(FORTUNE Magazine) – Back in the 1960s, Fran Rodgers was the envy of her classmates at Barnard College. After graduating at age 20, she was going to change the world. First came a job with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where she worked in urban planning. Then Rodgers joined a consulting firm, where she specialized in education issues. But her career plans changed after the birth of her daughter, a lovely, dark-haired baby who had frequent bouts of asthma. "A kid who can't breathe is not a kid to drop off at day care," she recalls.

"Homebound" didn't mean "out of work" to Rodgers. At her kitchen table, she set up a consulting business to advise companies on changes that were beginning to sweep through corporate America. Women and minorities were pouring into the workplace. More workers needed help with child care. Old ways of doing business were suddenly taboo, like calling the secretary "my girl." Over the next decade, Rodgers became a champion of family-friendly policies in offices and factories. Her advice helped dozens of companies adopt new programs to assist employees with off-the-job issues that hamper on-the-job performance.

But Rodgers saw an opportunity to sell more than just advice. At the urging of IBM, she established a network to help thousands of its workers find child care. Soon other companies were begging for the same. By 1997 Rodgers' Work/Family Directions, based in Boston, was supplying round-the-clock phone counseling from a massive call center to more than three million corporate employees in the U.S., on topics ranging from elder care to children's education. With more than $65 million in annual revenues in 1998, Work/Family Directions was the leading provider of employee counseling to clients that included General Electric, Mobil, and Motorola.

Two years ago, Rodgers sold the service business to Ceridian Corp. of Minneapolis for an undisclosed amount. "When you turn 50," she says, "you should start a new adventure." These days, Rodgers is once again focusing her energies on workplace-issues consulting. Twenty years in the trenches battling for change hasn't wearied her a bit. Brash and outspoken, she recently held forth on what's wrong--and what's right--with business today.

Do you regret being forced to change career plans?

Not for a moment. I liked being on my own. And I quickly realized the power of being an outsider. Through my company, I was able to have more influence on the lives of more people than I ever would have working in some bureaucratic government job. I was scared about making money. But I found out I liked the buzz of business. I could see a huge demographic shift coming down the road, and the fallout was going to rain all over corporate America. And believe me, back then these guys didn't have a clue. How much did you really get done at the kitchen table?

A lot. I did a study on female air-traffic controllers. Then I did some consulting work for hospitals. In the '70s there was a major shortage of nurses, and some hospitals thought they would attract and keep more of their nurses if they set up day-care centers. I'd like to say I was a natural at business. But I wasn't. At the beginning, I didn't even know how to price my services. I didn't know I was supposed to factor in a profit. I learned. But my life really changed the day IBM called.

How so?

IBM wanted me to set up a nationwide referral network to help its workers find child care. At that time, locating adequate child care was a big challenge for working parents. First, I had to stimulate the supply. One of IBM's manufacturing plants was located in Boca Raton, Fla. I remember that I did everything I could to encourage people into the child-care business in South Florida. I had people handing out fliers in supermarkets. Within a few months we had created a solid network of child-care providers in a number of communities across the U.S. And then word traveled fast. Other companies needed the same kind of help. For the first five or six years we had no sales force. Corporate America was banging down the door.

How did you manage that growth?

By the mid-'80s we had a list of clients that included dozens of the FORTUNE 500. At one point I had to make a really tough decision. In mid-1989 AT&T asked us to provide, starting on the first day of 1990, round-the-clock counseling to all 300,000 employees. I had to turn down a really big piece of business. It would have amounted to about $2 million for a $10 million company. But it would have stretched the company too thin. It would have hurt our other clients and destroyed the company. It took us years to recover. The worst part was that we created our own competition by turning away that business.

Why did you sell the service business?

Three reasons. I was approached by Ceridian when I was turning 50; I was ready for something new. Call centers were becoming a commodity business. And it would have demanded a huge investment in new technology. I was ready to sell.

Now that you're focused on consulting again, what do you see as your clients' biggest worries today?

People. Talent. The greatest concern is how to hire and keep good people. That's no secret. But a lot of CEOs often think it is just a money issue. They think in terms of "he who pays the most wins the best talent." And that's not true anymore.

Why?

People want a bigger thrill than just a paycheck. Everyone wants to join a young company, and it isn't for money--or stock options, though that's a factor. Working for a startup is the prevailing romantic notion of our age, like going west in the 1800s.

What are some other trends you see in the workplace?

I see a lot of anger over the abuse of time. Generation X workers are saying what women were saying 20 years ago: "I don't want to live like this." I see simmering resentment that's eventually going to cost companies their best and brightest workers. Cell phones, pagers, and e-mail make it increasingly impossible to escape from work, and so work is taking over our lives. People are telling me that the pace is out of control. Yet, at the same time, they'll tell me how much they enjoy the excitement and the intensity of their jobs.

So how do you walk that fine line of challenging people without burning them out?

Companies have to show a new respect for time. Wasting time should be a shameful thing within a company. I'm talking about the unnecessary e-mails that are carbon-copied to everyone in the department. And it should be a criminal offense for anyone to call a 5:30 P.M. meeting, unless there's an emergency. That meeting may cost every parent in that room the only chance they have of seeing their young children that day.

For 20 years you've been banging the drum for women in business. Considering all the advances, isn't it time to put that drum down?

Yes and no. Women have made a lot of gains, but I hear a lot of complaints about isolation, especially among women who work for multinationals in offices outside the U.S. The big issues today are travel and relocation policies. Many women are out of the running for top jobs because the path to get there means a lot of travel and frequent moves.

You're 53. You've sold a substantial portion of your business for tens of millions of dollars. You're a very rich woman. Why are you still working?

Building a business is seductive. I've never been motivated by the money. I'm motivated by the thrill of having an influence. I have a passion for my ideas, and I usually manage to make money along the way. All I can say is, I'm not done yet.