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Sex in the workplace doesn't just hurt those parties involved. Sure, Mark Hurd's recent scandal produced three obvious casualties: Mark Hurd, Hewlett Packard and its shareholders, and even, to an extent, Jodie Fisher. But in the barrage of press attention since the news broke, little mention has been made of a large group of other casualties: high-achieving female executives.

Women's careers tend to stall out in upper-middle management and female executives need the support and sponsorship of C-suite men if they are to stand a chance of climbing the highest rungs of the corporate ladder. Sad to say, in the wake of the Hurd ouster, sponsorship is going to be in even shorter supply. However tangled the Hurd/Fisher narrative becomes, a large proportion of male leaders who read the story will have one and only one takeaway: "Poor guy was fired for dining alone with a junior woman. No one is even alleging a sexual relationship. How crazy is that! It makes me want to avoid ever being alone with a younger female colleague." So said one C-suite male I talked to.

All of which puts a crimp on sponsorship, a relationship which requires a senior executive to "use up chips" to help a high potential mid-level executive gain visibility, win plum assignments, and eventually get promoted. To take on a protégée — a serious commitment — a sponsor needs to get to know the candidate well and spend a significant time one-on-one (possibly even having dinner!) in order to assess his or her potential and decide whether he or she is worth backing.

Research out this fall from the Center for Work-Life Policy shows sponsorship to be the critical promotional lever for women in the marzipan layer, the layer just below the top layer of management. No matter how high achieving, an upper middle-level female executive will fail to find career traction unless she is sponsored by a powerful senior executive — who, more often than not, is male and married.

Which is where sex enters the picture. Consider some data from the CWLP study: Thirty-four percent of executive women who participated in the survey that underlies the new study claim that they know a female colleague who has had an affair with the boss. (Indeed 15% of women at the director level or above admitted to having had such an affair themselves!) They also perceive that these liaisons sometimes yield a payoff: of those who know of an illicit affair, 37% claim that the woman involved received a career boost as a consequence.

Despite this apparent upside for individual women, illicit sexual liaisons often backfire and wreak serious damage in the workplace. For example, they are hugely demoralizing for teams. The CWLP data show that 61% of men and 70% of women lose respect for a leader involved in an affair. Most poisonous of all, when a junior woman is having a sexual dalliance with the boss, 60% of male executives and 65% of female executives suspect that salary hikes and plum assignments are being traded for sexual favors. This can have a disastrous effect on morale and productivity. Forty-eight percent of men and 56% of women feel animosity towards the involved couple, and 39% of men and 37% of women see a fall off in productivity as the team splinters. Talk about collateral damage!

So what to do?

Corporations should play a much more proactive role. Companies have largely gotten out of the business of regulating office romances. According to the new CWLP data 70% of respondents either believe that their company has no policy regarding consensual office affairs or have no idea whether there is a policy in place or not. The time has come for rigorous, high-profile policies that punish offenders.

Our legal system could also use some fine tuning. Capping the size of settlements in sexual harassment cases and creating penalties for frivolous suits would go some distance. But individuals have a role to play too. C-suite men — particularly the married ones — need to finally knock it into their heads that leadership comes with responsibility and restraint. "Hitting on" a female colleague is never OK. And up-and-coming executive women need to exercise similar restraint. While the short term gains can be alluring, a sexual dalliance with a married boss is dangerous. Not only will such a relationship come back to bite you, it will wreak havoc far and wide.

It's not just about the parties involved anymore. Looking at the larger picture can show some dark times ahead for women in the workplace — something that should be stopped sooner rather than later.

This post was written with Carolyn Buck Luce.

What organization can afford to sideline or lose nearly three out of five of its most talented workers? That's the risk uncovered by the Center for Work-Life Policy's latest research on off-ramps and on-ramps, published last month in the Harvard Business Review. Some 58 percent of high-echelon female talent experience career interruptions that sidetrack them from traditional lock-step linear career paths, penalizing earning power, sabotaging long-term promotional prospects, sapping ambition and causing many women to switch employers or quit work altogether.

Since our original 2005 study, a growing number of influential companies have fundamentally changed their views about the value of female talent, putting into place policies that support and sustain women's ambition despite the detours that life throws in the way.

For example, in 2004, the overwhelming reason for accomplished women to downshift from their high-speed career track — or even get off entirely — was childcare. Now, programs like Goldman Sachs' "Great Expectations" Maternity Strategy strengthens the firm's comprehensive maternity leave with "Keeping in Touch" days for returning mothers, assigning maternity mentors (women who have successfully returned to work after childbirth), and training managers to support their employees throughout the maternity cycle. Similarly, Intel's New Parent Reintegration Program supports new parents — both fathers and mothers — struggling with the transition back to full-time work by permitting them to coordinate flexible work arrangements, including telecommuting and part-time and staggered hours, for as long as they and their managers agree.

But our new survey, which used the same questionnaire and sampling a similar pool of women, discovered that the ground had shifted.

