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But as the kids get older and the cost of college tuition looms closer, more of those stay-at-home parents are considering a return to the workforce. Flexforce Professionals, a Fairfax-based staffing firm that specializes in matching experienced professionals seeking part-time work with companies that can offer flexible schedules, is seeing more of their candidates coming from Loudoun.

“We’ve come to realize in the last year that what we’ve been seeing is more and more women and some stay-at-home parents in Loudoun applying and sending us their resumes” Ellen Grealish of Flexforce said. She and her two partners formed the company three years ago after confronting the lack of options that were available to highly educated, highly experienced professional women seeking meaningful, part-time work, she said.

With her partners Sheila Murphy and Gwenn Rosener, the trio has graduate degrees from Oxford, Virginia Tech and Harvard Business School, as well as experience working with government agencies and Fortune 500 companies such as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; the U.S. Agency for International Development; Accenture; Ernst & Young; General Electric; and Sara Lee.

“We saw a serious lack of opportunity for professional business women who wanted to re-enter the workforce after taking time off to raise a family and do so in such a way that would allow them the flexibility to be home at a certain time. Similarly, we saw a lack of opportunity for women working full-time who wanted to scale back from the 40 or even 50 hour work week and find challenging roles that would allow them to be home when their children get off the bus,” Grealish said.

After reaching out to their community network in schools, churches and volunteer groups, they realized two things. “First, there are not hundreds but thousands of highly educated, experienced and skilled women in this area, all whom would love the opportunity to work in a flexible part-time role. In fact, over the last two and a half years we have had almost 3,000 (and growing) people register with us (i.e. ‘candidates’). They all have a minimum of 10 years professional experience with a college degree. Many have advanced degrees including MBAs, JDs, CPAs, etc.,” Grealish said.

“The second thing we noticed and probably more poignant, is that almost all of these women view flexibility as part of their overall compensation package. They do not need benefits, and they are willing to exchange a certain level of compensation for the flexibility to be home when they need to,” she added.

On the flip side, they also discovered that companies were open to the business model. “These businesses soon realized that if they opened themselves up to a flexible work model they would now have access to a whole new talent pool that they might not otherwise be able to afford, given our candidates’ education and experience, or find. I say ‘find’ because the majority of our candidates are not going through traditional channels like CraigsList, JobBoards, Monster, etc… Why? Because they tell us that these are not good channels in which to find meaningful part-time work,” Grealish said.

After realizing that some of the 400 percent growth they experienced last year was in part coming from candidates out of Loudoun, they have hired someone to focus on the county develop the market here.

Among their success stories is Ashburn-based IT Cadre, which has hired several candidates sent to them by Flexforce. CEO Mark Madigan credits what he calls his “smart mom” approach to staffing for the success and growth of his 11-year-old technology solutions firm, which currently employs 60 people.

“When you grow a company you don’t always need a full person to do things but you need everything that the largest companies need to do.  I should say you would like it, but you probably can’t afford it. So the value proposition is that we get these really talented people we really only need to start half-time, and they’re able to provide us a level of experience and maturity and talent that we wouldn’t otherwise get. For the cost of somebody at half-time we’d probably pay an entry-level junior person full-time but they’re learning on the job, you don’t have the benefit of years of expertise,” Madigan said.

He’s used Flexforce to staff positions in various departments, including business development to marketing to finance to engineering.  “We’ve been literally able to bring people into the company maybe two or three years earlier than we otherwise could have because we hadn’t grown to the point where we could necessarily afford a full-time person,”

One of his early Flexforce staffers, Linda Murphy, started in 2010 working 20 hours as manager of business development and has since been promoted to a full-time position as director of business development.  Murphy, who has a degree in business administration and marketing and has worked for Compuserve and other technology firms, returned to the workforce after 12 years staying home to raise her three daughters, whose ages range from 13 to 19.

