News Roundup

Obama emphasizes gender issues

"Obama also would try to bring greater flexibility to the Family and Medical Leave Act, encouraging states to pay for leave and expanding it to include elder care needs and 24 hours of children's academic activities. Nevada already does that one.  But Obama also would mandate that employers give each employee seven paid sick days a year.  Given that McCain is on the air constantly in Nevada warning that electing Obama will lead to higher taxes, I asked Obama if the Republican critics have a point.  "Look, this isn't a matter of nanny state liberalism, it's a matter of common-sense American fairness," Obama said. "The fact of the matter is people get sick; their family members get sick. There are far too many people who don't have any days off -- they can't afford to take them off," he added. "For us to say to employers that they need to give employees seven days off, I don't think there's anything liberal about that -- if we're serious about family values.""

• http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/27122979.html

For some workers, anything but 9 to 5 during convention

"As local politicians, media members and dignitaries don swanky suits to welcome 45,000 out-of-town guests during the week of the Republican National Convention, hundreds of downtown St. Paul employees will be showing up for work in their slippers.  With an estimated 68,000 people working in downtown St. Paul, several companies are giving workers the option to telecommute to cut down on traffic congestion. Others are asking people to come in at nonrush hours, work out of another company location or consider taking vacation time.  The adjustments are a sign that, despite city leaders' assertions St. Paul will be open for business during the convention at the Xcel Energy Center, it won't be business as usual for everyone."

• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080814104601.htm

Work and Life, Boundaries and Balance

"Clinical psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud's mission: to find the right balance between work and personal time, an increasing problem for today's overscheduled workforce.  Dr. Cloud began his practice in organizational counseling in 1981 . . . His interest in work-life issues grew out of his work with several business leaders who sought his counseling on how to work more effectively with their employees. Dr. Cloud maintains that workplace issues often arise out of one's "personhood" attributes, such as the ability -- or inability -- to establish and maintain trust, or the ability to focus. His latest book, "The One-Life Solution," was released last week. Dr. Cloud, who is also the co-host of the nationally syndicated radio program "New Life Live," spoke with the Wall Street Journal about his work and his new book."

• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121907574103349893.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The Coming of Age Discrimination

"Unless you just emerged from a cryogenic chamber, it's been hard to escape the attention being focused on the challenges that our aging workforce presents for the future of American business. For some time now, forward-thinking people have been concerned about the implications of the graying of the workforce.  Of course, in these litigious times, age-discrimination concerns are at the forefront whenever employers are recruiting, retaining, and reducing their workforce, and some recent rulings add an exclamation point to all this."

• http://www.businesswest.com/details.asp?id=1680
  

Reducing workweek is a cost-cutting tool

"A desire to control costs and cut employees' commuting expenses has prompted some New Hampshire towns and other institutions to try out compressed work weeks, letting workers put in longer hours over four days in return for the fifth day off.  But for most private companies, the idea of a compressed work week is still being kicked around the stoop."

• http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Reducing+workweek+is+a+cost-cutting+tool&articleId=6313fff9-c226-43cb-8c04-400a4add8c83

Clinging to Dreams of a Better Life

"Alami's complex but unwavering view that this better life is not far from his reach reflects results from a new survey conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University that examined the experiences of low-wage workers in the United States. Foreign-born, low-wage workers in the poll said that the economic security they left homes and families to seek in the United States is becoming harder to attain. But their faith in that dream is still strong, as they tend to be more optimistic about the future and more satisfied with their jobs and wages than native-born workers."

• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081503978.html

Calling on teleworking

"The average productivity gain for teleworkers with broadband access is $5,000 per year, according to Telecommute America. Savings in absentee costs are $2,000 per year, and companies report saving $7,920 per worker annually on recruitment and retention costs.  Robert Gerace, chief executive officer of CRCSecure.com, an information technology outsourcing company that takes complete responsibility for business networks consisting of 25 to 100 users, says morale has improved substantially since he launched his telework program a year ago, when gas prices hit $3 per gallon.  "There are a lot more smiles on a lot more people's faces," says Gerace, whose company registered between $5 million and $10 million in revenue last year."

• http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2008/08/18/smallb1.html?b=1219032000%5E1683954

State might try four-day workweek

"At the suggestions of her employees, Gov. Chris Gregoire is considering moving state government to a four-day workweek to save cash.  In an e-mail to state workers Friday, she said the most popular suggestion for savings since she started a hiring freeze Aug. 4 has been to move to a shorter workweek with longer days, saving money on energy."

