver Race for the Cure — a benefit focused on the fight against breast cancer — provides another chance to network and develop mentoring relationships. Members of the StorageTek Women’s Alliance also participate together in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.

Last year StorageTek budgeted $35,000 to enable the alliance to meet its goals.

“I expect that we’ll receive the same this year because of the successes and benefits,” Brenton said.

The budget includes membership fees for organizations such as the Women’s Vision Success Forum, and support for volunteer commitments. It’s also applied to tuition for professional growth classes some members are sent to with the mission of bringing the information back to the alliance as a whole.

According to Brenton, the group is in the process of developing measurable assessments that show the benefits of the alliance. Group members will be looking at the number of executive and management positions women hold in the company to see if that number is going up or down.

About 25 percent of StorageTek’s local work force of 2,000 is women, Brenton said. “Women connect and work intuitively in a way that’s different from men,” she explained.

The alliance supports the differences and works to educate all employees about how those differences can improve productivity and efficiency.

“We’d like to share our different ways of thinking because a diverse group has a better chance of coming up with a better plan,” Brenton said. “The success of this comes from the way it was created. Support from managers is very forthcoming. It comes from the top down — all starting with the CEO.”

At one of the recent weekly meetings of the alliance’s coordinating council, 11 women sat around a table in StorageTek’s lunchroom. Topics ranged from discussing what kind of program would raise awareness of domestic violence to considering the pros and cons of sponsoring an event with the chamber of commerce.

The women moved quickly through the agenda, with a lot of humor thrown in. Sometimes sentences weren’t even finished before the group responded and moved on.

In the main lunchroom, a group of seventh- and eighth-grade girls from a local school entertained the lunchtime crowd with song and dance. The alliance brought the girls in as part of an extensive program for the month of October that celebrates women.

LOUISVILLE — The gap is steadily shrinking, but women still struggle to carve their space in the traditionally male-dominated corporate world.

While salary discrepancies between the sexes maintain attention in the media, other issues that affect profession choices and job-retention rates for women are coming under more scrutiny.

For instance, women represent 21.9 percent of the general science and engineering work force, according to a study conducted by the National Science Foundation. Universities, women’s organizations and groups affiliated with various disciplines are looking at the imbalance with an eye to developing what women need in order to step into and stay in…

Christopher Wood
Christopher Wood is editor and publisher of BizWest, a regional business journal covering Boulder, Broomfield, Larimer and Weld counties. Wood co-founded the Northern Colorado Business Report in 1995 and served as publisher of the Boulder County Business Report until the two publications were merged to form BizWest in 2014. From 1990 to 1995, Wood served as reporter and managing editor of the Denver Business Journal. He is a Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder. He has won numerous awards from the Colorado Press Association, Society of Professional Journalists and the Alliance of Area Business Publishers.
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