Although she worried that her former network of contacts in the federal government was outdated, she found that many were still around and that in fact, many had been promoted in the 12 years she was out of the industry. “I reconnected with a lot of people who were higher up in the organization. It’s worked out far better than I ever imagined,” Murphy said.

“I had my trepidations about going back. What’s funny is that even though a lot has changed, a lot is still the same. Companies still like committed workers who do what they say they are going to do and will contribute to the business. Not as much has changed as I thought,” she added.

For other women who are considering the same leap back into the workforce, she encourages them to go for it. “lf you feel like you’ve been out too long, it hits your confidence that you haven’t been in the workplace. But I would say to take a leap of faith and jump in because you have a lot to offer and you can come up to speed much faster than you think and you can be productive quickly. I was out 12 years and within six months I would say I was feeling pretty comfortable. You’re much more valuable than you think, especially to small businesses. They need help and they might be not be able to afford a full time person. Small businesses are great place to get your feet back in.”

Link to Article:  More Loudoun Women Seeking to Return to the Workforce

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Women face unique challenges in the workforce when they become a mother to their first or to their third child. Whether you work full- or part-time, or stay home with your children — we can all anticipate the bumps in the road of juggling a current or future job, a family, a home and more. Luckily, us moms have Sheila Murphy, mom of 3, who not only knows all about those challenges first-hand — but co-created  Flexforce Professionals whose target audience is stay-at-home moms looking to re-enter the workforce and current full-time working moms who want to work part-time.

Sheila, mom to 12-year-old Patrick, 10-year-old Kevin, and 7-year-old Maeve has participated in a wide-range of working scenarios. She worked full-time with her first, then 30-hours a week with her second and then to better support her family and husband’s career, stayed home with her third. After being home full-time for 2 years with 3 children Sheila suddenly became a widow. Within a few years of this unexpected change in her and her children’s lives, Sheila, one of three partners, all mothers and experienced business women, co-created Flexforce Professionals.

Sheila, who admits to a type-A personality (join the club!), wanted to create a business where she could work part-time. Understanding the needs of other mothers, she was able to partner with 2 amazing women — Ellen Grealish and Gwenn Rosener to create a staffing company who understands the need for and value of part-time professional employment. Per Flexforce Professional “over 62% of working mothers feel part-time is the ideal work situation for their families and them, yet only 25% have part-time jobs.” They believe this imbalance is largely due to lack of part-time opportunity in the business world.  Flexforce is working to reduce this gap by finding and filling more quality part-time positions in the workplace. The economy enthusiastically agrees — Flexforce experienced 400% (!!) growth in revenues in 2011!

Read the rest of the article: Link to DullesMoms.com article

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Flexforce Professionals pairs experienced professional women with local companies.
By Donna Manz

If it weren’t for three highly-educated, resourceful local moms who wanted to be home when the school bus arrived, there would, probably, be no “Flexforce Professionals” today. And that would be too bad, because Flexforce serves the kind of purpose that like-minded mothers and small businesses profit from. And it’s like no other staffing resource in the area.

Flexforce Professionals, LLC, partners experienced professionals seeking fulfilling part-time employment with local businesses who have part-time, flexible, or project-based needs. The “candidates,” as the staffers are called, are primarily well-educated “moms” re-entering the job force. Flexforce serves the Washington, D.C. area.

“Our candidates have professional backgrounds, with 10 or more years of experience and expertise in their fields,” said Flexforce co-owner Ellen Grealish. “At the same time, we get to help small businesses find talented, experienced resources that they might not be able to afford otherwise.”

Flexforce Professionals principals Ellen Grealish, Gwenn Rosener and Sheila Murphy are walking billboards for their rapidly-growing company. Each has sterling professional credentials and a desire to work around family needs. Rosener, of McLean, holds a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering and operations research and a Master’s of Science in Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech, as well as an MBA from Harvard Business School. Grealish, Herndon, and Murphy, of Vienna, both graduated from Boston College. Grealish graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics, and Murphy with a Bachelor’s in political science.