Although childcare is still the main impetus for off-ramping, eldercare is becoming an important concern, cited by 30 percent of 2009 respondents compared to 24 percent in 2004. The bump is likely due to demographics, as a larger proportion of the American population moves into old age. And while off-ramping for childcare tends to occur at the mean age of 31, when a woman is at the beginning of her career trajectory, off-ramping for eldercare hits baby boomers at the peak of their powers, sucker-punching their careers and prematurely eradicating a company's top talent. That's where programs like Moody's Backup Childcare and Eldercare makes a huge difference. Through a partnership with Bright Horizons, a national provider of work-life services, the program offers employees up to 20 days of care, at rates far below the average market price. Employees are even able to utilize the eldercare program from other states; for example, a New York City-based employee with a sick mother in Florida can request a caregiver to visit her mother in her home.

But that's not all. Over a quarter of the women in our sample were single and 38 percent of them were childless. Yet even without the pulls of childcare, these women off-ramp in significant numbers — 14 percent of single, never married women have taken a break at some point during their careers, as do 31 percent of childless women. Moreover, 44 percent of childless off-rampers cited an unsatisfactory or disappointing career as a major factor in their decision to depart, while 28 percent said they felt stalled.

No matter what their reason for taking a break, the vast majority of highly qualified women want to return to work. Yet just 73 percent of highly qualified women who want to get back to work succeed in finding a job, and only 40 percent of these were able to find full-time, mainstream jobs.

With the majority of college degrees going to women, the face of future talent is predominantly female. Rather than stand by as the off-ramp undertow wreaks havoc on the career ambitions of their accomplished women employees, corporations have a unique opportunity to throw them a lifeline. Realizing a woman's potential for a non-linear career path is only the first step. What can your company do to attract and retain the best and brightest over the long haul?

Carolyn Buck Luce is the Global Life Sciences Sector Leader for Ernst & Young in New York and co-founder of the Hidden Brain Drain Task Force.

This post was written with Carolyn Buck Luce. What organization can afford to sideline or lose nearly three out of... Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce

Will daddy wars erupt in this decade the way the mommy wars did in the last one?

Eight years ago, when I wrote a book examining why accomplished women have such a hard time integrating career and children, the data found that approximately 40 percent of professional women are childless at age 40. Despite the increase of family-friendly policies in many workplaces, the figures haven't changed.

But now, more and more men are finding themselves in the same position — and the numbers are trending upward. Recent survey data from the Center for Work-Life Policy show that at age 40, 31 percent of professional men are childless.

What's going on? The decision not to have children might make some sense for unemployed or underprivileged men who would have problems supporting a family. But what about well-paid guys with solid jobs that haven't been eliminated by the "mancession?" Are they choosing not to have children? Or are they reacting to a creeping non-choice dictated by the demands of increased hours and responsibilities and amplified by recession-related anxiety?

The research raises concrete concerns for companies and organizations. When research tools guaranteeing anonymity pry off the veneer of politically correct proclamations of support for colleagues with children, what comes through is active resentment against both colleagues and employers:

• Childless men feel that colleagues with children get special treatment in the workplace: 43 percent of childless male professionals agree with the statement "colleagues with children are given more latitude with flexibility," and 37 percent of childless men agree with the statement "my personal commitments are perceived to be less important than those of colleagues with children."


• Male professionals without children are 60 percent more likely than male professionals with children to think their colleagues are judgmental about their personal lives.


• Childless male professionals are less likely than those with children to be invited to social gatherings by co-workers.

All of which adds up to bad news for employers. It's hard for a company to drive high rates of engagement if childless employees feel disgruntled, socially marginalized, and less valued than their colleagues with kids. How can employers prevent daddy wars in the workplace or, at least, damp down the simmering anger between the "haves" and "have nots"?

First of all, companies need to commit to work-life support for everyone. Despite the switch in HR semantics from "work-family" to "work-life," the term is still blatant code for the toddler set. Like a demanding two-year-old, these parents often end up with the lion's share of the goodies: the biggest range of flexible work options, the most accommodating holiday schedules, and the extra time off. In an adult version of sandbox politics favoring fathers and mothers, the "others" are left to wail "It's not fair!" — with predictable results.

Second, employers must realize that there has to be a core of honor and respect in order for work-life benefits to apply to everyone. People want their life choices to be equally valued and celebrated, whether it's teaching English in China, studying the cello, training for a marathon, or raising kids.

A handful of smart companies already understand this.

• Cisco Systems' Extended Flex Program allows workers to take unpaid breaks of between 12 and 24 months. Although most participants are women who want to stop working temporarily after childbirth, other employees take time off to resolve eldercare issues, pursue a graduate degree, do volunteer work, or refocus their careers.


• Citi's Alternative Workplace Strategy reduces the cost of Citi's real estate while satisfying workers' desire for more flexibility. Employees who do much of their work online or over the phone can work remotely as much or as little as they — and their managers — wish.


