Before the Naval Air Warfare Center became the base of operations for a local nonprofit’s continued efforts in ending poverty and homelessness, it was a defunct jet engine testing facility. HomeFront’s “Family Preservation Center” has given the former training station, situated in the West Trenton section of Ewing Township, a new purpose.
A similar transformation is happening within the United States Navy, according to the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, whose upcoming free webinar will demonstrate how the branch of the military’s unconventional approach to improving workplace equity can be applied to the corporate business world.
“Lessons from the Navy” is part of the NJ Chamber’s 2022 “Women in the Workplace” series and features special guest Commander Evita Salles, the deputy director for the Office of Women’s Issues, on Thursday, July 28, at 11 a.m.
The webinar takes place via Zoom. For registration and more information, visit the NJ Chamber website.
The moderator for the event is the NJ Chamber’s senior vice president of strategic initiatives, Patricia Teffenhart. Since starting in her position in August of last year, Teffenhart has been a driving force in developing the NJ Chamber’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Under that umbrella, she explains, is “expectedly and appropriately, all of our work around racial and ethnic diversity,” but also gender equity — an issue that Teffenhart has addressed throughout her professional background, starting with her bachelor’s from Douglass College at Rutgers University and master’s in public administration from the Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration.
With a wealth of experiences and positions, Teffenhart has been director of regional programs for the National Latina Health Network, as well as assistant executive director for New Brunswick domestic violence organization Women Aware.
Her nearly eight years as executive director for the New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault (NJCASA) in Lawrenceville brought about major policy changes, with accomplishments including helping to pass the Sexual Assault Survivors Protection Act of 2015 and co-chairing the New Jersey Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault.
“[NJCASA was] really one of the lead statewide and national advocacy organizations talking about the intersection of gender equity and oppression and how they manifest into issues relating to sexual harassment and sexual assault,” Teffenhart says. “I come to this [position] with a great passion for gender equity and creating opportunities for women to have the same opportunities as men.”
Salles, who received her commission in 2008, also shares that same motivation. The upcoming, exclusive conversation is the result of a productive dialogue between her and NJ Chamber’s female staff and board members when the commander was visiting for Trenton Navy Week. From May 2 to 8, members of the Navy came to Trenton to speak with communities, volunteer, and engage, marking the first time the program was ever held in New Jersey.
Teffenhart credited Salles, a native of Neptune, for evolving their discussion of workplace challenges to acknowledge specific ways that the Navy has been “thinking innovatively about advancing the principles of gender equity and creating opportunities for women,” she says.
The Chamber and Salles noticed an “intersection” worth exploring, as the NJ Chamber had launched a workplace culture survey in April tracking qualitative data relating to DEI commitments, particularly their relation into outcomes and actual items. Teffenhart explains that another component questioned how women saw themselves reflected in leadership roles, and “Women in the Workplace” events followed as a result of the findings to date.
“In the hopes that then maybe the corporate world could take some tips,” she continues, NJ Chamber opened up the event for not just their members, but the general public, stressing that the webinar is beneficial regardless of gender because “we all have a role to play in shifting workplace culture.”
Unfortunately, Teffenhart noted, there has been a low number of male-identifying attendees recorded at previous “Women in the Workplace” sessions.
“If we aren’t explicitly clear, I think the default assumption is that this is a space for women, which is also valuable. There are conversations that should be had for women, by women, with women only. But we’ll also be really clear on those other conversations that we’re having, and this is not one [of the latter category], especially because the commander is so engaging,” Teffenhart says.
With its status as a large, bureaucratic institution, if the military is still able to “embark upon some innovative workplace equity strategies,” Teffenhart says, there are valuable “lessons to learn for those of us that have more freedom to think outside the box.”
While she cannot reveal the exact policies before the conversation, their implementation is set to alleviate issues for women in the working in the Navy, which still tends to be viewed as male-dominated and static in nature. The 2020 Demographics Profile of the Military Community by the U.S. Department of Defense reported that of the more than 341,000 active Navy members from that year’s data, 79.6 percent were male.
Teffenhart, who grew up in Burlington County but currently lives in Monmouth County, has served on the board of directors of the Women’s Political Caucus of New Jersey since 2016. She thinks that in terms of transforming the workplace, certain “best practice” principles have greatly affected policy making and even law, such as paid family leave.
“But I also think there are two main points that have driven us to want to lead these conversations — one, the workplace has rapidly changed since COVID entered our daily lives, and we know that women have been disproportionately impacted and their careers have been disproportionately impacted by the caregiving responsibilities that have come out of the impact of COVID,” Teffenhart says, whether that entailed working remotely to care for children learning from home, or when “women of a certain age [became] the sandwich generation — caring for both our parents and our children simultaneously.”
“Workplaces are being called to adapt their policies to create the greatest amount of flexibility, and I think that flexibility really should be driven by having conversations with employees,” she continues. “Employees within a particular workplace know best about what their needs are. When employers open up opportunities for dialogue and listen to their employees, not only can they create responsive policies and strategies, but they’re also then showing their employees that they want to listen and that their voices are important, which then further creates a culture of inclusion, and for employees to feel that they are valued.”
Since 2017’s attention towards Harvey Weinstein and the #MeToo movement, NJ Advance Media journalist Susan K. Livio, often with fellow reporter Kelly Heyboer, have published articles to NJ.com “about the ways sexual harassment, misogyny, and sexual assault were impacting women in government and politics,” Teffenhart says. “Some of the stories highlighted behaviors that were taking place at high profile statewide events where a lot of people in government, politics, and in the business community were networking.”
In response to these stories, Chamber CEO Thomas Bracken sought Teffenhart’s expertise in gender equity issues so that they could adapt event policies to increase the safety for female participants, which she accepted as a partnership.
“I came to really appreciate NJ Chamber’s intentionality around these issues,” she says. “Through that work, and through those conversations, my commitment to helping the chamber be a leader in this space really grew. Now I have the opportunity to do that work on the inside rather than as an external consultant,” Teffenhart says.
The Chamber has planned three more “Women in the Workplace” webinars for 2022, which will focus on women in the areas of manufacturing, healthcare, and finance.
“The goal is to provide our audience with a little bit of a look under the hood to see what other industries are doing to recruit and retain women at work, to see what kind of innovative policies they’re putting in place,” Teffenhart says. “Because there’s no need for us to all reinvent the wheel. If there’s someone who’s doing something that’s working, we see NJ Chamber as playing a role in helping to share that information, amplify the profile of the businesses that are doing these great things, and then hopefully leaving some tips and tricks for our colleagues that may want to do similar things at their place of work.”
Teffenhart looks forward to hearing about the drastically different workplaces in future discussions, as she is curious whether any historical inequities uniquely befall women in those professions.
But in reference to other historic events, the pandemic has played a big part in shifting the culture and environment throughout all occupations.
“I think framing this out on where’s the workplace during and after COVID is important, because what we know is that the workplace is changing, that workers are reasonably asking for more expansive accommodations and flexibilities where possible — and what that looks like varies by industry,” Teffenhart explains. “We know that COVID has created incredible challenges, but it has also created opportunities for us to reimagine a different workplace.”
Those who cannot attend the webinar on July 28 can check out NJ Chamber’s new monthly e-publication, Chamber Forward, where this “Women in the Workplace” event will be included in the August edition. As a resource for future programming details, webinar recaps, initiative spotlights, and more, the page is meant to help inform those whose schedules do not align with their live events.
“We think that the conversation is important to bear witness to, and so we record everything so that people can watch it afterwards,” Teffenhart says.
