A local startup has partnered with BP to help women, who've taken a break to either start a family or for other personal reasons, re-enter a competitive job market.
The Mom Project, founded in 2016 by Allison Robinson, is a job marketplace that helps connect employers to viable candidates on the platform. She came up with the idea for the startup after taking her own parental leave from her post at Procter & Gamble to raise her son.
“For me, it was something that I thought a lot about personally,” Robinson said. “I had just had my son and was contemplating the next stage in my career and what that would look like."
The Mom Project has clients and users in nearly every major metropolitan marketing, including Atlanta, San Francisco and New York. Right now, there’s about 20,000 users on the platform and the startup employs 10 people. The Mom Project works with corporate partners and colleges to get in front of prospective users. Its latest partnership began in September when it helped BP launch the BP Returnship Program.
“I saw this need to help [women] stay in the workplace by connecting them with more flexible, rewarding work, or help those who have taken some time off to care for family, amongst other things, and help make that transition back much easier,” Robinson said.
Five women in the BP Returnship Program have been holding various mid- to upper-level roles at BP, across departments like sales, marketing, finance and human resources. As part of the program, which ends in March, participants have the opportunity to apply for full-time, permanent roles at the oil company, said Brian Zellner, the co-founder of the program and the U.S. downstream resourcing manager at BP. He is based in Chicago.
“Hopefully they all have a chance to land at BP,” Zellner said. “The program has been a huge success.”
Zellner said BP was interested in partnering with The Mom Project because of their goal to attract more diverse employees. BP aims to make 25 percent of group leaders and 30 percent of senior levels leaders at the company women by 2020. So far, BP is on track to hit that goal. The company also has plans to launch a second Returnship Program later this year, Zellner said, adding that it’s not just for women. Men are also encouraged to apply.
“We recognize that both genders take career breaks, for a variety of reasons,” Zellner said. “There’s probably more women that take breaks because of things like maternity leave, but we absolutely acknowledge that men do, [too].”
