Friday, October 5, 2007

G-R-O-W - They Really Meant It

Having worked in Corporate America over the course of my career, I've seen my fair share of hokey initiatives that were merely just a means to boost ratings for the "Best Company to Work For" Annual Awards.

For three of those years, I worked at a company that had an initiative called "GROW," which stood for Growth and Retention Of Women. Through this initiative, our female partners would host special women's only events, dinners, breakfasts, etc. I even worked with a few of these female partners to do some work for a non-profit organization. So they not only invested their time in female employees, but also in a female youth organization. Pretty cool.

This company has ceased to exist for over 5 years. And still today, I received an evite from 2 of the female partners, asking all of the women from our (former) office to join in a happy hour -- oh, and it's a bi-annual event. Pretty cool.

GROW -- They have no financial incentive or corporate ratings to win from continuing the growth of this group of women. So you know what: They meant it. They really meant it.

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