March 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
Law Firms Across U.S. Are Boosting Paid Leave
“Several of the nation's largest law firms are boosting their paid leave for lawyers who become new parents. In the past few months, about a dozen law firms have increased their paid maternity leave to 18 weeks from, in most cases, about 12 weeks. Also, many firms have increased their paid paternity leave periods, particularly if fathers become the main caregivers. Firms also are bumping up the amount of time off given to adoptive parents.”
Law Students Make An Appeal for Change
“Last year Bruck and about 25 other Stanford students founded Building a Better Legal Profession, which is aimed at forcing law firms to change the way they hire and promote young lawyers. This year, the group spawned chapters at Yale and Harvard law schools as well as a Facebook following of more than 1,000 students around the country. Those students are asking recruiters tough questions about firms' commitment to advancing women and minorities and whether workers can hone their talents and still have time for a family.”
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Telecommuting
“Given these facts, I believe IT leaders are obligated to explore the entire spectrum of flexible work arrangements including telecommuting, homesourcing (a combination of outsourcing and telecommuting), virtual teams, and replacing travel with teleconferencing. Staffing an office from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. doesn't make sense if it requires employees to spend hours in traffic.”
High Finance Down-Home
“By several measures, the number of people working from home via Internet connections and other telecommuting technology is growing at a steady clip. The Gartner Dataquest telecommunications research firm, for instance, reported last year that about 12 million U.S. workers telecommute for more than 8 hours per week, compared with about 6 million in 2000. By 2009, Gartner estimates, the figure will rise to 14 million.”
Lifestyle Factors Part of Healthy Workplace
“In this column I have written before about Generation X's desire for life balance and wellness, and about Gen Xers wanting more from their employers than just a good salary. How well an employer encourages a balanced lifestyle is directly proportional to burnout and ultimately to the attraction and retention of top talent.”
Blogs
Doing Well and Doing Good
“Debra Cassens Weiss, writing for The American Bar Association Journal reminded me that [Dean of Harvard Law School Elena] Kagan’s remark expanded last week on comments she had originally made in 2006 in an address to the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. At that time, Kagan referred to a 2006 study by the Center for Work-Life Policy finding that only 20 percent of highly qualified female lawyers said having “a powerful position” was an important career goal.”
Top 10 Reasons for Workplace Flexibility
“With the Chamber's Workforce 2020 Workplace Flexibility Forum right around the corner (next Thursday, March 27), we are going to run down the top 10 reasons for workplace flexibility on the blog throughout the week.”
Offering Employees Flex-Time
“Home and personal responsibilities may require workers to be absent from work. But some companies are combating this problem by offering a solution called Flextime. Introducing flexibility into employees’ workday increases productivity. It allows employees to work, within limits, based on their personal schedule. It gives the employee more control when scheduling personal time for doctor’s appointments, parent teacher meetings and other responsibilities. For those employees that work in congested areas, this also allows them to schedule their work day commute during off-peak hours.”
Aging and The Age Wave are Business Issues
“Family caregivers comprise 13% of the workforce. 59% of family caregivers who care for someone over the age of 18 either work or have worked while providing care. And 62% have had to make some adjustments to their work life, from reporting late to work to giving up work entirely. 37% of human resource directors did not feel that their organizations made a real and ongoing effort to inform employees of available assistance for managing work and family responsibilities.” Sources include National Family Caregivers Association, AARP, and Family and Work Institute’s Ellen Galinsky.
The Complications of More Leisure Time
“For this week’s Shifting Career’s column, I spoke with Linda Nazareth, an economist in Toronto for Business News Network, Canada’s national cable station for business news. She is the author of a new book, “The Leisure Economy.” Below are excerpts from our conversation: …”I [Nazareth] argue that the boomers are the most competitive generation we’ve ever seen and they have made it fashionable to be busy. They always had to compete with each other because there are so many of them. And because they have dominated everything, they have given us the time-crunch economy. But we now have an aging society. And as people move out of the time-crunch years — the 30s and 40s when you have the most demands on your time and the least free time — you have a kind of forced leisure.””
Reports
Tallying the New Partners
“The Project for Attorney Retention, run out of the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings College of the Law, has just released its findings on new female partners at law firms in the U.S.”
