April 15, 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
Local Companies Lauded as Great Places to Work
“The magazine named 30 companies in three categories. Superfeet was ranked second in the Group Two category (50- 249 employees), Johnson Outdoors was ranked third in the Group One category (more than 250 employees) while REI was ranked fifth in Group One. Outside magazine spent a year compiling the list, including taking employee and employer surveys…. Superfeet, which has 77 employees, was lauded for its employee stock ownership plan, the schedule flexibility it provides employees, including allowing new moms and students to job share...”
Expert: Women in Business Face Maze
“Figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in the category of chief executive, 26 percent are women, more of them in foundations and the public sector than in corporations. Karen Sumberg works at the New York-based Center for Work-Life Policy, a non-profit think tank. "While women are getting higher than they ever have before, it's not going as quickly or as smoothly as it should," she said. "It's not stalled as much as stagnated."…In the U.S. workplace, 37 percent of women take a break at some point in their career, Sumberg said.”
Proposal to Give Hourly Workers Paid Sick Leave
“Sooner or later, everyone has to take a sick day. But did you know that for thousands of Connecticut residents, no work means no pay? Many people take for granted that our employer will pay us when we, or someone in our family, gets sick. Paid sick leave is one of the benefits most people are fortunate enough to receive. And, employers know it's necessary to keep good workers. However, there are many businesses that don't do it and several state law makers say it's time for that to change.”
Extension Connection: Managing Stress Where You Work
“No matter whether you work at your home, are a supervisor or an employee, we all work. At one time or another, people may feel that their work is the cause of stress, says Angela Reinhart, Family Life Unit Educator…. More practically, we need to meet in smaller groups on a more regular basis. Research shows one strategy that both workers and supervisors can use is to team up people who are at similar life stages. It helps us get the work accomplished while sharing ideas, advice, and information about handling other work-life issues… These points are excerpted from the [University of Illinois] Extension Family Life Team's curriculum Intentional Harmony, a five-part curriculum to help us find more personal balance between work and our everyday lives."
Beware the Parent Trap
“It starts with the best of intentions. A company wants to be family-friendly, a workplace conducive to work-life balance. It allows some employees to work flexible schedules, but does so without first creating a flexible workplace policy or consulting in-house counsel. Decisions on flexibility are left to each manager, leading to differences among managers as to what is permitted and what is not. There is the appearance that female employees with young children are being given more latitude in terms of hours than their male counterparts and other women. An employee complains to human resources, and the threat of litigation looms over the company. This company has fallen into one of several parent traps that arise when companies treat parents differently -- sometimes more favorably, sometimes less favorably -- than other employees.”
Calif. Lawmakers Advance Paid Sick Leave Bill
“ A bill requiring paid sick leave for California workers has been approved by a state Assembly committee. The measure by Assemblywoman Fiona Ma cleared the Labor and Employment Committee on Wednesday with a 6-2 vote. It would enable workers to qualify for up to nine days of paid sick leave a year. Employers with fewer than 10 employees would have to provide up to five days annually. Ma, a San Francisco Democrat, says nearly six million California workers do not have paid sick leave now, forcing them to choose between going to work ill or losing pay.”
Blogs
One Mom Heads Back to Work -- Reluctantly
“I am trying to find the balance of being a stable role model for my child, all the while holding back the frustrations and desires of becoming a working mother. Typing this after my third day in, my eyes just couldn't stay open any longer. Our daughter started running a fever last night. She still has it, so my husband is forced to take another day off work tomorrow. We're thinking of switching to a smaller, home-based day care rather than a large day-care center. The stress in our house is running high. I have to be honest; all this doesn't even come close to justifying my feelings and emotions about my situation. They say it gets easier ... do you think it will? For me? For my child? When did it get easier for you?”
When a New Job and a New Baby Collide
”But what about when career opportunity and pregnancy collide, and you are faced with a challenging new position and a new baby? This came to mind when I read about Carme Chacon, who was just appointed Spain’s first woman defense minister. She’s seven months pregnant, and according to this bio, single. “
Opting Back In: Navigating the On Ramp
“Writing as the Work It, Mom! Team, I took a look at on ramping -- that is, what it takes to rejoin the workforce after an extended leave of absence. It's something that more and more parents, especially mothers, face as they find ways to juggle career and parenthood. According to the Center for Work-Life Policy and the Harvard Business Review, about 93 percent of the highly qualified women who opt out of the workforce want to return to work later in life. Unfortunately, the study shows that only 74 percent of those women end up rejoining the workforce and, of those, only 40 percent are able to get a full-time job with benefits. “Many talented, committed women take off-ramps but an overwhelming majority can’t wait to get back in,” says Sylvia Ann Hewlett, President of the Center for Work-Life Policy and an author of the report.”
From PTA to PhD
"Now, imagine the cost of graduate school. Plus, add to these expenses opportunity costs—many adults must forgo income, or take a school-friendly job, in order to get a graduate degree….And how much of an economic payoff is there from a PhD, anyway? Especially in a not-for-profit field? And, more importantly to me, how much will it cost my children? As I wring my hands and worry over the upcoming prospect of late nights of class, study and research, I also see how my children will benefit… Any words of advice to a working mother seeking a PhD? Or to the working husband of a wife seeking her PhD?”
