March 8, 2008.
The Workplace Flexibility 2010 News Roundup is a compilation of the latest news articles, reports and other materials related to workplace flexibility. The News Roundup appears twice-weekly. If you have questions about any of the items, please contact WF2010@law.georgetown.edu.
Articles
Advice for a Stay-At-Home Dad
“Q: I am a man returning to the workforce after seven years of raising two children. I have a masters degree in engineering and have sent out multiple resumes online without luck. What do you suggest? A: It's tough for anyone – male or female -- to land a job after a seven-year absence. You face an uphill battle not because you were a stay-at-home dad but because you have a gap on your resume that needs explaining.”
Sick-Leave Mandate Proponents Calling Legislature's Inaction 'Hypocrisy'
“With a month to go before a proposed paid sick-leave mandate dies on the floor of the Ohio House of Representatives, the measure's backers are turning the spotlight on the lawmakers they're pushing to act. Ohioans for Healthy Families, a coalition of 180 organizations that support the mandate, on Tuesday highlighted what it called hypocrisy in the General Assembly: Public records indicating legislators in the House and Senate have taken off more than 600 session days with pay since January 2005.”
N.J. Approves Paid Leave for Family Care
“New Jersey moved Monday to become the third state to require companies to offer six weeks of paid leave to workers wishing to care for a new child or sick relative. The state Senate voted 21-15 to approve the bill that would offer up to six weeks paid leave. The Assembly approved the Democratic plan last month and Democratic Gov. Jon S. Corzine said he'll sign it soon.”
Office Plans, Complete with Crayons
“Co-working, meet co-playing. Cubes & Crayons offers a family-friendly twist to co-working, a growing international movement of communal work spaces that can be rented by the hour, day or longer. San Francisco has become one of the centers of co-working over the past couple of years, with sites such as Citizen Space, Sandbox Suites and the Hat Factory providing solo entrepreneurs and telecommuters with an alternative to working at home or in the neighborhood cafe. But Cubes & Crayons is the first co-working site in the Bay Area - and possibly the world - to include licensed child care.”
On the Job: Boomers in Position to Redefine the Look of Their Retirement
''I think the biggest misconception people have is that retirement is a negative time,'' says Erickson, author of Retire Retirement: Career Strategies for the Boomer Generation. …That means, she says, that older workers are in a better position than ever before to not only have a more rewarding retirement than in generations past, but to redefine how it will look…. At the same time, the push by younger workers looking for more flexibility in the workplace also will help those nearing retirement. Employers are becoming more open to flexible work arrangements, such as telecommuting or nontraditional schedules, which will fit well with older workers' desire to accommodate more personal interests."
Telecommuting Trend on Rise in Pittsburgh, Even as Some Return to Office
“Is business rethinking telecommuting? Although AT&T, Hewlett-Packard and some other big companies have recently reined in employees who work outside the office, telecommuting shows no sign of abating in the Pittsburgh region. Moreover, advocates say the practice will expand in response to the need for increased worker flexibility and convenience.” Subscription required to view full text of article.
Telework Helps Virginia and Arizona Recruit and Retain Employees
“Virginia made a major commitment to telework in 2006, when Gov. Timothy Kaine formed the Office of Telework Promotion and Broadband Assistance. The office encourages telework for public and private employers and is also working to bring broadband service - a must-have for teleworkers - to areas where it's not available today. Telework is on the rise, not only in Virginia, but throughout the United States.”
Alliance for Work-Life Progress Announces 2008 Work-Life Rising Star Honorees
”Alliance for Work-Life Progress (AWLP), an entity of WorldatWork that defines and recognizes innovation, best practices and work-life thought leadership, recently announced the recipients of the AWLP Work-Life Rising Star recognition program. Now in its second year, the AWLP Work-Life Rising Star recognition program identifies stellar professionals who exhibit a combination of professional and personal attributes that demonstrate emerging leadership and growing contributions to the work-life community.”
Telecommuters Band Together (Video)
“CNN's Polly Labarre reports on telecommuters who miss the social interaction of the workplace.” Short video clip on co-working and other alternatives to working at home for remote workers.
Blogs
Finding a Needle in a Haystack
“Flextime professional jobs are perfect for many parents and semi-retired boomers. And that's how NeedleStack Jobs.com, a place that connects employees and companies with professional, flexible jobs, was born -- and how I invented a career that worked for my family and me…. Want to Explore Flextime Work? Companies like Women for Hire, Flextime Lawyers, Flexperience Consulting and Needlestack Jobs serve two groups, job seekers and employers, all of whom want flexibility in their jobs. Visit each company's Web site for more firm-specific information.
Question for Female Doctors Returning to Work Post Maternity Leave
“The medical clinic I practice with is looking to hire a couple of physicians. As many of you may know it is currently difficult to hire primary care providers as many younger physicians in training are deciding to go into specialty care for a variety of reasons. We have also noted that the applicant pool for female primary care physician is lower than their male counterparts. For this reason at a meeting recently I wondered how many mommy MD's would consider working full time/part time/job share if they did not have the responsibility of call and hospital work. What would draw a female physician who is already a mom to return to the work force after maternity leave?”
