Abstract
Reorganization of the Employment Service Delivery System for Career-Interrupted Women: Focus on Preventing Career Interruption
Eun-Jin Oh
Sung-Jung Park
Hee-Young Jang
1. Research objectives
□ This study was conducted to achieve the following three objectives. First, it aims to propose the policy by identifying what services have been offered to career-interrupted women in communities. Specifically put, the following four services are included: 1) career interruption prevention services; 2) services for women whose career has been recently interrupted; 3) services for helping career-interrupted women quickly get reemployed; 4) services for supporting women with a high risk of career interruptions to return to work. Second, this paper is designed to develop specific services that Reemployment Support Centers for Women (RSCWs) should provide to prevent women’s career interruptions. The third and final objective is to newly present the functions and roles of RSCWs as comprehensive service agencies for preventing career interruptions and promoting continued career development. With these objectives in mind, we also tried to identify the probability of replacements in communities to support career-interrupted women to quickly return to work, presenting the validity of the scheme via interviews with related businesses.
2. Career interruption prevention systems and their future improvements
1) Activate a business support scheme for a wider use of the systems
A) Create jobs in communities in connection with child care and maternity leaves
□ Job openings in communities that have been created due to leaves of absences including maternity leaves should be actively found to enable them to be used for replacements. Such campaigns and endeavors need to be launched at the pan-governmental level. To this end, an incentive system should be activated, in which companies are encouraged to publicize newly available jobs via employment service centers in communities and to actively hire replacements.
- First, the incentive system should be designed to enable businesses to be given substantial financial subsidies. For example, companies that inform employment service centers of leaves of absences and ask for help can benefit from HR-related consultation services for free and preferentially employ distinguished substitutes. Second, the replacement subsidy system can be revised to enable businesses to receive subsidies on a first-come-first-served basis. Third, even though regular workers are hired as substitutes, subsidies need to be paid in case existing employees return to work.
B) Connect a consultation service system for existing jobs
□ Tasks that existing employees once handled should be specified and divided into detailed processes in order to help replacements effectively fulfill their duties and to lessen the workload that existing workers should bear. Against this backdrop, specific consultation services should be provided to companies by classifying such tasks into existing and unexpected duties. Consultation service providers should establish a system where necessary services can be offered in cooperation with employment centers, especially relying on labor associations and employment consultation service agencies.
2) Structuralize a career interruption prevention system for women
A) Discover women vulnerable to career interruptions and specify personal history information
□ At the stage of discovering women with a high risk of career interruptions, it is necessary to seek ways to use the administration DB for policy projects. In reality, it is very difficult to randomly select women who are exposed to career interruptions. Women with a high risk of career interruptions can be specified by checking women substantially vulnerable to career interruptions, who can be granted maternity or child care leaves. Also, target women can be proactively identified by using Big Data (unemployment insurance DB and child care support DB).
B) Reorganize systems for operating reemployment programs
□ Even though they are about to be on a leave of absence, women should have more opportunities to receive various information on their businesses. At the same time, they need to search for child care facilities in communities, where they will place their children while they are on a year's leave of absence. Personal service-based information operation systems should be set up in communities, which can receive all such information and provide related feedback. Reemployment Support Centers for Women (RSCWs) in communities should actively offer such services in order to facilitate women’s career development, rather than to promote work-life balance.
3) Support career-interrupted women to be quickly reemployed
□ In order to minimize the period of career interruptions, a variety of career-related data and job opening information should be provided at the initial stage of career interruptions. Before their job capabilities weaken, women should be supported to be reemployed. If necessary, related systems should be activated in order to enable women to receive career-related information such as training and counseling services as quickly as possible. Also, career coaching should be planned on a case by case basis. Life cycle-based career designing services should be comprehensively offered to secure talented women at the initial stage and to prevent their career from being interrupted.
4) Identify the service delivery system
□ The main service delivery system for this research study refers to ‘Reemployment Support Centers for Women,’ (RSCWs) which is a key career development agency for women with 150 service delivery networks across the nation. By adding content to RSCWs’ current projects, we aim to expand the functions of RSCWs including projects to prevent women’s career interruptions.
- More specifically, women are classified as follows: 1) women with a high risk of career interruptions out of female employees who are pregnant or have given birth to a baby or should take care of their children; 2) women whose career has been recently interrupted; 3) women whose career has been interrupted for a long time. The main aim thereof is to segment service recipients into ‘short-term,’ ‘mid-term,’ and ‘long-term,’ in terms of the duration of career interruptions in order to provide customized services to each group and to enhance the effectiveness of such services. In particular, this classification system is designed to choose and specially manage ‘high risk groups who have been overlooked.’
- Also, women whose career has been interrupted for three years or longer are supposed to benefit from a full service package including employment/group counseling, vocational training, job placement, and follow-up management that have been individually offered depending on circumstances facing users, as well as existing employment support services.
□ RSCW service recipients and its service structure will be reorganized to offer career development services for female employees, which have not yet been delivered. To this end, ‘return-to-work’ program-related services will be more expansively provided.
- First, women with a high risk of career interruptions will be provided with ‘return-to-work’ program services in order to help them acquire company information and identify business trends. Considering that they are highly exposed to the risk of career interruptions after taking a child care leave, a ‘women’s self-awareness improvement program will be offered to help such women continue to maintain and further develop their career. Second, child care support services will also be delivered, sharing ‘working mom working daddy’ program information with them and providing customized services.
- Women whose career has been recently interrupted will receive two more benefits, as well as the aforementioned two services. First, female employees’ individual capabilities will be reinforced, expanding personalized services. At the same time, life cycle-based career development mapping services are offered to quickly prevent female employees from suffering from long-term career interruptions. By doing so, customized services for female employees as an individual can be provided, which can not only strengthen women’s job capabilities but also help them resolve conflicts at the workplace. Second, customized job placement services will be further reinforced to improve the existing system. To this end, a diversity of jobs will be effectively discovered via a flexible working hour system or replacement scheme, systematically designing duties for such jobs and matching them to short-term or part-time jobs for women whose career has been recently interrupted. As a result, even though they are short-term jobs, career-interrupted women can have opportunities to continue to work while companies can effectively employ workers who are customized for such short-term positions. The service delivery system should further expand to improve the effectiveness of such a job placement system, to build a related database, and thereby to strengthen the roles of RSCWs in terms of employment services.