US News and World Report had a recent article about the “new mommy track”, looking at trends in flextime and other options that make it easier for moms (and dads) to find a work/life balance:

On the company front, 31 percent of organizations allow employees to work from home or off site on a regular basis, and 73 percent allow extended career breaks for family responsibilities, according to a survey by the Families and Work Institute. Best Buy allows some of its corporate employees to set their own hours and work entirely from home. Last year, PricewaterhouseCoopers, a public accounting firm, launched Full Circle, a program for parents that enables them to temporarily stop working for the company but stay in touch through networking and training events. Keeping connected makes it easier for moms to return to work when they’re ready. “The thing we know for sure is that women need choices. Our careers are not as linear as men’s,” says Jennifer Allyn, managing director in the office of diversity.

The company did not start the program out of a spirit of generosity: In 2001, it faced a 24 percent turnover rate. Allyn estimates the cost of losing a client services’ employee, which most are, to be around $80,000. So if Full Circle enables one person to return to the firm, she says, the program has paid for itself. Allyn says the turnover rate has already fallen to 15 percent.

The Pew Research Center conducted a survey that found that a growing number of working mothers say that part-time employment is their ideal work situation, which jives with what our own MomSquawk community said in a recent poll on the issue.

What to do if you don’t work for a company that has a built-in parenting-friendly program? Some women are able to negotiate their own flextime schedules. And enough have dropped out and started their own businesses that the media has seen fit to coin a term to describe these women: “mompreneurs”.

Lori Johnson, 34, is one of those moms. After working more than 80 hours a week as a sales account executive in the semiconductor industry, she quit after having her daughter, Avery, just over two years ago. Not willing to return to such a hectic lifestyle, she decided starting her own business out of her home in Concord, Mass., was a “happy medium.” She now designs and sells car seat covers. The idea for Hot Toddies Baby Gear came to her after she became frustrated when people mistook her daughter for a boy because she could find only blue seat covers.

Look for this to be a continuing trend. A 2006 Lifetime Television poll found that 47% of their respondents in the 18 to 29 age group aspire to manage their own companies.

Posted by MommaSteph.