How to Keep Your Job (and Flexibility!) in a Recession
“BusinessWeek’s chief economist is predicting job cuts in sectors such as financial services, real estate, as well as some consumer areas like hotels and restaurants. How can you keep your head off the chopping block? Career experts say this is the time to shine at work, but plenty of the working parents I know already have a tough time juggling the demands of their professional life with their personal life. So that’s why I turned to Cali Williams Yost, president and founder of Work+Life Fit and author of Work+Life: Finding the Fit That’s Right for You (Riverhead/Penguin Group, 2005). Her tips for keeping your job afloat during a recession are geared to working parents, but this advice applies to anyone who wants to stay gainfully employed.”
Work-Life Balance or Professionalism: Who Wins?
“Two of my favorite blawgers, Niki Black at her new blawg, Women Lawyers—Back on Track, and Dan Hull at What About Clients?, are unwittingly going to head to head. It smells like a good fight. Niki, quoting from Denise Howell's piece, On Life Support, argues that lack of work-life balance is causing massive disenchantment with the law: “It costs firms somewhere between $200,000 and $500,000 to replace attorneys who don't work out, according to Joan Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at Hastings College of Law.”... On the other side, Dan says “Like work-life balance, lawyer "professionalism" as touted and practiced in the U.S. is an anti-client, lawyer-centric ruse which needs to die before it can be re-born. It is disingenuous and a crock. It's a license for mediocrity, cooked up and maintained by lawyers who think law is a special club for special people.” Like two freight trains traveling full speed at each other on the same track."
Retirement: 2010 and Beyond [Interview with Chai Feldblum]
“There's been so much talk of the sagging economy, job security and the future of the older worker that, quite frankly, I've been feeling a bit jittery about it. But just a few days ago I had a conversation that offered a bit of hope in my elusive quest for worklife balance down the road. There's a policy project in Washington D.C. called Workplace Flexibility 2010. It's a "campaign to support the development of a comprehensive national policy on workplace flexibility." I had the opportunity to speak with Professor Chai Feldblum, a Co-Director of this project - specifically about phased retirement.”
Teaching Our Sons to Be Equal Partners in the Juggle
“It’s hard to say if there’s a backlash among young men, too, just from the cyber-words of this one group. But their words got me thinking about how men’s attitudes towards equality — and, by extension, their commitment to being an equal and supportive partner in the work/family balancing act — are created. As many readers have said, a key for juggling women is to have a partner who supports their career and shares equally in the housework and childcare.”
Reports & Surveys
Deloitte 2008 Ethics & Workplace Survey Finds Transparency by Leadership Makes a Positive Impact on Employee Productivity
“Transparency in the workplace, as described by an open and honest communication channel between employees and leadership regarding work-life issues, has a significant positive impact on workplace culture overall. According to the survey, conducted by Opinion Research on behalf of Deloitte, 72 percent of respondents agree that if their boss was more open about his/her need to take time off during regular work hours for personal reasons, it would create a more engaging and productive environment.”
Exactly How Much Housework Does a Husband Create?
“Having a husband creates an extra seven hours a week of housework for women, according to a University of Michigan study of a nationally representative sample of U.S. families. For men, the picture is very different: A wife saves men from about an hour of housework a week. The findings are part of a detailed study of housework trends, based on 2005 time-diary data from the federally-funded Panel Study of Income Dynamics, conducted since 1968 at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR).”
Men's Changing Contribution to Work and Childcare
American couples have made remarkable progress in working out mutually satisfying arrangements to share the responsibilities of breadwinning and family care. And polls continue to show increasing approval of such arrangements. But progress in getting employers to accommodate workers' desires has been less encouraging…. Even as American couples' beliefs and desires about gender equity have grown, America's work policies and social support systems for working parents are among the lowest. All in all, the "stalled revolution" in America is not taking place in families but in the highest circles of our economic and political elites.” Includes differing perspectives on the study from other academics including Paula England (Stanford), Shirley Hill (University of Kansas), and Stephanie Coontz (Evergreen State). Discussion paper prepared for the 11th Annual Conference of the Council on Contemporary Families, April 25-26, 2008, University of Illinois-Chicago.
Maternity Leave and Employment Patterns of First-Time Mothers: 1961-2003
“The report analyzes trends in women’s work experience before their first child, identifies their maternity leave arrangements before and after the birth and examines how rapidly they returned to work. Women are more likely to work while pregnant than they were in the 1960s, and they are working later into their pregnancies.” Click here for a copy of the report (PDF).
