Latest / The Diversity Career Podcast with Fexingo: Inclusion, Equity, and Underrepresented Professionals / How One Firm Made Its Return-to-Work Program a Second Chance Pipeline
Transcript
- Lucas: So there is this one big professional services firm — I am not going to name them because they asked their program not be publicly attributed, but it is a household name in consulting — and they noticed something a few years back. Luna: What did they notice? Lucas: They had a steady flow of applicants who were incredibly qualified on paper — Ivy League degrees, ten-plus years of experience at brand-name companies — but they had a gap. A resume gap of two years, sometimes five. And the recruiters were just trashing those résumés automatically. Luna: The classic 'you left the workforce, so you must be rusty' bias. Lucas: Exactly. And the firm realized they were losing a whole pool of talent — mostly women, but also men who had taken time off for caregiving, for health reasons, for a failed startup. So they decided to build a formal return to work program. Not a pilot, not a PR stunt — a real pipeline with a budget and a director. Luna: What did the program actually look like? Because a lot of companies have 'returnships' that are basically unpaid trial periods. Lucas: Right, and that is the key difference here. This one is a paid twelve-week engagement. Participants are hired as temporary employees at a competitive salary — think mid-level consultant pay — and they are placed on actual client projects, not busywork. Each person gets a dedicated coach who is a senior manager in the firm, not an HR generalist. Luna: So the coach is someone who actually understands the work and can advocate for them. Lucas: Exactly. And there is a deliberate structure: the first two weeks are a 're-onboarding' boot camp. It covers not just technical refreshers but also things like how the firm's internal tools have changed, how the culture has shifted, and — this is the part I love — a module on 'owning your narrative,' meaning how to talk about your career break in a job interview without apologizing. Luna: That is huge. Because the biggest hurdle after a break is often the candidate's own anxiety about the gap, not the actual skills. Lucas: Right. And the firm found that when participants owned that narrative, their confidence went up measurably. They tracked it via pre- and post-program surveys. Confidence scores jumped by 40 percent on average. Luna: What about the conversion rate? How many of these twelve-week stints turned into permanent jobs? Lucas: Over the first three cohorts, the firm reported a 78 percent conversion rate to full-time roles. And here is the striking number: those converted hires had a 15 percent higher one-year retention rate than the firm's typical experienced hire from a competitor. Luna: Fifteen percent higher retention. That is a huge argument for the program being more than just a feel-good initiative. Lucas: Yeah. And the firm did an internal cost-benefit analysis. The cost of the program per participant — including the salary, coaching, and boot camp — was about $18,000. The estimated cost of replacing a mid-level consultant who leaves within a year is around $40,000 when you factor in recruiting, lost productivity, and training. So even if only half the participants stay, the program pays for itself. Luna: That math should make any CFO listen. But I wonder about scaling. Can you keep that level of support when you go from twenty participants to two hundred? Lucas: That is the million-dollar question. The firm has been cautious — they have grown from an initial cohort of 12 to about 60 participants this year. They deliberately kept it small to maintain the coach to participant ratio of one to four. They said that is the maximum for the coaching to be effective, because the coach is doing real advocacy, not just checking in once a month. Luna: So the bottleneck is actually the supply of senior people willing to coach? Lucas: Exactly. And the firm had to create an incentive for senior managers to take on that role. They made coaching in the return to work program a criterion for promotion to partner. Not the only criterion, but it counts. That sent a signal that the firm was serious about it. Luna: That is a smart structural move. It ties the program to the firm's own career ladder. Lucas: Right. And they also addressed the stigma internally. They held a town hall where senior leaders — including the CEO — shared their own career breaks. One partner talked about leaving for two years to care for a parent with dementia. Another talked about a sabbatical after burnout. It normalized the gap. Luna: That leadership modeling is everything. Because if the CEO says 'I had a gap and it made me better,' then the middle managers stop filtering out résumés with gaps. Lucas: And the data backs that up. The firm tracked the number of résumés with a gap of more than one year that made it past the initial screen. Before the program, it was around 5 percent. After the town hall and the program launch, it jumped to 22 percent — even for candidates who were not part of the program. Luna: So the program changed the culture for everyone, not just the participants. That is the kind of ripple effect you hope for. Lucas: Yeah. And they are now experimenting with expanding the model to include people who took breaks for reasons other than caregiving — like a failed entrepreneurial venture, or a long-term health issue. And they are looking at whether the same structure works for folks returning from incarceration, though that is still early stage. Luna: That would be a whole other level of destigmatization. I hope they share the results publicly. Lucas: Me too. And I think the lesson for other employers is that a return to work program is not just about the twelve-week placement. It is about redesigning the system around hiring — the screening, the interviewing, the onboarding, the coaching — to actually value the resilience and perspective that a career break can bring. Luna: It is a long-term investment in culture, not just a quick fix for a diversity number. Lucas: Exactly. And that brings me to something else I wanted to mention. If today's episode helped you think about your own career path — or if you are an employer thinking about building a program like this — and you found value in it, there is a small way you can support the show. Luna: Yeah, it is a simple thing. We keep the podcast ad-free, and listener support is what makes that possible. If today was worth a coffee to you, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: And even a one-time contribution helps us keep digging into programs like this and sharing the specifics. So thank you to anyone who does. Now, back to the data — I think one more number is worth highlighting. Luna: Which one? Lucas: The firm also tracked the performance ratings of the return to work hires after one year. They compared them to a matched sample of traditional hires — same level, same type of project. The return to work cohort actually scored slightly higher on client satisfaction ratings. Luna: That is fascinating. Why do you think? Lucas: The hypothesis is that people who have been away from the workforce bring a kind of hunger and perspective. They are not taking the opportunity for granted. They also tend to be more empathetic with clients, because many of them have been through a major life transition themselves. Luna: So the gap becomes an asset, not a liability. Lucas: Exactly. And that is the real takeaway. The best programs don't just accommodate a career break — they recognize it as a source of strength. And they build systems to unlock it.