Vodafone launches recruitment programme for women on career break

Vodafone has launched world's largest recruitment programme for women who took break in their careers.

The ReConnect programme is designed to attract talented women who have left the workplace for several years (in most cases to raise a family) and who would like to return to work on a full-time or flexible basis but are struggling to make the professional connections needed or refresh the skills required.

The programme will operate across 26 countries with a target of 1,000 ReConnect recruits within three years.

ReConnect will complement other Vodafone global initiatives focused on encouraging and supporting women in the workplace including the Group's groundbreaking global maternity policy announced in March 2015.

The programme will include recruitment outreach activities to make contact with, and raise awareness among, women on career breaks.

Under it, training and induction programmes will be held to refresh and enhance professional skills and help women prepare for re-entry to the workplace.

The Group intends to bring mobile to an additional 50 million women by 2025, overcoming those barriers to achieve significantly positive socio-economic outcomes within what are often relatively remote (and in some cases marginalised) communities.

Economic research commissioned by Vodafone from KPMG indicates that there are an estimated 96 million skilled women aged 30-54 on career breaks worldwide, of whom an estimated 55 million have experience at middle-manager level and above.

The KPMG research also indicates the potential economic benefits associated with bringing back into the workplace all women on a career break with experience at middle manager-level and above. If all such women worldwide were able to secure manager-level employment (and on the assumption that their recruitment did not lead to the displacement of other employees), the associated value of the additional economic activity generated (in terms of Gross Value Added) could be in the region of £151 billion per year and the cumulative financial boost for those women's households, in terms of earnings, could be approximately £419 billion a year.