• http://www.theolympian.com/southsound/story/546313.html

Work-Life Balance: How to Get a Life and Do Your Job

"There is a species of knowledge worker that seems transcendentally competent when it comes to finessing work-life balance. These are the people of the tidy desks and tidy homes. The work-life super class. They don't skulk in late like the rest of us. They don't wear rumpled clothes, miss deadlines, or weaken before the vending machine. Are these people for real? Is work-life balance achievable? We asked our readers. Some responders groaned that, owing to a hypercompetitive workplace and the race for status, the answer was no. But more disagreed, having found ways to make their lives less chaotic when it comes to juggling what often feels like two full-time jobs. Sanity actually exists, they say. Hallelujah! Now, dear readers, over to you."

• http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_34/b4097036727134.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_top+story
  

Cornell Study Finds Overworked Husbands Drive Wives From Workplace

"1950-2008...and back again? Women hold the spatula. Again. While men wear the pants. Again. Is this really the new norm and same old story?  Will women start holding the Betty Crocker cookbook in place of a resume? For as modern as we like to think we are, a new study at Cornell University suggests otherwise. While feminism has made a striking path for women and daughters to follow, giving a voice, a vote, and a promise for equality, the 1950s stigma of women belonging in the kitchen is threatening to take hold once again.  Why?"

• http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20015098&BRD=1395&PAG=461&dept_id=546876&rfi=6

The Key to Happiness: Money, Family, or Positive Thinking?

"That "Nobody on his deathbed ever said, 'I wish I'd spent more time at the office,'" is a well-worn idiom.  Yet a new long-term study, published in the latest edition of the Journal of Family Psychology (subscription required) affirms that thinking: Fortifying family ties, not making more money, is the best way to become a happier person.  The research, based on a 10-year look at 274 married people's happiness over time, found that improvement in "family social support" had the power to make people happier over the life of the study, while increases in income did not."

• http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2008/08/19/the-key-to-happiness-money-family-or-positive-thinking/

When the Assistant Is an Entrepreneur

"Now that executives are increasingly working as free agents, it is no surprise that their assistants have turned to the same business model. And as more people try to figure out economic survival strategies that are not dependent on single employers, I expect to see more segments of the workforce turning towards some form of free agenting.  Ms. Morgan, who does her work through an LLC called Delegate Solutions, has about five clients right now and works flexibly out of her home office in New Jersey while caring for her son. She is responsible for her own health insurance and doesn't get any vacation time unless she provides it to herself."

• http://shiftingcareers.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/when-the-assistant-is-an-entrepreneur/

The Special Case of Military Spouses Returning to Work After a Career Break

"Military spouses face specific challenges when attempting to resume careers after a career break. Returning to work after years away is complicated enough, but the confluence of lengthy overseas postings, having to function as a single parent when a spouse is deployed, and moving every two to three years on top of the usual issues of lack of confidence, reviving old networks and creating new ones, and figuring out what you really want to do can make the process even more overwhelming. It's no wonder that military spouses question their ability to make a successful back to work transition even more than their civilian counterparts."

• http://wfnetwork.bc.edu/blog/the-special-case-of-military-spouses-returning-to-work-after-a-career-break

Proof motherhood kills careers

"PROOF that having children is a career killer has arrived with a study showing that two-thirds of women who take maternity leave do not get promoted.  The Australian Public Service Commission studied female public servants who took maternity leave in 2000-01 and checked whether they had been promoted by June 2007.  It found 65 per cent of women who had taken maternity leave in 2000-01 had not received a promotion in the six years after taking maternity leave."

• http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,24202409-5005941,00.html

Can today's women really have it all?

"But the harsh facts of working life will have to be faced sometime. Let's be honest here. We're not talking about women in the workplace, but specifically mothers in the workplace. Almost always, motherhood carries a career penalty, no matter what the legislators would have us believe. And what's scary is that nowadays, all too often, the most high-achieving working women are riskily delaying motherhood or opting out of it altogether."

• http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/can-todays-women-really-have-it-all-13945545.html

Do families make fortunes?

"When it comes to balancing work and family, it feels like we're always looking for new solutions to an age-old problem. And at a time when the latest research suggests that support for gender equality in UK workplaces is actually declining due to a negative impact on the family, it's clear there is plenty of room for new perspectives on the subject.  But when those new perspectives are religiously inspired - especially coming from the US, where religion and politics are deeply intertwined - it somehow feels alien to the British way of thinking."

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/aug/16/workandcareers.maternitypaternityrights