Grealish worked for more than 12 years in strategic sales, marketing, consulting, and project management, in the U.S. and abroad. She studied economics and history at Oxford University in the U.K.

For more than 12 years, as well, Murphy worked as a domestic and international management consultant, mostly with government or nonprofit agencies. She spent two years in Peru as a social worker for the Center for the Working Child.

Rosener focused on strategy development, merger integration and business process reengineering for more than 15 years. She has worked for Ernst & Young’s management consulting practice, General Electric, and Sara Lee, and was on the board of the YWCA of San Pedro, Calif., for five years, serving in a myriad of positions.

Read the rest of the article: link to Connection Newspaper Article

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Kerry Hannon, Contributor

Today was the day. I put away the last vestige of the ho, ho, ho season—the festive bowl of holiday cards with pictures of smiling kids and pets, along with the occasional annual letters detailing whirlwind lives.

As I was taking a final gander, one caught my eye. It was sent by Gwenn Rosener. Gwenn is a woman I interviewed last year about her firmFlexforce Professionals, a recruiting and staffing company in theWashington, D.C., area that focuses on helping professionals, including retirees who want to continue working, find part-time work with competitive pay.

Gwenn, once an Ernst & Young senior manager, who holds a Harvard MBA in her back pocket, and her partners Sheila Murphy and Ellen Grealish all have executive-level management and consulting backgrounds. Grealish worked at Hewlett-Packardand Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), and Murphy held consulting posts, mostly with government clients, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

They started their business in 2010, and reeled in revenues of $140,000 with a profit of $47,000 that first year, placing CFOs, HR managers, business development and proposal writers, web designers, analysts, bookkeepers and office managers–all in part-time or temporary jobs.

Read the rest of the article: link to Forbes.com Article

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It takes one to know one. For 47-year-old Gwenn Rosener, it took not being able to land a part-time job for her to figure out the crying need for a company that could help people like her find work.

In 2001, Rosener pulled in $160,000 a year as an Ernst & Young senior manager with a Harvard MBA in her back pocket. She quit to be a stay-at-home mom. “I was traveling constantly to meet with clients, taking my young children on the plane with me, getting babysitters in hotels — all these gymnastics to try to keep everyone going,” she recalls.

Two years ago, though, she decided she was ready to end her hiatus. “I was shocked, somewhat naively,” she says, “to discover that there were no openings for someone like me.”

Her dream job: a hybrid position that put her 15 years of experience and education to good work but also allowed her to be home when her boys, now 13 and 10, got home from school. “I found low-paying entry-level temp-type jobs, full-time opportunities and a smattering of short-term consulting projects,” Rosener says.

Nothing fit the bill. Her angst was in synch with two other fortysomething mothers, Sheila Murphy and Ellen Grealish, who faced a similar dilemma. All three wanted meaningful work but were not in the market for full-time positions. “Work-life balance. That’s what lots of workers are trying to find these days,” Rosener says. “We weren’t alone.”

Read the rest of the article: Link to SecondAct interview

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By Brigid Schulte, Published: May 7, 2011

It started when the baby rolled off and under the bed when she was in the shower getting ready to go to work. It got worse when the nanny couldn’t figure out how to e-mail her a photo of a nasty cut on her toddler son’s chin.

Then, when she was passed over for promotion for the second time because her boss didn’t think she could handle the job and her “family responsibilities,” Jennifer Folsom, an Alexandria consultant with an MBA from Georgetown, had had it. She quit, joining a small but persistent stream of educated, upper-income women who drop out of the workforce when they find they simply can’t have it all when it comes to work and family.

….

Ellen Grealish of Reston, who started Flexforce Professionals with two other working mothers after opting out of the workforce for eight years, said she has seen traditional workplaces embrace flexibility once they’ve seen how these working mothers use it so productively.

Read the rest of the article: link to Washington Post Article

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