Study Backs Home Work
“Working from home reduces stress in employees but leads to them worrying about career progression, according to research by a North East think tank. The study by the Durham University Business School showed that home workers worried about being out of sight, out of mind, therefore losing potential opportunities to move up the jobs ladder. Despite these concerns the study also found that working from home generally had a positive effect on an employee’s work-life balance, giving them more time with family and leading to less stress and burnout.”
Report to be presented today (March 18, 2008) at Keble College, Oxford, by Professor Tom Redman of the Durham Business School.
Global News
Israeli Secret Agents Blog on Work-Life Balance
“Israel's intelligence service [Shin Beth] has emerged from the shadows to allow four agents to write blogs about their daily routines in an attempt to boost recruitment…. "A friend told me about the opportunity to work for the Shin Beth," writes Agent H. "I was looking for a place that offers interest and stability, while leaving time for me to spend with my family." Another blogger, Agent Y, agrees that the working hours in the Shin Beth are not too demanding. "You never work overtime, unless you really have to," he writes. "I rarely get home after 6:30pm." Agent A, a software engineer, writes that everyday is dress down day at the Shin Beth.”
Monitoring Employees' Time and Productivity with Flexitime Work Schedules
“New management practices have also given rise to flexible working arrangements and under this new dispensation, many workers are given greater autonomy as they are encouraged to assist with the development of their organisation in various aspects. Ideas such as working from home, maternity leave, having childcare facilities at work are among many various issues and programmes which are being discussed in various organisations of both the public and private sector.
Phased Retirement Slowly Catching On
“Investors Group reports that 58% of all working Canadians -- and 67% of those are in the 45 to 64 baby boom age group -- definitely plan on working in retirement. For this group, retirement will no longer signal the end of working, but rather a career and lifestyle transition. To do this effectively, you're going to have to develop a "deceleration" phase in your career, says Tammy Erickson, author of "Workforce Crisis: How to Beat the Coming Shortage of Skills and Talent". People tell her that they enjoy their colleagues and their work, and would definitely consider staying on longer if options to slow down a bit were more available.”
Stress Still Main Cause of Ill Health in Teachers, Says ATL
“The rash of government education policies over the last five years has undermined attempts to agree a proper work/life balance and led to increasingly stressed teachers, according to the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL). Delegates at the ATL conference in Torquay heard that stress-related illness remains the principal cause of ill health in teachers and lecturers.”
Why Top Jobs Elude Women
“There's no simple answer for this imbalance but a new study attempts to explore the reasons, including interviewing senior male and female managers in a range of companies. The study, done with the co-operation of 13 large Australian companies among others, targets many of the issues that make rising to the top either less attractive or less possible for women. The results won't make comfortable reading for many boards and challenge the concept of just what it means to be the right "cultural fit" in organisations. One of the most powerful aspects of the study, The Leadership Challenge: Women in Management, by Hannah Piterman and launched yesterday, is the many direct quotes by various individuals.”
Mums On The March
“A group of working mothers will take their fight for longer maternity leave to the streets later this year with a "Mummies' March". The protest is being spearheaded by Bahraini mother-of-three Anisa Asad, who is the founder and director of the Bright Beginning Day Care Centre, in Adliya. She has been joined by more than 100 other working women, who are demanding paid maternity leave of at least six months. Current rules grant new mothers just 45 days of paid maternity leave, although the Civil Service Bureau has recently increased this to 60 days for government employees.”
Cameron Calls for Flexible Parental Leave
“The Conservatives have called for more flexible parental leave, arguing parents should be able to share time-off. Under the Conservatives' proposals, new mothers and fathers would be able to take up to six months off work simultaneously, or divide a year's parental leave between them. David Cameron argued this would be good for families as well as helping to close the gender pay gap by undermining the assumption that it is always women that will take a lengthy career break if they choose to have a child. The Fawcett Society has welcomed the proposals but Labour has claimed they would be impractical for many families.”
Women Plan Gets Mixed Reception
“Plans to invest £12.5m to boost the number of female entrepreneurs have been given a mixed reception. Marcie Incarico, who set up event management company Out There Events in 2001, said women still face additional challenges in business because of a lack of childcare support and an absence of female role models. But she questioned the impact that £12.5m could have across the country…. She called for a strategic look at childcare options for working mums, including self-employed mothers.”