More than two years after the start of the pandemic and the devastating economic impacts and job losses that followed, the United States unemployment rate has dropped dramatically, to 3.5% in July 2022, the lowest since February 2020. However, the participation rate has not recovered in one very important segment of the workforce: women – particularly women in professional careers.
According to a report published this month by the National Women’s Law Center, men have recovered jobs lost during the pandemic (and gained 132,000 more) while women still face a shortfall of 100,000 jobs. And as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most of the job gains by women are in low-wage, high-turnover roles in hospitality and retail. This means even the women who are employed are often not earning a living wage, and lack job security and career growth.
Women’s challenges in the workforce are nothing new. Women’s workforce participation rates stalled back in the early 90s and have not grown since due to both cultural and systemic reasons: a lack of paid family leave, poor childcare options, the persistent wage gap between men and women for the same work, expectations that women should do the lion’s share of caregiver responsibilities, and the perennial bias that women’s careers are simply not as valued or important as much as men’s.
Solving this workforce crisis will require significant and wide-reaching strategies and programs that support women of all cultures, backgrounds, and career stages. Many companies and business leaders are tackling this issue. One of these companies is a new venture called Superbloom Fellows, run by Superbloom Studios. Superbloom Studios is a consulting partnership focused on inclusivity, founded by three partners – Dr. Raji Baskaran, Aruna Seshadri and Vani Mattern – all graduates of IIT Madras, an engineering school in India. Superbloom is launching a Fellows program designed to support mid-career women – those who have made headway in their professions but are at risk of leaving because of both personal (questioning priorities, having children) and professional reasons (glass ceilings, burnout due to having to perform better than men to be seen as equals).
I spoke with Dr. Raji Baskaran about the Superbloom Fellows program and what it hopes to accomplish.
Williams-Vaden: What is Superbloom Fellows, and what can participants expect from it?
Baskaran: Superbloom Fellows is a partnership between Superbloom Studios and TED Speaker and renowned organizational behaviorial researcher Dr. Ramya Ranganathan.
This program has been crafted especially for ambitious women who know that they have every right to dream and aspire big. It is geared toward women who would like to align all their faculties – heart, conscious mind, subconscious mind, and behavioral patterns – to make big and bold strides towards their dreams.
This one-year program is a blend of lessons, coaching sessions, self-reflection activities, prototyping challenges, guest lectures, mentoring circles, and peer support that has been designed to create transformational changes inside and out.
Williams-Vaden: Why are you focusing on mid-career women for this first cohort?
Baskaran: For this program we are particularly interested in a cohort with professional experience between 10-15 years (what one would say mid-career). Upon reviewing various datasets and based on lived experience of the partners, we concluded that women in early stages (up to 10 years), mid-career (10-15 years with breaks), or later stages (15+ years) have distinctly different needs. We generally see more support from organizations at the early stages. But once women reach a senior level in the organization, they mostly forge ahead without systemic support.
We call these women who have succeeded in an unsupportive organizational culture the wall flowers – women who thrive despite systemic challenges like a blooming flower in a concrete jungle. We believe that one of the reasons many diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have failed to make significant impacts over the past decades is because of the attitude that if there are a few wall flowers blooming, i.e. a few successful women, then there must be NO systemic barriers. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
We observed that women with between 10-15 years of experience sometimes either take a break or slow down career growth to focus more on their children. Other women are perceived as slowing down at this stage even if they remain focused on their careers. This dynamic presents both internal and external challenges for women. We want to support and nurture the ambitions of women through this career stage in the Superbloom Fellows program.
Williams-Vaden: How is your approach different from other executive coaching programs?
Baskaran: There are 3 specific ways the Superbloom Fellows program is different from many other offerings:
- It is a yearlong virtual and live cohort-based learning for mid-career women professionals designed after decades of pedagogical research by one of the top 15 innovators in higher education.
- It is designed to be international and span various business verticals to include women from diverse backgrounds while accentuating their similar challenges.
- The 3-5-person accountability pods dramatically increase the effectiveness of the program.
Also, tuition for this first cohort is only $2,500 per participant. This is more affordable than many executive coaching programs currently available and is designed to make it accessible to more women.
Williams-Vaden: What kinds of outcomes can participants expect?
Baskaran: As we see it, Superblooming your career is 60% inner work and 40% outer work, and the design of this program reflects that principle.
Our goal is for participants who go through this program to feel more empowered to:
- Share divergent opinions and unique ideas confidently
- Deal masterfully with criticism and judgment
- Ask questions boldly and give honest feedback
- Communicate, influence, and engage in difficult conversations
- Use their power of purpose to overcome their inner (and outer) critiques
- Lead from a place of authentic strength-based self-image
- Build inner and outer skills and networks to champion their dreams and visions with resilience
Williams-Vaden: What is the time commitment?
Baskaran: There are two phases in the program: Foundation (6 months) and Flourishing (5 months). Throughout the program, women participate in 90-minute cohort-wide live sessions once every two weeks. The sessions are recorded for viewing by those with occasional conflicts. The program also contains offline readings and trainings as well as small pod sessions.
Williams-Vaden: Where do you see this program going in the future?
Baskaran: We plan to make the Superbloom Fellows an annual cohort-based program for mid-career women. We are open to designing customized versions for specific industries – for instance, the chip industry, which has unique talent challenges. We already offer programs tailored to individual companies, but we believe that women’s empowerment or leadership programs within one organization are only effective with active support, participation and sponsorship of male leadership (and other dominant groups within that organization) in the journey of cultural transformation.
We are planning what we are calling a Superbloom unconference, a participant-driven Superbloom gathering for senior leaders in a semi-structured environment that allows them to build an authentic network of supporters, including men, women, and non-binary people. More details will be released by October 2022.
Williams-Vaden: What is the deadline to apply, and where can companies and applicants find more information?
Baskaran: The deadline to nominate a candidate or apply is August 31, 2022. We encourage potential applicants to watch this short video from Dr. Ramya and see if it resonates. If it does, the best place to learn more about the program is the Superbloom Fellows website, which outlines the program content and includes a schedule of sessions, a list of topics, and fundamental pillars of learning and change.
Please also check out the FAQ page. I also encourage anyone interested in the program to contact me with any questions at info@superbloomfellows.com.
Michelle Williams-Vaden is deputy director of the SEMI Foundation.