Roll Call has an interesting article in today’s paper describing exactly what we’ve been saying for years: women will sometimes sacrifice pay in order to gain more professional flexibility.
Lobbyist Sara van Geertruyden, a mom of two sons, wanted out of the billable-hours confines of the law firm world. Andy Rosenberg, who had recently started a boutique K Street shop, needed additional personnel, particularly to help his clients navigate executive branch agencies. But he didn’t think he could afford to hire a job candidate with van Geertruyden’s résumé.
It turned out, she wanted something more than money. So in January, van Geertruyden joined Rosenberg’s firm, Thorn Run Partners, as a senior vice president with two enormous perks: schedule flexibility and zero requirement to bill clients for her time.
“These smaller shops can get a lot more bang for their buck by bringing in some of the folks who are looking for a little more work-life balance,” said Jennifer Folsom, who started her mom-focused staffing firm, Momentum Resources, in 2007. Since then, she has placed lobbyists at many Washington, D.C., firms. “Flexibility is priceless to the candidates and free to the employers.”
That’s exactly what Rosenberg and his five-person firm found.
Ditto for one former top GOP Hill aide who negotiated a four-day workweek at the startup lobby shop that she joined more than two years ago. She would only speak about her arrangement on background because, she said, there’s still a certain “stigma” of being mommy-tracked, even though her clients and colleagues seem to have no problem with her schedule.
“If I had gone out and said five days a week, could I have negotiated a higher salary? Probably. But I was willing to negotiate less to have the better quality of life,” she said.
Read the entire article here….it proves, as we’ve said here at IWF, that women will often sacrifice pay for better work arrangments and more flexibility. Are these “arrangements” (which often mean lower pay) being considered in the “wage gap” debate?