IBM Canada Ltd. – Progressive Employers of Canada List

Introduction:
IBM has a long history of commitment to diversity. It began in the mid-20th century, grounded in Equal Opportunity legislation and compliance. Moving forward with a focus on eliminating barriers and understanding specifics, IBM continues to keep our women’s constituency in the spotlight. As they face challenging life choices and decisions throughout their careers, motherhood is a topic that raises questions and discussion for women who have children as well as those considering parenthood. IBM has adapted our workplace to allow for flexibility and the focus on work/life integration enables our working moms to fulfill their commitments to family while excelling in achieving their professional goals.

Career Development:
Through a series of global web seminars, teleconferences, newsletters and town hall events women have benefited from technical and business skills development, career counseling, mentoring and resources to manage work/life integration. Examples include “Taking the StageTM”, a successful program to help IBM women gain a leadership presence, and Mindset workshops, which explore perceptions and create awareness of the differing experiences of men and women in IBM. These services ensure that women’s careers continue to grow along with their families.
In order to facilitate networking, mentoring, and skill development between female professionals, IBM has created more than 40 Women’s Councils globally with each catering to specific objectives. One such council, the Canadian Women Leadership Council’s (CWLC) vision was to achieve proportional representation across all levels by enhancing the technical, professional and personal development of women in IBM Canada. In addition, the Women’s IBM Networking Group (WING) is one of the 9 Diversity Network Groups within IBM Canada and the only one specifically catering to women’s needs. Its goal is to enhance the development and advancement of IBM women through regular networking, mentoring and learning opportunities, skills transfer and sharing of knowledge. WING’s main purpose is to provide a sense of community for all women, as well as a set of enablement tools to collaborate, network and grow skills to further enable our success.
IBM Canada Ltd.

Life balance and coaching:
IBM offers a variety of resources that help employees balance their personal life and work. By providing ample opportunities through networking groups, mentoring programs and initiatives that are designed to bring together mothers within IBM, their specific needs can be properly addressed through the force of their unified concerns. The use of internal social networking tools (Beehive), blogs, forums as well as Women’s Councils allow women from across the company to come together and share their experiences and work towards solutions.
Other initiatives are intended to help support employees who have child and/or elder care responsibilities by offering unique quality enhancement opportunities for both, employees and their dependents.

The Global Work/Life Fund (GWLF) is a multi-year, $50 million fund designed to address strategic work/life challenges for IBM employees worldwide, focusing on dependent care.

IBM created the Global Work/Life Fund to develop and support dependent care programs benefiting working families. The first of its kind to address this issue worldwide, the IBM Global Work/Life Fund:
• Serves communities where IBMers live and work
• Supports research in dependent care topics such as family-friendly policies
• Invests in national initiatives to improve the quality of dependent care
• Invests in more than 150 child care centers throughout the world where IBMers receive priority

In Canada, the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) offered through Shepell-FGI, provides confidential help via phone and e-mail 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Dependent Care Consultants provide one-on-one consultation that offers relevant information, resource referrals and educational materials. The Consultants assess, identify and locate care-giving services to suit individual needs. They research provider locations, current availability, fees, and provide options on topics such as
• Parenting classes
• Daycare centers and after-school programs
• Schools, educational services and special needs programs
• Adoption and multiple birth services
• Emergency home care services
• Caregiver support groups
• Rehabilitation and home support programs
• Outreach and transportation services

Flex-Time , Job sharing & Part time positions:One of the key reasons people choose to work for IBM is its commitment to workplace flexibility. More than 40 percent of IBM’s global workforce works in non-traditional work environments such as a home office or a client site. In Canada, flexible work options were introduced in 1993. They remove the rigidity between employees work and home lives and allow for better balancing of two worlds without priority being denied to one or the other. This flexibility is designed to help allow moms within IBM to manage their commitments to their families as well as their careers. IBM’s Flexible Work arrangements avoid strict and continuous schedules, allow employees to work outside IBM locations, and enable them to meet responsibilities in all areas of life. Programs that facilitate this balance are:
• Individual Work Schedule
• Workplace Flexibility (Mobility)
• Flexweek
• Home Connectivity
• Leave Programs
o Pregnancy
o Parental
o Personal
o Educational
o Military Peace Time Training
o Opportunity Leave of Absence
o Compassionate Care

• Flexible Summer Workweek
IBM continues to offer innovative policies and benefits that help our employees manage their work and family responsibilities.
Re-entry After Maternity Leave: Though IBM does not have a specific program targeted for the re-entry of moms, the company works hard to accommodate all employees returning from a personal leave of absence. Additionally, IBM management is urged to maintain regular contact with each employee on a Leave of Absence to ensure easy transition back to the workforce.