• Deloitte's Personal Pursuits enables employees who have been with the firm for a minimum of two years to take up to five years off for any reason. Participants are assigned a mentor within the company to keep them connected with the firm and are guaranteed a job at the same level (although not necessarily the same role or team) when they return. Furthermore, participants can return on reduced-hour schedules and dial back up later. As a result, "we've been able to hold on to — and win back — talent," says Barbara Adachi, national managing principal, Deloitte Women's Initiative.

While lifting up options for non-parents, it's critical that companies not cut back on what they offer to parents. Work-life benefits are neither a competition nor a zero-sum game. Done right, they're a win for parents and childless workers — and make for a better, tension-free workplace.

Will daddy wars erupt in this decade the way the mommy wars did in the last one? Eight years ago,... Sylvia Ann Hewlett

Last week newspapers in the U.S. trumpeted President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court. If he has his way, a record-breaking three of the nine justices of the nation's highest court will be women. Women's judicial groups are cheering — even the conservative ones.

But the compelling drama of a third of the Supreme Court seats being female masks a disappointing story of stalled progress. Women now make up more than half of the workforce, yet despite a huge dependence on their earnings — a dependence which only deepened during the recession — American women have little to show for it. New data from the Center for Work-Life Policy demonstrate that while 47% of college-educated entry-level corporate professionals are female, women comprise a mere 21% of senior executives, 17% of Congress (PDF link) and 15% of board directors.

It's no different on the other side of the Atlantic. Women in Britain too, comprise only 19% of Parliament and hold down only 12% of seats on corporate boards (PDF link). They still get paid substantially less than men, and their careers — and earning potential — are far more likely to be derailed by childcare and eldercare responsibilities.

Some forward-thinking companies, recognizing and wanting to reap the rewards of a rich female talent pool, have implemented programs that promote and sustain women on their way to the top. But no matter how laudatory, these programs are outliers and the women who take advantage of them the fortunate few. What's needed to truly enable all women to exploit their full potential is something far more pervasive, something that becomes the law of the land.

Shockingly — because we don't associate Conservatives with radical change — the new coalition government is proposing exactly that. David Cameron's party has wrapped its Contract for Equalities in the language of individualism and choice to appease Tory sentiment, but the great surprise is that his 16-point manifesto has real teeth. Among other measures, he has committed to:

• Drive positive discrimination in Britain's boardrooms. Half the slate of candidates would have to be female and any company which had a board made up of fewer than 30% women would have to set out what steps it was taking to remedy the situation.


• Introduce legislation requiring any employer who loses an employment tribunal case on grounds of gender pay discrimination to undergo a compulsory pay audit covering the entire company.


• Reduce discrimination against working mothers by ensuring that both fathers and mothers are able to share 12 months of parental leave in whichever way suits them best.


• Extend the right to request flexible working to all parents of children under 18.


• Fund a targeted national enterprise mentoring program for women who want to start a business.

Cameron's commitment on this front has been reinforced by his alliance with the Liberal Democrats, who support a remarkably similar set of goals. In addition to equal pay audits for companies with more than 100 employees, shared 12-month parental leave, and the right to request flexible work, the Lib-Dems also call for name-blind job application forms to stop gender and ethnic discrimination.

The new British government is not alone in its fierce commitment to gender equality. Across Europe, governments seem determined to drive real results on this front. In France, Nicholas Sarkozy is pushing a bill (which is expected to pass) that will force large companies to reserve 40% of their boardroom seats for women. Quotas ensuring a minimum level of female representation in boardrooms were already introduced in Norway in 2003 and in Spain in 2007, and the Netherlands is presently mulling similar legislation. Germany's Angela Merkel recently introduced Parent Pay to incentivize a sharing of childcare responsibilities between women and men. In Germany the private sector has also stepped up to the plate: Deutsche Telekom has established a quota (30% of board seats assigned to women), and Daimler has set the goal of gender parity by 2020.

This isn't just a case of fair play. Gender equality has been proved to have solid economic benefits. Research conducted by both Catalyst and McKinsey & Company (PDF link) demonstrates that companies with significant numbers of women in management have a much higher return on investment than companies that lag on this front. In addition, a study from London Business School (PDF link) shows that when work teams are split 50-50 between men and women, productivity goes up. Gender balance, the research argues, counters groupthink — the tendency of homogenous groups to staunchly defend wrong-headed ideas because everyone in the group thinks the same way.

As Europe struggles to break out of the recession, its governments seem to have finally figured out that helping women break through the glass ceiling is one of the surest routes to economic success.

There are more than a few lessons the Obama administration can take from this. Despite an often-stated commitment to the health and well-being of working women and their families, the agenda of the current administration appears to lack teeth. Where are the quotas, targets and new legislation that drive real change across organizations? Without these actions the administration's statements of support for women will just be hot air.

Last week newspapers in the U.S. trumpeted President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court. If he has his way, a... Sylvia Ann Hewlett