Is Having It All a Thing of the Past?
“How to best approach working motherhood seems to be a loaded question, soliciting the harshest critics on either side with no sign of agreement in sight. Is it possible for women to have it all—a career, a husband and a family? In the Go-Go 80s, women were told and encouraged to have it all. Films like Baby Boom, Working Girl and even Mr. Mom all showed that women could have successful, high-powered careers as well as fulfilling personal lives—even if it took some creative arrangements to get there. A generation later, the tides seem to be turning, with a flood of personal stories saying exactly the opposite—having a full-time career cannot be combined with full-time motherhood. Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk, recently shared her story about hiring house manager to help run her household in addition to a nanny and a personal assistant. She argues that a stay-at-home spouse (or hired equivalent) is a necessity in an age where a high-powered career requires 24/7 focus.”
Beyond the Partner Track: How to Keep Legal Talent
“Earlier this year, his firm started a task force to look at whether there are ways to structure a law firm to better the odds of keeping talent, of both genders. “There are many people who want top-tier work but don’t know that they want 24/7 and that this is what they view as the sole focus of their lives.”… The traditional law firm model was “sort of an onramp to a highway that had a single off ramp after eight years” says Bromley. “For loads of different reasons people these days are looking for the opportunity to make sure that they want to make that decision and sometimes make the decision to leave and sometimes make the decision to leave and come back. Asked whether he was influenced by the work of women-in-the-workplace guru Sylvia Ann Hewlett, who wrote “Off-Ramps and On-Ramps,” Bromley said he hadn’t heard of her.”
Reports & Surveys
Executives Worldwide See Talent Gaps as Top People Challenge in Every Region and Industry
“Global survey of 4,741 executives in 83 countries and markets, conducted by The Boston Consulting Group, World Federation of Personnel Management Associations, and Society for Human Resource Management, identifies HR priorities of today and the future…. Managing work-life balance was rated a key future challenge in every region except the Pacific Region and a top-three priority in Argentina and Chile, Brazil, Canada, India, Italy, Singapore, and South Africa. Flexible work arrangements are the cornerstone of almost all work-life balance initiatives. Worldwide, more than 60 percent of executives said that their companies already offered flexible working hours, and nearly 80 percent said that they planned to do so by 2015. Offering part-time work was the second-most popular future action by employers.”
FMLA Practices and Perspectives: A Research Report
“Recently the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released proposed changes to the regulations that implement the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA). FMLA was also recently expanded with President Bush’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act. This survey gathered feedback from human resource practitioners to see how they are reacting to current practices and the proposed changes to FMLA. This survey reveals there is little objection to most of the DOL’s proposed FMLA changes. Across the board, total rewards professionals are welcoming changes that may ease some of the administrative burden they feel when implementing a very time consuming and labor-intensive set of requirements.” Click here for a full copy of the report (PDF).
Global News
Seniors Seek Flex Time Into Retirement
“Nine to noon, Tuesday to Thursday - sound like a good work week? It does to older workers, who said in an Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) survey it'll take shorter work weeks and flexible hours, among other things, to keep them in the workplace after they retire. "With unemployment levels at an all time low, good employees are harder to find," Christianne Paris, RBC's vice-president of recruitment and learning, said Tuesday. "Older workers are becoming an integral part of the Canadian workforce and employers need to look at ways of retaining and attracting.”
Devil's Advocate: Work-Life Imbalance (Editorial)
”All those who harp on work-life balance (WLB) are just goofing off at work. They're downright work-shirkers and clock-watchers.... What they don't realise is that while they're busy pursuing WLB, someone somewhere is working doubly hard to restore some sanity to deadlines and work flows. In any case, while harmony is a wonderful thing, it's not the be-all and end-all, at least at the work place…. As a recent book argues, happiness is not exactly the right trigger for innovation and suggests that it's melancholy that pumps up motivational levels.”
More Telework Could Mean a Smoother Ride (Letter to the Editor)
“The U.S. government has adopted telework in a big way; the General Services Administration, a large federal agency, wants at least 50 per cent of eligible employees to telework within the next three years. Progress is slower in Canada. Treasury Board policies allow telework, but few government departments actively promote it. Arrangements such as telework or a compressed work week are still the exception, rather than the rule. This is despite the fact that telework is suitable for most people who sit behind computer screens all day and communicate primarily by e-mail or telephone.”
The World in 2018
“Chartered Management Institute [London, UK] has just released a new report called Management Futures: The World in 2018 (March 2008). It looks at what the world of work and management will be like in 2018 [in the UK]. A number of scenarios are outlined. The Probable Future:… virtual community-based organisations will be prevalent….work-life balance will no longer be uttered. It will be work-life integration…organisations will face the growing power of the employee and offer personalised working patterns.” Also includes some suggestions about how organizations can handle improbable futures, including an economic world ruled by religious corporations or by robots. Click here for a copy of the report (PDF).