Adweek reported Young & Rubicam Group is launching PowerOn, a program designed to help parents and caregivers transition back into the workforce after taking time off to focus on family matters. The exclusive initiative will probably most benefit White women. Meanwhile, Y&R will continue to douse diversity related to Blacks and people of color.
Young & Rubicam Is Starting a Program to Help Parents and Caregivers Re-enter the Workforce
PowerOn is for people who’ve left to focus on family
By Erik Oster
Young & Rubicam Group is offering full-time parents and caregivers a way to ease back into the workforce.
The agency on Tuesday announced the launch of its own career reboot program called PowerOn. In a statement, Y&R said the training program aims to “reclaim the untapped talent and recruitment potential” of those facing the challenges of re-entering the workforce.
“It’s time for our industry to embrace this untapped pool of talent—so often the decision to depart from the workforce to focus on family or child care unfairly impedes opportunities for growth down the line,” said Young & Rubicam Group chief of talent and operations Madeline Park in a statement. “But we know these candidates offer an incredible skill set, life experience, diverse points of view and much more.”
The challenges of being a parent in the advertising industry are widely known. Stringent parental leave policies are still a problem at ad agencies, even as progress has been made in recent years. In 2016, 11 agencies formed Pledge Parental Leave to implement a system across agencies and have since added over two dozen more shops. Another problem in the industry, talent retention, remains persistent, but programs like PowerOn could give agencies a way to keep millennial parents and other caregivers.
A 12-week training program, PowerOn is open to men and women who have left the industry to focus on parenting or caregiving and offers training, resources and hands-on experience to facilitate the transition back. Teams of mentors will support PowerOn participants as they make their way through the program’s professional workshops, speakers series, skills development and knowledge training sessions with the goal of placing participants in full-time positions upon completion.
The PowerOn program starts Jan. 18 and operates out of Y&R’s New York office. Participants include Y&R, Wunderman, WPP Health and Wellness companies, Red Fuse, Sudler & Hennessey, Grey Healthcare and Hogarth. Applications are open through Dec. 1.
Benefits for parents in ad agencies is exactly like the recent push for diversity for old people in agencies.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like a goood idea on the surface but it mostly benefits white people already in the agency world.
It's more deferred diversity. Rather than address the barriers to entry and promotion of people of color, agencies stall yet again and prioritize rewarding and retaining white people already on the inside. Then adding insult to injury they proclaim it proof of diversity and give themselves press props and an award for it.