Lactation rooms/Concierge services:
There are various locations in North America which provide a Lactation Space Directory. This Directory contains a list of locations that nursing mothers may use — and includes dedicated lactation rooms, as well as multipurpose rooms with priority access for nursing mothers. IBM locations without designated rooms accommodate all employee requests for space on an as-needed basis. In all instances –whether locations with or without designated space – IBM ensures that these locations are ready before the return of nursing mothers. Nursing mothers are also provided use of flex time or other arrangements which allows for sufficient time to express milk during working hours.

Onsite Daycare:
While IBM recognizes the importance of allowing flexibility in the lives of its employees, it is also sensitive to the needs of those who must work from IBM facilities. In order to ease the pressure of finding daycare centers for children, every effort is made to provide convenient access to daycare facilities to employees as close to company locations as possible. Leading this measure is the availability of onsite facilities through IBM’s partnership with various local organizations across Canada. These daycare centers remove the hassle of finding reputable, safe and accessible places to leave children while parents are at work by providing them for employees. Shepell-FGI also provides additional child care support for locations without onsite daycare by compiling listings of daycare centers and afterschool programs. Additional support during Spring Break and summer through camps are also provided to IBM employees.

Maternity and Parental leave top-up:
To make the experience easy and transition pleasant for the mothers to be, IBM has a Maternity Supplementary Benefit Plan in place which applies to regular or regular part-time employees on a Pregnancy LOA. The IBM top-up plan does not apply to employees on paternity/ parental leaves of absence.

For all Provinces except Quebec, IBM employees are eligible to receive 95% of their salary. For the two-week EI waiting period, IBM will provide 95% of regular salary (for an RPT (Regular Part Time), the salary is based on the RPT salary) and for the next four weeks, IBM will provide the difference between EI benefits and 95% of regular salary (for an RPT, the salary is based on the RPT salary). Employee Payments (Payroll) processes the 6 week salary top-up and forwards one cheque to the employee’s home at the time the employee begins the Pregnancy LOA and at the time the Record of Employment (ROE) is mailed. For incentive compensation employees, the Maternity Supplementary Benefit is based on 100% salary equivalent
For Quebec employees, IBM Maternity Supplementary benefit will be provided in accordance with the QPIP plan selected by the employee (Basic or Special).
All employees are offered these resources through EAP and referral provider, which offers educational materials, seminars and moderated chats for this population of employees.

Health benefits:
IBM’s commitment to work/life balance would not be complete without maintaining the physical and mental health of employees and their families. Initiatives such as the Global Well-Being Services (GWBS) allow a comprehensive list of services within IBM as well as support from affiliates across Canada. These services range from Disability Management, Medical Counseling, and the reimbursement of eligible courses in many categories that support employees and help to improve their health and personal lives. These courses can range from:
• CPR
• Driver Improvement
• Water Safety
• Lifestyle Management
• Financial Planning
• Smoking Cessation
• Stress Management
• Weight Management
• Nutrition

Furthermore, IBM’s Flex Credits program rewards employees who actively take part in their physical health through rewards that go towards their medical insurance and supplemental health coverage. By working in conjunction with their physicians, employees who record and log hours spent doing physical activity can offset the cost of their coverage simply by keeping fit. While the marathon days that moms work do not count towards this program, by engaging themselves and their family within this program, it insures the well being of all members within the IBM family.

Summary: IBM’s dedication to attracting and retaining its women employees is undiminished. Through the many programs, initiatives, and benefits described above, IBM offers flexibility, supportive leadership, and innovative programs that recognize the dynamic needs of working mothers. We believe these key programs provide a foundation for our women and our ultimate measurement is for women employees, particularly working mothers, to aspire to both an executive life and a family. Our goal is to be the premier global employer for women — particularly working mothers.