Best Programmers for Women in Cable
It’s not surprising that a company with a strong roster of female leadership landed on the Best Programmers’ list, but the specifics of Lifetime’s accomplishments are anything but predictable. In the last year, Lifetime has expanded its efforts to create a pipeline from college to career for all women and developed new best practices recruit and retain women of color, achieving exceptional results especially among the Latina community, which historically has been one of the cable industry’s biggest challenges.
One of Lifetime’s winning strategies is a commitment to reaching out to diverse organizations to identify potential interns and entry-level employees. By sponsoring activities and developing relationships with groups such as the National Hispana Leadership Institute (NHLI) and Nueva Vida, Lifetime’s involvement goes beyond writing a check. Current employees are encouraged to attend these group’s events and activities to meet and mentor other women of similar backgrounds and interests. These tactics have offered mid-career employees a growth opportunity and enabled Lifetime to recognize and hire more future leaders from many diverse communities and with targeted areas of expertise, including the Latina community and women in the technology field.
In addition, Lifetime has created a new policy of paid-time off days, in which all vacation and sick leave is pooled into one larger block, providing much greater flexibility for employees to use days to volunteer and give back in their communities.