July 25, 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
Why Do Sick People Go To Work? Unhealthy Fear
Joanne Silberner • NPR • July 28, 2008
"A lot of people come to work sick, according to a new poll conducted by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health. You know the scene: The guy in the next cubicle is sneezing and coughing. And you're afraid to breathe. In a survey of people in Florida and Ohio — two swing states in the upcoming presidential election — NPR asked people about their work habits."
Seminar offers women advice on life, career
Sharla Bardin • Eerie Times-News • July 24, 2008
"The seminar, attended by 120 people, offered suggestions for women on how to strike a healthy balance between the demands of work and home. That can mean learning to say no, accepting help and boosting resiliency. "Increasingly for women, more is demanded of them as far as their time. More women are juggling one or two jobs with family life and children," said Jennifer Dobbs Woods, of Erie, leadership-giving coordinator at the United Way of Erie County. She also works with the Women In Action initiative."
It's Easy Being Green: Save Money, Save Emissions - Work From Home
Author Unlisted • Cernter for American Progress • July 23, 2008
"The commuter lifestyle is on its way out, and it's taking some 26 billion pounds of carbon dioxide pollution with it. Telecommuting, or working from home, is a practice that could be the answer to ever-increasing gasoline prices and help the environment at the same time. If employees who could telecommute did so at least two days a week, their fuel consumption and cost would decrease by 40 percent—and that's just one of the benefits. Telecommuting is a work arrangement that allows for flexibility in hours and location. It provides more time with family members, and replaces productivity time that is normally lost in commutes. Technology plays a part as well; virtual private networks and videoconferencing are shrinking the gap between the workplace and home."
No more Monday blues?
David Sharos • Naperville Sun, IL • July 23, 2008
"The four-day work week might just be an idea whose time has come. Given the cost of transportation to work, the extra utility costs to keep a business open, and the potential savings for both employers and employees - fewer day-care fees, more time for household tasks, leisure time, appointments, etc. - the four-day work week could have lots of positive ramifications. The four-day movement also would be friendly to the current green movement, reducing traffic and engine emissions as well as the consumption of resources."
Work-Life Programs: How the Big Seven Flex
David McCan • CFO.com • July 23, 2008
"Companies looking to raid public accounting firms for talent, be warned: The talented are accustomed to a degree of flexibility in how they work that may be beyond what your corporate culture can stomach. Many companies of all types have responded to the workforce's growing demand for work-life balance with a raft of programs. But few have bent as far as the accounting firms. There, after only a couple years of employment, client-service staffers generally are free to work how, where, and when they want, bestowed with seemingly endless options for customizing their careers."
Finding Good Reasons to Work With Time
Paul Brown • New York Times • July 22, 2008
"Just about all entrepreneurs grapple with the issue of having people work untraditional hours at some point in their company's life. And with all the talk about shifting to a four-day work week, to reduce the amount of gasoline used by employees in commuting, it is a good time to review the basics. As the National Workplace Flexibility Project, developed by the federal Department of Labor points out, there are several good reasons to move to flex time."
Most state workers favor 4-day work week
Lisa Riley Roach • Deseret News, UT • July 22, 2008
"State employees are mostly positive about the prospect of the new four-day workweek set to start next month, a Utah Department of Human Resource Management survey released Monday shows. "That's what I expected all along. The vast majority are either positive or neutral to the change," the department's executive director, Jeff Herring, said of the more than 8,600 responses last week to the e-mail survey distributed by state-agency heads. Employees were asked a series of questions to measure their attitude toward the new schedule. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. announced the workweek as a way to save an estimated $3 million annually in energy costs by closing many state buildings on Fridays."
Blogs
The Other Home Equity Crisis
Judith Warner • New York Times - Domestic Disturbances • July 24, 2008
"In the early 1990s, she was called the "New Traditionalist." In the early 2000s, she led the charge of the "Opt-Out Revolution." Educated and affluent, happily employed full-time with the care of her kids, she was said to be the standard-bearer for a generation that had discovered, after decades of blindly Seeking It All, that the road to true happiness lay in throwing in the towel and heading home. It has happened like clockwork. In the past two economic downturns, as job losses have forced women out of the workplace, a sort of angel has appeared to guide their way and re-label their unfortunate circumstances as virtuous "choice.""
Round Two: Childcare Strategy for Second Maternity Leave
Katherine Meyer • WSJ Online - The Juggle • July 24, 2008
"Dionne's post about her hectic maternity leave — coping with newborn twins and a 21-month old toddler — reminded me of the dilemma many working parents face when planning maternity leave for their second or third kids: Do you keep your older child in daycare while you're home with the baby? Or for those with a nanny, do you keep your caretaker employed full-time? The upside to opting out of daycare is, of course, that it gives working parents an opportunity to spend more time with their older kid(s), and also gives the child a chance to get to know his or her new sibling. Depending on the length of maternity leave, it could also offer significant financial savings, especially if the leave is unpaid."
Team Work Can Impact Overwork
Judi Casey • Sloan Work and Family Blog • July 23, 2008
"A new report from WFD Consulting found that workers in their study spent an average of 52 hours per week at work, with more than 10 hours focused on low-value work. What is low value work? It is work that does not accomplish business goals and may include inefficient, repetitive processes. Study participants indicated several causes of overwork including insufficient staff, too much information, unexpected customer demands, unclear priorities and poor communication. Overwork results in negative outcomes for both employers (reduced productivity, lower work quality) and employees (stress and burnout)."
