A second chance for women
All, I am glad to share with you my experience, being part of extremely exciting event – Restart @GE. This was a daylong program at JFWTC: hosting number of women scientist / engineers, have taken break and has huge enthusiasm & energy for comeback !
A colleague of mine put together the following article:
It isn’t uncommon for women across the world to take a career break. Many do so when they relocate after marriage, when a baby arrives or just simply to study.
Eventually when they do wish to get back to work, they just can’t seem to find the right fit that will help them balance both work and the demands of their personal life.
And that’s where Restart steps in. Restart is an initiative to come out of GE’s John F Welch Technology Center, Bangalore India that is exclusively meant for women scientists, engineers and functional experts who have taken a career break. Launched in the year 2008, the center had a handful of Restart hires till a targeted recruitment drive took place recently. A single elevator billboard in a mall located in a satellite area in Bangalore coupled with employees at the center encouraging their women friends to apply saw resumes pouring in. This month long focused activity culminated in a career fair at the center’s sprawling, lush green campus. The 120 women who were down selected from the resumes received were taken through a half day long program complete with a session with the leaders and a round of interviews. They returned home feeling overawed with the attention they received.
While one of the attendees, Anjana Menon commented on it being a “lifetime opportunity”, according to another participant Veenus Wadhwa Katyal it was a “morale booster fair and a great program for women who have taken a career break”.
The Center has all the required tools in place to make transitioning to the workplace easy for the Restart hires. Customized trainings, mentoring and self-learning programs allay fears of being out of touch. The flexible options of telecommuting and working flex time or part time takes care of balancing both work and home. As Nagapriya Kavoori, GE Global Research says, “I can manage my 1 year old baby and the work here at the center very efficiently because of the flexible options and that of taking calls from home.”
Arioli Arumugam, GE Aviation Engineering adds, “I was comfortable being a housewife but deep down I wanted to pursue my career, wanted to make a positive impact. The culture at GE is based on an employee’s performance and delivery and not on the hours of work one puts in.”
GE Global Research’s Janaki Gadiyaram who took a career break for over 6 years sums it up nicely, “It’s been a splendid experience for me and I hope to be with GE JFWTC for many more years to come.”
I am not able to send an email at jfwtc.restart@ge.com; is this email id still valid? Please let me know if there is an alternate email id for the restart program.
thanks