New Policy Brief on Time as A Resource for Working Families
“The Sloan Work and Family Research Network has released Providing Working Families with an Important Resource: Time, the latest briefing paper in a continuing series on work-life policy issues. The four-page issue brief highlights state legislative activity from 2005-2007 that enables workers to manage their work and family needs without sacrificing their mental and physical health, work responsibilities, salary, or familial responsibilities and summarizes research on how providing such resources impacts workers, businesses, and states.” Click here for a copy of the Sloan policy brief (PDF).
Overcoming the Implementation Gap: How 20 Leading Companies are Making Flexibility Work
“There is little to no research available that describes what occurs between setting up a flexibility policy and making it work… Thus, this project was designed to better understand the course of successful implementations in the words of the implementers themselves, employees who found the programs useful, and managers who had to adjust to new ways of working…. In total, we conducted 58 interviews and gathered detailed information about the process of carrying out a variety of programs and approaches to making flexibility work. In addition to the interviews, we conducted a review of both practitioner and academic research related to flexibility in the workplace and in the lives of workers.” Click here for a copy of the executive summary of this report (PDF).
"The Business Case for Flexibility on On-Ramp Recruiting": Department of Labor Flex Options Meeting for Bay Area Businesses May 3rd 2008
“Don't miss this rare Bay Area appearance from renowned speaker, Donna Klein, President and CEO of Corporate Voices for Working Families. Donna will speak to Bay Area businesses on her organization's recent, highly acclaimed report "The Business Impacts of Flexibility - An Imperative for Expansion" which summarizes internal research from over 20 of their member companies on the real world business returns from offering workplace flexibility. One large and one small employer will also share their real world experience creating a culture of flexibility including the challenges and benefits. And the Department of Labor will share tools that can help you take the next step in creating a flexible workplace in your small or large organization.” Visit this site to register for the event.
Global News
Parental Leave Bid for Modern Families
“Stay-at-home dads, same-sex partners and even grandparents could qualify for taxpayer-funded leave to look after a newborn child. The question of how to treat "modern families" in a paid maternity leave scheme will be among the issues examined in a new Productivity Commission inquiry. The Federal Government-commissioned inquiry will look at who should get parental leave, how generous the scheme should be and who should pay for it.”
Part-Timers Fail at Work, Home
"Part-time employment has failed to deliver either at home or in the office, with large numbers of white-collar workers suffering career burnout and family stress. Those hit hardest are women professionals who had looked to part-time work as a way of balancing family responsibilities and working life. But a report to be published today says many part-time professionals are being confronted with reduced incomes, career dead-ends and the inability to find enough family time… It is based on a survey by Beaton Consulting of 12,000 white-collar workers that had the backing of Professions Australia and most peak professional groups.”
Significant Improvements in Work-Life Balance in Hong Kong
“CSR Asia's latest research shows a substantial improvement in work-life balance in the territory. Compared with 2004, the average working week has decreased by five hours. During that period the government has successfully lead a move from five-and-a-half day working to five days. The impact has led to a major increase in job satisfaction and fewer people planning to change their jobs. More Hong Kong companies are also now offering flexible working arrangements to staff. However, there are still areas of concern.”
Viet Nam Firms Rank #1 on Retention Policies
“Recruitment and retention challenges are still on the rise, with Vietnamese companies ranking the highest among 34 countries on the attention paid to retention policies, according to an International Business Report 2008 survey conducted by Grant Thornton….To improve employee attraction and retention, the majority of Viet Nam businesses said they had placed an effort in developing competitive reward systems and benefit packages, including pensions, health insurance, commissions and bonuses, and having a flexible attitude by allowing flexitime, part-time, and home-based work.”
Flex Time Helps Workers, Employers
“The Inland Valley Chamber Legislative Alliance is asking all businesses to support AB 2127 (Benoit), which will allow employees and employers flexibility in work schedules to help accommodate employees' diverse family obligations, personal pursuits, commuting issues and environmental concerns by allowing a small business to agree to provide scheduling options requested by an employee. This option, known as the Small Business Family Scheduling Option, would allow a small employer (25 or fewer employees) to agree to an employee's request to work an alternative work schedule. This bill would allow employees on an individual basis to request, in writing, to work a compressed workweek.”
Job Sharing a Flexible Option for Full-Time Roles
“Job sharing is certainly being considered and implemented more as the skills shortage tightens. Not all roles can be part time, so when there is a tight labour market and a strong demand for work flexibility, it is a viable solution to keeping the role on in a full time capacity. Is it popular? Not at the moment. Organisations may specify job share as one alternative in offering flexible work arrangements in their workplace policy, but it does not always equate to actual work practices. Generally, managers are not equipped to manage flexible work arrangement.”
Report: Work and Life in China
“The Global Workforce Roundtable Summit in Shanghai was a great success! Held February 26-28 2008, this event focused on the Role of Work-Life in Recruitment, Retention and Development of Top Talent. A new Center for Work & Family publication Work and Life in China was released at the Summit.” Click here for a copy of the report (PDF).