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Lives and Careers in Balance Engagement for Underwriters Laboratories is a model for bringing the best of Booz Allen to an engagement while offering staff work-life balance. “I was able to perform at a high level, without compromising my personal life,” says Lauren Fernandes, a senior associate in Chicago, about her work on a Booz Allen team that helped Underwriters Laboratories, an independent product-safety testing and certification organization, design and implement a global transformation program to improve the speed, productivity, and consistency of its global operations. The Underwriters Laboratories engagement has become a model for bringing the best of Booz Allen to an engagement while providing its members a healthy balance between their personal and professional lives. At the outset of the project, a "social contract" was written, pledging team members of all levels to be flexible in accommodating personal commitments, to travel on weekdays when possible, to work from their Booz Allen office on Fridays, and to hold regular team dinners. Those standards became important when Fernandes needed to address personal concerns, because she was able to work locally. Fernandes says the engagement was testament to how her managers and colleagues embraced the culture of inclusion—and, as she put it, "delivered top-notch work." After another team member, Lisa Mitchell, a principal in Chicago, gave birth to her second son, Cole, in July 2004, she rejoined the project with a flexible schedule and was promoted. "This project proved that working 80 percent in client work is possible," Mitchell says. "The officers leading the engagement helped me be successful in balancing my professional and family life." John Brown also appreciated the team’s dedication to work-life balance. A Cleveland-based associate, Brown worked on the engagement for six weeks in Hong Kong, accompanied by his wife, Stefanie, and two daughters, Kira, 6, and Elyse, 2. "Having my family there made the assignment memorable and showed me how Booz Allen cares about staff needs," says Brown.
The engagement is typical of what Minoo Javanmardian, a Chicago-based vice president who is co-leading the Chicago-area Women's Network with Fernandes, sees as a new dose of realism about work-life balance. Focused on improving the recruitment, advancement, and retention of female employees, the Women's Network has helped develop initiatives that benefit all staff, like the social contract, mentoring programs, and guidelines for alternative work schedules. "Clients will always expect us to work magic, so we have to stay focused on balancing the demands of this profession with our people’s personal needs, commitments, and interests outside their careers," says Javanmardian. "By working on the issue of flexibility, we’re giving people the freedom they need to thrive at Booz Allen." story posted December 2006 Related Links...
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