Helping to Support and Connect Booz Allen's Working Parents
Many of Booz Allen Hamilton's staff members are working parents faced with the challenge of balancing their professional lives with the demands of family.
As the firm has changed and grown over the past 90 years, so has the definition of parents and parenting to include step parents, single parents, foster parents, adopted parents, same sex parents, grand parents (supporting birth parents), and multi-cultural/multi racial/multi religious parents.
The firm recognizes that the needs and work patterns of these staff members are incredibly diverse and has supported the creation of an employee forum for working parents. In addition, Booz Allen has included "Parental Status" as one of the twenty dimensions of diversity recognized by its Board Diversity Initiative.
The Booz Allen Parents' Forum
The Booz Allen Parents' Forum was formed in 2005, after functioning as the parents network since 2002. The forum's mission is to connect Booz Allen's working parents and those interested in topics related to parenting with each other in order to share best practices, resources, ideas, referrals, information and sometimes, just stories, to provide peer support.
The goals of the Parents' Forum are to:
- Support working parents through providing a community resource and support group
- Facilitate the creation of best practices and tools for Booz Allen's working parents
- Educate parents on the firm's benefits and policies
- Provide support to managers of employees with special parenting needs
- Create awareness of the firm's efforts to support work/life balance
- Enhance Booz Allen's reputation as a family-friendly firm
Today, the Parents' Forum is involved in numerous activities for their members, such as a newsletter, web site, and monthly educational meetings and seminars to keep parents informed and support their busy lives.
Working Mother Magazine
In 2004, Working Mother magazine's named Booz Allen to its list of "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers" — the industry benchmark for family-friendly companies — for the sixth consecutive year.
Working Mother also highlighted Booz Allen's child care programs, including on-site child care at its corporate headquarters in McLean, Virginia, and a child care locater service, as well as a new pilot sabbatical leave program that allows the firm's commercial staff to take up to 60 days off each year.
story posted July 18, 2005
