August 4, 2009 .
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
For the Self-Employed, It's an Endless Workweek
“Solo entrepreneurs, freelancers and other self-employed professionals have always struggled to take vacations, and the recession is making it even harder. Being out of pocket can mean missing one of a diminishing number of business leads, and the rising tide of unemployed professionals has heightened competition for freelance work.”
The Case for Paid Family Leave
“Only two countries in the advanced world provide no guarantee for paid leave from work to care for a newborn child. Last spring one of the two, Australia, gave up that dubious distinction by establishing paid family leave starting in 2011. I wasn't surprised when this didn't make the news here in the United States—we're now the only wealthy country without such a policy.”
Parenting and Mad Moms
“While working fathers are content with their job-life balance, moms are increasingly angry as they try to balance being great employees and great parents. Who are they mad at? The dads. Joining The Takeaway to discuss the continuing inequality of parenting are Lisa Belkin, author of the Motherlode blog for The New York Times, and Jeremy Adam Smith, author of The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared ParentingAreTransforming the American Family.”
Take Two (Weeks of Vacation) and Call Us in the Morning
“Eric Jones, director of IT at iPass in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, hasn't taken a vacation in a long time. That wouldn't be the case if he worked for Eric Berridge, co-founder and CEO of Bluewolf, a global IT services company, because his company offers unlimited vacation. The company doesn't even track the number of days. As long as work is done, the company is happy. Is that the wave of the future? Kari Henley thinks so. She's director of the board at the Women and Family Life Center in North Haven, Connecticut. Only 14 percent of Americans took two weeks of vacation last year and the number of Americans taking family vacations has dropped by a third in the past generation. Are we just too busy to take a break?”
Income Loss Persists Long After Layoffs
“Chuck Dettman said he had not really considered the notion back in 2001 that he and his friends in a job-search support group would never recover from being laid off. [. . .] Eight years later, however, most of the people who formed the core of Mr. Dettman’s group have not made it back to their old income levels, even if they eventually landed jobs. [. . .] Taken together, their struggles are stark illustration that it can take years for a worker’s earnings to bounce back after a layoff, and that it can take even longer for a layoff during a recession. Economists, in fact, say income losses for workers who are let go in a recession can persist for as long as two decades, a depressing prognosis for the several-million people who have lost their jobs in the current recession.”
Troops' families feel weight of war
“As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to demand long and multiple deployments of soldiers, the Army high command is focusing more attention on a tragic consequence to military families. Soldiers and their spouses are learning to live separate lives — the soldier at war, the spouse at home with the children — and it is becoming more difficult with each deployment to get back together.”
Stay at home Monday - it's Telework Day in Virginia
“The state wants businesses to let at least some of their employees stay home from work today - but not to goof off. Today is Telework Day - a new initiative to encourage businesses to expand telecommuting options, which usually involve working from home. [. . .] The atmosphere, she said, benefits from reduced emissions. Workers save on gas costs and avoid traffic jams. ‘Everybody knows if you sit in traffic for hours before you get to work, you're probably not in the best frame of mind when you arrive,’ she said. And studies show working outside the office can increase productivity, Jackson said.”
Reports
Improving Employment and Income Security for Pregnant Women and New Mothers
“Workplace policies affecting work and family balance are out of touch with the reality of modern family life in the United States. Worker benefits—including paid leave and health care—are modeled on a traditional two-parent household in which one parent works a single 9 to 5 job while the other manages household and childcare responsibilities. People who do not conform to this model are often left out in the cold. Part-time workers, for example, often have little or no access to benefits, including unemployment insurance when they lose their jobs.”
Blogs
How to find work with a flexible schedule
“Most of us think of a dream career as one that affords us flexibility for personal relationships and high engagement for personal growth. And while flexible work used to be limited to women, USA Today reports that increasingly, men, too, feel stress from the personal impact of inflexible work. So the question for everyone is: What's the best path to get this dream career? [. . .] So the trick is not to get flexibility, the trick is to get it without losing engaging work and avoiding a pay cut. Also, keep in mind that flexible work is not about the hours, it's about control. Because most of us are fine with working long hours as long as we have control over those hours.”
Too Much Vacation for Congress
“This week Congress will not vote on health care reform, the issue that has dominated recent debate. Nor will it tackle gay rights or revitalize our rail system or respond to climate change. Congress has left the building, granting itself an August vacation. That’s in addition to its week off this past February, two more in April and another in May. Most Americans get about two weeks a year, if that. Is something amiss in this 4-1 disparity?”
Labor Department Awards $10 Million to Retrain Older Workers
“The U.S. Department of Labor awarded $10 million to organizations that connect older workers to jobs last week. The money is designated to retrain workers age 55 and older for jobs in high-growth industries such as healthcare and green jobs. The 10 grants worth approximately $1 million each were given to organizations in Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. The Atlantic Philanthropies will also invest another $3.6 million in this effort.”
Telecommuting, the ultimate green job?
“Green jobs. You hear all about them lately, but what are they, exactly? This is where the problem lies; there is no concrete definition of a green job and if you ask five different people to define it, you’ll likely get five different answers. [. . .] Defining green jobs is difficult. With the surge of renewable energy jobs in the nation, people often associate green jobs with wind turbine manufacturing or solar panel installation. Naturally, these industries are considered green, but other trends are emerging. One growing job trend that is beginning to make its mark on the green jobs movement is telecommuting. Although today’s technology allows for employees to easily telecommute, a surprisingly small number of people actually do so.”
Motherhood and Job Discrimination
“As a mother of two teen daughters, I’m thrilled by the positive messages they often receive about gender equality. One of their former nannies is a promising academic, finishing her PhD. Their aunt is a cardiologist. One of my best chums from college is a U.S. senator. My kids’ schoolwork is highly valued by fair, challenging teachers. But we have far to go before my daughters will have the same opportunities open to them in the work world as boys in their generation. In particular, if they become mothers, they may experience plenty of discrimination, as I pointed out recently in one of my Balancing Acts columns.”
Global News
Bid to extend flexible work hours
“Employment minister Sir Reg Empey is to hold a public consultation on whether flexible working hours should made more widely available by employers in NI. Currently employees with children below six or with disabled dependents up to the age of 18 have the right to request flexible working hours. However, employers do not have to grant that request. Sir Reg said he wanted to extend the right to flexible hours to people with children of primary school age.”
Vacations require year-round strategy
“Yet while vacation scheduling is a hot topic during the summer, the answer to ensuring full staffing complements isn't just about summer; it's about developing a year-round strategy and solution. This is where instituting flexible work arrangements can help. In fact, more and more workers are seeking flexibility and work/life balance as one of the key elements of their decision to take a new job. And, since those baby boomers are watching the retirement clock, flexible work arrangements might just be a strategy for retaining some of this talent in your organization.”
Phased Retirement more work than play
“Phased retirement sounds great in principle. What's not to like about shifting from a five-day-a-week grind to four days a week in your late fifties, and perhaps a three-day week in your early sixties? Ottawa has made it easier for members of defined-benefit (DB) pension plans to collect partial pensions while also continuing to work three or four days a week or even to collect a partial pension on top of a full-time job. It's also possible to use variations such as working full-time in the winter but taking the summer off. In any of these cases you can collect a partial pension to make up for the lower earned income, and during the days you're still working, build up pension credits for later in life.”