Program aims to elevate women's economic status

Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton is asking for a hand from businesses � and getting it � in her effort to improve the economic status of women in Wisconsin.

Lawton launched Wisconsin Women Equal Prosperity two years ago after a national report gave the Badger State a grade of C- for the status of women. The public-private partnership has organized a dozen regional networks to come up with strategies for raising that grade, including looking at what some companies are already doing to make a difference.

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"Some of them have been very successful in discovering that they profit when women succeed and so they have lessons to teach us," Lawton said.

Lawton invited some of the companies that have been recognized nationally for their work to promote women � including Harley-Davidson and Lands' End � to be on the group's corporate advisory board.

This fall, Wisconsin Women Equal Prosperity will tour the state to distribute what Lawton calls a "tool kit" to help businesses recruit and retain women. She said it will include ideas for ensuring equitable compensation and setting up alternative work arrangements such as compressed work weeks, flex time or part-time opportunities.

Lawton said the program will help small- and medium-sized companies that don't have human resources departments to develop some of those practices.

"A best practice for a very large company like American Family is not necessarily effective for a medium- or small-sized firm," she said.

Members of the group's corporate advisory board have also agreed to be contacts and mentors for companies that want to follow their lead. Lawton says she's confident many private companies will participate.

"It allows them to recruit better talent and to retain more of it and have lower turnover so that women can be sustained as employees through changing seasons of their lives and continue to grow and make an increasing contribution to a corporation's success," she said.

Monique Heiser, who leads the Women's Leadership Network at Covance Inc., said the company got involved in Lawton's effort after hearing her speak in 2003 at the Women's Executive Leadership Summit at UW-Madison. Heiser said business can play an important role by raising the bar on initiatives and benefits for women.

"We need businesses to lead by example with best practices they choose to implement in their organizations," she said. "The private sector often has the resources available to set the example and the standards that the public sector does not. We need the private sector to reach out and assist the public sector in reaching their goals."

Lawton said it must be a top priority to keep women in the labor market and find ways to convince them to stay here. In Wisconsin, more young women leave the state than move in. The state also has a higher percentage than average of baby boomers who are expected to retire, and two-thirds of women over age 16 are already in the work force, Lawton said.

"We really need to be serious about this because we are almost maxed out in terms of the number of women who can be in the work force," she said. "We've got to hold onto and attract ... and not lose all of our bright, talented young women."