Make yourself comfortable, Mom. And grandma, you’ll like it here too.
Only two companies have 25 years tenure on the Working Mother list of best companies – enough to see their female staffers go from young mother to grandmother. Those two are Johnson & Johnson and IBM.
IBM also makes the top 10 best employers overall in 2010, a generation or at least 25 years after it debuted on the first list of 30 companies.
Working Mother’s October issue details changes for moms in those two and a half decades, including growth in paternity leave policies from 5 percent to three-quarters of top companies offering them.
IBM, which used to be known as I’ve Been Moved and a place where white shirts and ties were required, offers “real help to employees whose children have mental, physical or developmental issues,” the magazine said. Women represent one-fifth of IBM’s top earners and 29 percent of the management ranks – a number that just about equals their share of the total workforce.
Johnson & Johnson, maker of band aids and baby shampoo, operates seven on-site child care centers and offers a free college coach program to help staffers’ children pick the right university. It launched work-life webinars last year and 41 percent of its managers and executives are women, according to Working Mother. New Brunswick, NJ-based J&J, which also makes prescription drugs, and contact lenses, is donating medicine and money to the United Nations program to treat millions of mothers and children in developing countries.
Yet, even the best companies are not without critics. Even as profits increased, IBM, the Armonk-based company, laid off thousands of workers in the United States over the last 18 months, shifting jobs to lower-cost areas such as India and Russia. Johnson & Johnson has staged some highly publicized recalls of hip replacements, children’s and adult-strength Tylenol and other items.
The Working Mother list is dominated by financial services, consulting, hospitals and health care and some blue chip corporations such as General Electric, Intel, Marriott International and Verizon Communications. Others in the top 10 include Bank of America, Deloitte, and General Mills.
To be sure, plenty of other employers have been good to moms on their payroll for a long time, including accounting giants Deloitte and Ernst & Young. But staying true to moms’ needs for 25 years is a standout achievement, and one that may allow some working moms at IBM or Johnson & Johnson still work there when they welcome their first grandchild into the world.
MORE INFORMATION:
The Working Mother list, out in the October issue of the magazine, is mostly available online.
Forbes.com has a blog post on the new list – including some insights on two companies that recently settled gender discrimination suits.
To learn more about IBM, check its corporate website
Johnson & Johnson’s corporate information is available here.
