July 18, 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
Hilton Hotels Corporation Rolls out Flexible Work-At-Home Program for Reservation Agents
A New Game Plan for Retaining Women at Firms
“The National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) will urge law firms to compensate senior attorneys for promoting diversity, monitor how credit for business development is meted out and teach senior male attorneys to be less fearful of mentoring women, in a new report aimed at advancing women's legal careers. The group hopes the report, released this week, will increase the percentage of women in top legal positions beyond the 15 percent mark, where the needle has been stuck for years despite women and men graduating from law school in nearly equal numbers.”
State backs car pools, flex time
“State employees may be heading out for the weekend a day sooner.
An extended weekend could become the norm, as Governor Granholm hopes to save them a little cash when it comes to gas. "If we can find ways to help them with alternative schedules and encourage them to take advantage of that-- then that's good for their pocketbook and it saves them money," said Governor Granholm's Spokeswoman Liz Boyd.”
GOP Suggests, Democrats Decry Telecommuting Plan
“The best way to increase state workers' efficiency, House Republicans said Tuesday, is to have them telecommute — and that's what the GOP representatives want some of their 44 taxpayer-funded staffers at the Capitol to start doing. As part of a pilot program, the staffers would work from home, staying in touch with their offices by phone and computer link, House Republican leader Lawrence Cafero and others said at a press conference. Staying off the road, Republicans say, would make the staffers more efficient because they would not waste valuable time stuck in traffic, adding to air pollution and highway congestion and paying up to $4.50 a gallon for gasoline. But they need a bipartisan agreement to embark on the program — and a top Democrat wasn't buying it.”
WVU offers 4-day work week, other options
“Higher gas prices have more people talking about flexible work schedules. The state Supreme Court announced last week that its employees may work four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days. West Virginia University meanwhile, has offered its employees flexible work hours for years. WVU’s had flexible work options in place for more than 20 years, but recently, the Human Resources office decided to revise its policy. It’s now asking people who want to work flexible hours to let HR know so they can track the trend. And Director of Employer Relations, Jim Morris, expects it to become a popular trend. In the last week and a half, he’s heard from 15 people who want to use the benefit.”
Beshear encourages flex time schedules
“On Tuesday, Gov. Steve Beshear announced he’s ordering cabinet secretaries and managers to make flex-time an “aggressive priority,” for employees who both volunteer for the arrangement and whose job duties can fit into such schedules. He emphasized that service to the public will not diminish and not all employees’ duties lend themselves to such arrangements. Beshear said on his staff alone employees travel to work daily from Louisville, Lexington, northern Kentucky and Gallatin County. There are 6,000 commuters among state employees, Beshear said, and 55 percent of them live at least two counties away.”
Working sick: Many workers don't have sick leave
Blogs
Summer: How Family Friendly is Your Job?
Creating work-life culture change
“We hear about it all the time in the work-life arena. How can we achieve the oh-so desired engagement, retention and nail talent management? Everyone says it’s not just about policies and programs. In order to create workplaces that meet business needs and are more responsive to employees, we need to change culture. But how to you do that? It sounds so daunting!Well, I found out about one success at a presentation that I attended at the 2008 WorldatWork conference called Making Flexibility a Strategic Lever for Corporate Growth.”
Working Through the Contractions: When to Start Maternity Leave
“When I first learned I was pregnant back in December, I thought for sure that I would work right up until my due date — barring any orders from my doctor to stop sooner. That’s still the plan, but as I’ve been learning lately, there are definite downsides. In favor of working up until the date-of-birth: I’m a desk jockey — excepting the commute to and from the office, my job doesn’t require much physical exertion. Plus, in the heat of summer the central air conditioning is quite pleasant. And if I take leave before the baby comes (in the form of short-term disability), it counts against the time I take afterwards because I get a limited number of weeks covered at 100% of my salary.”
Your Life Now? Working in a Virtual World
“Johnson, 61, the Silicon Valley heavy who in 1993 founded the Venture Law Group — the firm that repped Yahoo! in its 1995 IPO and eventually merged with Heller Ehrman — is joining up with 14 other lawyers to unveil, this Friday, a new firm called Virtual Law Partners. The idea, reports the Recorder, is to have more work-life balance, work from home, save on overhead and charge clients less. VLP, says Johnson, aims to be like the other top firms in the country, with hundreds of lawyers, just without offices.”
Is work/life balance dead, or is it just being redefined by technology?
“Because I'm a freelancer, I've learned to live with work and life bleeding all over each other. And for this trip, rather than work myself silly pre- and post-cabin so I could completely pull the plug on work for a week, I chose to bring a smidge of work with me, to chip away at here there, between naps and cocktails and walks on the beach. I'm still 100 times more relaxed and well-rested than I was before I left Seattle, and knowing that I won't be coming back to a truckload of extra work is also making me very, very happy.”
More people want less responsibility in their jobs
“According to a recent Families and Work Institute study, from 1992 to 2002, the percentage of college-educated women and men among all ages who wanted more responsibility in their jobs dropped 21 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Finally! I’m smack dab in the middle of a trend! I don’t know if the feeling of wanting to rein back some comes with age or just comes with the arrival of children, but it comes, apparently to a whole lot of us. Also, I’ve been through the experience of devoting most of my waking moments for ten years to a job that just went away — poof! — when the parent company decided to relocate it and change the business plan to something that appeared to be thought up in a drug-induced haze.”
Global News
'Slivers of Time' brings new workplace flexibility
“People to get total flexibility from the workplace as employers offer to pay for ‘Slivers of Time’. New initiative will match people who want to earn money with bite-sized chunks of work. Anglia Ruskin University’s Employment Bureau is responding to the growing need for flexible working by matching employers who need workers on a shift-by-shift basis with people who are willing to work for specific periods of time and often at short notice. ‘Slivers of Time’ is the name of the new initiative which can provide quick cover for employers who have a need for paid help, whether it involves someone to work on a leafleting campaign, someone to help in the kitchen during a busy lunch shift or to do book-keeping for a couple of hours a week.”
Telecommute for your boss' sake
“Letting employees work from home can keep them happy, make them work harder and save employers plenty of money, experts say. Most importantly, embracing work-from-home policies can open up a wide world of talented, experienced people ready to work but who want to limit their morning commute to the distance it takes to walk from their bed to their computer.”
Call for paternity leave rethink
“Men should be given broader continental-style paternity leave to help curb discrimination by businesses against new mothers, lawyers and women's rights campaigners said yesterday. The call came as the head of Britain's new equality watchdog said expansion of maternity leave without similar increases in rights for fathers had left women exposed to victimisation by employers. The comments sparked debate in government and business about whether the UK should move closer to European norms of allowing greater flexibility in dividing parental leave between mothers and fathers.”
Don't leave me this way
“The issue of entitlement to leave is an emotive one for most people. Whether you are an employee, self employed, a partner, director or a combination of them all, time away from work is still regarded by most as a valuable asset. For employees, things tend to be much clearer. Legislation governs practically all leave entitlements from basic holiday leave to force majeure leave. Whilst in some cases it might not provide leave entitlements with which the employee is satisfied, at the very least it certainly abolishes the ambiguity that might exist over the calculation of what leave an employee is entitled to.”