July 10, 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
With Her Baby in Tow, Parker Works Off Rust
“Candace Parker is the young face of the W.N.B.A., and she is back doing the job she loves after a maternity leave that lasted the first eight games of this season. But Parker said she could not bear to be far from the new face in her life, her nearly 2-month-old daughter, Lailaa. So there was the 23-year-old Parker running the court for the Los Angeles Sparks in a 69-60 victory over the Liberty on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden. And there was her husband, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Shelden Williams, sitting in the first row behind the Sparks’ bench, holding their baby snuggled to his chest.”
Outsourcing to 'virtual assistants' cuts overhead costs
“Michael Hanik used to have 12 employees, a warehouse and trucks to run his medical devices catalog company. But four years ago, he turned to the Internet to look for ways to reduce overhead costs for his Rockville, Md.-based Total Medical Systems. He now has just three employees on the payroll but as many as 50 contractors working for him, some of them known as virtual assistants. The term, around since the Internet became widely available, encompasses anyone who telecommutes and does administrative tasks for other businesses, usually on a contractual basis. Most do tasks such as document preparation, paperwork and accounting. Some have niche areas, such as bilingual translation or creative services.”
For many Americans, health cover is key to a job
“Real estate agent Lisa DeWaal serves coffee at a Starbucks outlet for four hours every morning before she goes to the office to start her "day job." The reason has little to do with the state of the housing market and everything to do with the one big perk that 20 hours a week at the coffee counter provides: affordable health insurance for her and her three children. While health experts say there are no statistics available, analysts say there are many Americans like DeWaal: people who have taken or stick to a job just for the health insurance. It is a situation most Europeans, Canadians and others who enjoy national health services would find bewildering if not appalling and is one factor fueling the drive to reform the hugely expensive U.S. healthcare system. ‘People will even stick with a job they feel boxed in on because of the healthcare benefits, especially if those benefits cannot be matched elsewhere,’ said Andrew Sum, a labor economics professor at Northeastern University.”
Vacations Gone Wired
“It's time to celebrate summer. For my family this year, that entails lots of canoing, a week on the Chesapeake Bay and a week at the beach. We'll paddle, slather, swim, scream and dig in the sand. We'll sleep in, nap when we feel like it and spend twilight watching the tide wash away the day's sandcastles as we slosh through the surf, possibly in the direction of a Krispy Kreme. I can do this, I tell myself, because of--and in spite of--my laptop and cellphone. First, the part I like: Because I have a laptop and cellphone, I can schedule my vacations without regard to deadlines. After all, with these tools I'm just as reachable at the rental cottage on the bay as I am at my home office.”
Increase efficiency with a flexible work environment
“Today’s business environment requires companies to operate more efficiently than ever before. Business owners and employees are on the go, working longer hours and working from multiple locations. Their need for a flexible, connected workforce is crucial. Because of these changes, many business owners are recognizing the importance of instituting a formal remote working policy. According to a Microsoft survey of employees in 25 mid-sized cities, Raleigh ranks fifth for its support of remote working.”
No Rest for the Wealthy
“In the contemporary money culture, to be at leisure, to be idle, is to be irrelevant. After Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch, John Thain, the former chief executive of Merrill, was pushed out, in part because he insisted on going skiing at Vail over Christmas and wanted to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos amid the company’s continuing crisis. A great many people can afford not to work and could spend their time shuttling between multiple homes, eating fabulous meals and playing golf. Yet they continue to work around the clock.”
Blogs
Low-Wage Schedules and the Child Care Struggle
“Yesterday, at a New America event titled ‘Flexible Work Arrangements and Low-Wage Work,’ several researchers laid these facts on the table. It was another reminder of the interdependence of policies related to health, education, the economy and the American workforce. And it highlighted why working families often struggle to find appropriate child care, to care for sick children or to find ways to participate in their children's education.”
Furloughs and Perks
“I too feel like I'm hearing way more about this kind of thing than I have during past recessions. My sister had her 401(k) matching cut. My wife's company is making everyone take furlough days. The Virginia Symphony Orchestra took a month off. Etc. And of course, this is all on top of good old fashioned rising unemployment. But what's the right metric to measure this? The 401(k) stuff doesn't show up in wage figures but furlough days should, shouldn't they? (Although many of them just end up eating into vacation time, which helps corporate accounting but doesn't affect official wage figures.) Obviously wage freezes show up too. On the other hand, layoffs usually hit the most recently hired workers first, who are also the lowest paid, which makes average wage figures go up even as total wages go down.”
A Day In The Life Of A Twintern
“Most people measure the workday in hours, but for a new crop of employees—interns in charge of their companies' Twitter feeds—the day is measured in tweets. ‘I try to get in at least 10 posts a day,’ says Alexa Robinson, 22, who started work as Pizza Hut's first official ‘twintern’ in June. Robinson spends much of the day on the free microblogging service Twitter sending out messages about special promotions, responding to customer complaints, and trolling Twitter for mentions of Pizza Hut.”
Scaling Back Career for Baby
“Anna has just returned to work after a three-month-long maternity leave at home with her first child. She wrote to me during one of her early days back, surprised that what she thought would be the obvious choice — returning to a job she loved — seemed unexpectedly murky. She is looking for advice, and asked me to turn her questions over to Motherlode readers.”
work/life balance? time to lighten the caregiving load
“There are many women who are working and raising children all by themselves (13.9 million in 2007), other women caring for both children and elderly parents (about 75 percent of eldercare is given by women), and still others taking care of loved ones who are ill or disabled (about 30 million in 2004). There are some women who are dealing with all of these things at once, with pets thrown in for good measure. The recession has furthermore brought home the fact that my very ability to whine about fatigue and agonize about things such as work/family balance, and holding onto dreams, ambitions and identity, is a privilege. However impossibly hectic my days, I have choices, and time and mental energy left over to whine and agonize. Millions of women don’t.”
Global News
Parental provisions doubled
“The financial strain of a new baby in the household has been significantly lessened for University of Otago staff. The salary subsidy available to staff members - usually women - taking parental leave has been doubled from six weeks to 12, while staff whose partners have babies are now entitled to two weeks' paid leave. For human resources department staff member Adam Sturge, the new provisions for partners meant he continued to be paid while spending two weeks at home with wife Kim after their first child, Billy, was born five weeks ago.”
Functional, but not affordable: Ikea's new maternity scheme
“As strategically designed as its furnishings, the company says the scheme - now considered to be the most progressive in Australia - will attract and retain valuable workers. The move has been applauded by retail analysts, but smaller businesses say they're just not able to follow suit. The furniture giant was one of the first retailers in the country to offer workers six weeks' paid parental leave. But now it has gone even further, with the new collective agreement offering 26 weeks' maternity leave at full pay for workers who've been with the company for two or more years. Four weeks' paternity leave is also offered.”
Gender pay gap mystery
“Figures provided by the ONS suggests the gender gap does increase with age and begins to stretch once women take time off to have children. Dr Susan Harkness, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at Bath, agrees: "Maybe it's the older women and women returners (from maternity leave) who are doing relatively well ... and they just stick in these relatively low grade jobs and progress to the top of the pay scale, whereas men use them as more transitory and move up the pay grades. Also a lot of women with childcare responsibilities are quite constrained so they don't have the same opportunities. If you know you've got to go and pick up your children, these jobs accommodate that more easily.’”