As one reader's comment notes below, we failed to include the context for this week's poll question. Here's the text that should have accompanied the question: As reported by Senior Writer Laurie Schreiber in her Dec. 11 Mainebiz story “Gender disparity: Employers aim for equality, but differences persist,” women who take a break from their careers to raise a child often miss out on advancement opportunities and progressively higher pay when they return to the workplace. Allowing stay-at-home mothers to telecommute is one proactive policy highlighted in the story. Another is to regularly conduct salary audits in order to proactively monitor and address gender-based pay differences that can occur when women who've taken a sabbatical are required to disclose a prior salary that might have been from a decade ago.

Does your company have policies to minimize a woman’s loss of professional status resulting from her decision to be a stay-at-home mother?