June 12, 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
Employed see tough times, too
“People who still have jobs are faring worse than at any time since the Great Depression, a USA TODAY analysis of employment data found. Furloughs, pay cuts and reduced hours are taking a toll on workers who so far have escaped job cuts. The employed worked fewer hours in May — an average of just 33.1 hours a week — than at any time since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began counting in 1964. Part-time work is at a record high. Overtime is at a record low. The magnitude of job losses — 6 million jobs gone, a 9.4% unemployment rate — has overshadowed the groundbreaking nature of the nation's employment troubles, especially the financial decline of those still working.”
SHRM, Democrats Tangle Over Paid Sick Days Bill
“After the first hearing in its legislative history, it’s unclear whether a bill that would require companies to offer paid sick days will take a path toward reconciliation or strife between business and advocacy groups. But at a June 11 meeting of a House Education and Labor subcommittee, the Healthy Families Act created tension between the panel’s Democratic chairwoman and an official of the Society for Human Resource Management. Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-California, said the bill, which would allow employees to accrue up to seven paid sick days each year, would provide economic security for workers who cannot take time off for themselves or loved ones during an illness because they are afraid of losing their jobs.”
A Family-Leave Safety Net
“Unlike nearly every other developed nation, the U.S. government does not require that workers have access to paid leave from work for the birth of a child or to care for an ill family member. While some employers do the right thing and provide paid family leave to all their employees, most do not. Within a company, there may not even be a uniform policy. What this means is it's the workers at the top who are most likely to get benefits like paid family and medical leave, making it more of a perk than a right. The Census Bureau reports that 60 percent of new mothers with a bachelor's degree or higher received paid maternity leave, compared to only 22 percent of those with less than a high school degree.”
Advice On How To Avoid Job Burnout And Get Work-life Balance
“Advice on how to avoid job burnout and establish new work and life habits is available on Wednesday at Workforce Solutions. The free seminar is at 11 a.m. Wednesday at 6505 Airport Boulevard just north of Highland Mall. Dr. Paul Baffes will lead the discussion. He is a work-life balance coach, speaker, consultant and author. ‘Work-Life Balance basically boils down to a single question: Are you doing the things you say you truly want to do with your life?’ said Baffes. ‘If you can answer ‘yes’ then you are all set. But if you're honest and the answer is ‘no’ then work-life is all about learning how to ask why not.’ The author of Work-Life Balance says the next step is to learn how to ask what you need to change so that you can start doing what you truly want to do.”
Workers want to telecommute because they can
“Technological advancements make telecommuting easier for professionals to work, communicate and collaborate online. Companies are seeing the economic benefits and employees like the freedom, personal savings and quiet time that telecommuting affords. ‘People want to work from home or just about anywhere because they can,’ Citrix Online's report concludes. From 2003 to 2008, the number of American teleworkers rose by 43 percent to 33.7 million, according to World at Work, a human resources association.”
Blogs
Workplace Trends: The End of Cubicle Dwelling?
“What does all of this mean for us? As a culture in the U.S., we have moved away from a traditional worker mindset where 9-to-5 office jobs were intended to last for decades and many aspects of our lives were tied up with our employer (pensions, health insurance, etc.). Now we need to embrace a freelancer mindset, with a focus on the work rather than the employer. This puts many additional burdens on the worker: health care and retirement, for example. Work may last only days, weeks or months, rather than years, and we need to be able to demonstrate our value regardless of whether we are working remotely or in a cubicle. We need to be flexible and ready to embrace new jobs, new work, new technologies and new business models at any time.”
Who'll Care for Aging Adults? Big Question, Few Answers
“For the past few months, a friend cared for her mother through the final stages of ovarian cancer under a best case elder care scenario: 1) she is a stay-at-home mom who lived close by and had the flexibility to provide care, and 2) her mother had adequate financial resources to pay for the care she needed. Yet, the reality of elder care was, according to my friend, “a nightmare.” As I found two years earlier when I cared for my mother before she died of lung cancer, she was blindsided by the lack of support. Or, let me restate, the lack of elder care beyond family caregivers.”
Study: Work-Related Stress Could Impact Your Health in Retirement
“Americans who manage others generally seem to have lower blood pressure in retirement than those who are managed, the study found. Workers who held higher-status jobs and especially management positions, such as chief executives, financial managers, and management analysts, were found to have the lowest rates of hypertension in retirement, according to the paper published in the June issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Employees in lower status jobs with little control over decision making, such as sales, administrative support, construction, and food preparation workers, tended to have the highest rates of high blood pressure at age 65 or older.”
The labor market has NOT yet signaled a turning point
“Total hours worked is equal to the total number of workers employed multiplied by the average length of the workweek for the average worker. The length of the workweek tends to respond at turning points faster than does the number of jobs. When demand is slowing, firms tend to cut back on overtime, and then switch to part-time workers or in some cases cut workers back to partial workweeks, before they lay them off. Conversely, when demand is rising, firms tend to end furloughs, and if necessary ask workers to work overtime, before they hire new workers. (The hours worked measure improved in April 1991 and November 2001 which on other grounds were eventually declared to mark the ends of their respective recessions.) The phenomenon is called ‘labor hoarding’ and it is attributable to the costs of finding, hiring and training new workers and the costs in terms of severance pay and morale when firing workers.”
Virtual Insanity
“Telecommuting is one of the signature game-changers of the information age, leveling out geography and creating all kinds of working relationships that had never been possible. NewWest.Net is almost a paradigm of a semivirtual organization, with employees and contractors scattered around the West—and yet constantly in contact via e-mail, instant messaging, Skype, and the telephone. But if someone in the Missoula, Mont., office wants to work from home without a very good reason, I have a simple answer: No. And if we're hiring, we prefer to recruit people who can come into the office every day, even if the job could be done from anywhere.”
Global News
Sick but at work? Study finds it's worse in the long-run
“Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet of Stockholm found that employees who often go to work feeling sick -- termed ‘sickness presenteeism’ -- have higher rates of future work absences due to illness. [. . .] The study, published in the June issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, was based on research involving two groups of workers -- about 3,750 public sector employees who were mainly female, and 2,500 private-sector employees who were mainly male. In the first year of the study, 19 percent of public sector workers and 13 percent of private sector workers had more than five ‘sickness presenteeism’ days.”
A (paid) break for dad
“ON June 18 the Spanish parliament will rubber-stamp a new law extending paternity leave from the present 13 uninterrupted days to four weeks. This still falls short of leave for new fathers in European Union countries like Sweden, where a man whose partner has given birth is entitled to share the 16 months’ leave available to both parents. Meanwhile, to equality campaigners’ disgust, UK plans to extend fathers’ paid leave from two weeks to six months were temporarily shelved last week after the government decided that the present economic downturn was not a good moment to introduce the new legislation.”
Workers can accrue holiday even when on long-term sick leave, rules House of Lords
“The lords agreed with a claim by Keith Ainsworth, a former tax inspector in Chester who complained that HM Revenue and Customs wrongly made a deduction from his wages, involving holiday pay when he was ill. In the judgement, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry concluded workers also had a right to carry over holiday leave which they were unable to take while ill into the following year's allocation, or take pay in lieu. [. . .] The ruling means an employee who returns to work from a year of illness would legally be entitled to four weeks' holiday immediately upon his return.”