At a November 13, 2014 summit held in the Wood Dining Hall of Lehigh’s Iacocca Hall, executives from Lehigh and 18 other regional companies came together for the first meeting of LINC, Lehigh Valley Inter-Regional Networking & Connecting consortium. LINC is a collaborative effort of regional corporate employers like Lehigh University, Air Products, PPL Electric Utilities, BBraun with those in higher education and other sectors who desire an educated and diverse workforce.
The challenges in recruiting and retaining top talent are well known to any HR professional, but the modern workforce presents additional difficulties. For example, dual career couples create “trailing spouses,” who also seek employment in a new region. Families moving to a new region experience the stress of learning a new community, enrolling in new schools or simply meeting new people.
LINC will be the organization within the Lehigh Valley that provides employers with the unique ability to offer assistance to new recruits or employees and their families. Services, which will be shared by the consortium, will include Pre-Hire Consults, Spouse/Partner Career Support, Employee/Family Assimilation Support and Cultural Transition. The concept for LINC stems from a grant awarded to Lehigh by the National Science Foundation through the Lehigh ADVANCE program to develop regional capacity in dual-career hiring to encourage the hiring of women scientists.
The full report appeared on Lehigh News in December.
Research suggests women may be drawn more to collaborative and interdisciplinary research. Lehigh ADVANCE will shed light on to what extent and how interdisciplinary work is gendered, not only in terms of participation but in terms of outcomes.