Maternity Leave: So Hectic, Work Seems Like Vacation
Dionne Searcey • WSJ Online - The Juggle • July 22, 2008
"Maternity leave is supposed to be a time where the juggle is left far behind for a few months. But for me things are more hectic than ever with my three-month-old twins and 21-month-old son. We've already determined that one adult cannot be left alone with our children for now, largely because of the antics of my terrific but bull-in-a-china-shop toddler. We've stopped him from pounding on one baby's head with his fist and feeding the other Corn Chex cereal. But we're simply outnumbered by our children. On Memorial Day weekend when our friends were partying at the beach we had to hire a sitter just so I could take a nap in hopes of shaking a bad cold."
Equal opportunity unemployment
Catherine Price • Salon.com - Broadsheet • July 22, 2008
"Interestingly, it took researchers a while to figure out that this actually was a trend. At first, some suggested it was simply because the women decided they'd rather be at home -- "to raise children or because their husbands were doing well or because, more than men, they felt committed to running their households," the Times suggests. But nope. According to a congressional study being released Tuesday, researchers now blame something different: "downturns, layoffs, outsourcing, stagnant wages or the discouraging prospect of an outright pay cut." Like men, many women are responding by dropping out of the workforce for a while -- which, to me, at least, isn't that surprising."
Truth & Consequences: Oregonian Floats "Gas Price Relief Act" as Bush Hangover Hits Early
Andrew Burger • Triple Pundit • July 22, 2008
"Offering the public incentives to ride public transit, car pool, telecommute, as well as assisting transit agencies with rising fuel costs and growing demand are all part of H.R.6495's short-term solutions to alleviate the effects of high energy prices. "There is no magic silver bullet that will solve the energy crisis, but there are things we can do now to reduce the impact of high gas prices on American families," Rep. Blumenauer said in a media release."
On-Ramping at the Office
Stephanie Reese • Work • July 2008
"Are you thinking about leaving your job temporarily to raise children, become an entrepreneur, or deal with personal issues? If so, there are some things you need to consider. Unfortunately, few companies have "on-ramping" programs that help people pick up where they left off when they decide to come back to work. Many women who leave to raise kids are forced to take lower positions than they had before, and are stuck having to prove themselves all over again. Use these tactics to ensure you're not one of them!"
Paid family and sick leave campaigns growing at the federal, state level
Author Unlisted • CCH Workweek • July 22, 2008
"For most US workers, getting sick with the cold or flu is simply an inconvenience that means taking a few paid days off of work until they feel better enough to get back on the job. But for nearly half of all private industry workers that is not an option. According to 2007 data from the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, as many as 43 percent of private industry workers do not have access to paid sick leave. […] With employers refusing to provide paid leave, legislators at both the federal and state level are stepping in to require employers to provide such leave."
Global News
Workers willing to trade pay for time
Adele Horin • Sydney Morning Herald, Australia • July 26, 2008
"TOO many Australians are over-worked and feel rushed "often or almost all the time", a new study funded by three state governments reveals. Based on interviews with 2831 working men and women, it shows people on average want to work 35 hours a week - almost four hours less than the norm. Men would prefer to work 38 hours but almost one in three works 48 hours or more. Three-quarters would be happy to take a pay cut to work fewer hours. Most women want to work 30 hours. Many employees complained of work overload - and 54 per cent agreed they "often had too much work for one person to manage". And over a third of employees said supervisors expected them to put work ahead of personal life."
Men fundamental to feminism
Sue Dunlevy • The Daily Telegraph, Australia • July25, 2008
"It seems counter-intuitive but Elizabeth Broderick's decision to take up the cause of men who want equal rights to use family-friendly work provisions could be the biggest advance for feminism since The Pill. Women who work part-time or use other family-friendly workplace rules know it can be a career killer. Those on the mummy track are overlooked for promotion, they don't get given the challenging work and they are shut out of senior jobs. It's part of the scaffolding that holds up the glass ceiling, it's the new inequity in the workplace and women are complicit in it because they need work flexibility to carry on their work and family juggle."
Paternity leave for millions of fathers under union plan
Rosa Prince • Telegraph, UK • July 24 , 2008
"While Gordon Brown is said to be determined not to give in to the entire union "shopping list," ministers are said to be prepared to agree a set of measures designed to help the work-life balance of millions of employees, and in particular the 4.5 million working parents. With the unions fast becoming Labour's only source of funding, ministers are under increasing pressure to cave in to their demands. The Govenment is also likely to come under pressure to bring forward plans to extend flexible working rights to parents with children up to the age of 16."
Paternity Leave
Balford Henry • Jamaica Observer • July 22, 2008
"ALUMINA Partners has agreed to grant three days' leave with pay to fathers of newborn babies in a landmark agreement that could pave the way for national adoption of the benefit. Under the agreement, reached recently between the Manchester/St Elizabeth-based bauxite/alumina mining company and the National Workers Union (NWU) at the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, fathers become entitled to three days on each occasion their partner gives birth up to a maximum of three occasions or nine days. The three days start at the time of birth."