October 16, 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
The State of the American Woman
“The State of the American Woman” is a collection of articles about “the quiet revolution” that has “changed the status of American women.”
The few, the proud, the alone
“In an unusually direct way, the Marine Corps is warning reservists and their families about the alienation and psychological pain that Marines can feel when returning to civilian life after duty in a war zone. A video titled ‘Worlds Apart’ made by a San Diego production company warns that even well-meaning civilians cannot be expected to understand what it is like to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan. The story has actors portraying a returning enlisted Marine named Jeff; his wife, Eileen; and their friends and family members. At first, Jeff's return is joyous, but he soon becomes sullen and angry and begins drinking heavily and withdrawing emotionally from Eileen and their young son. Their marriage deteriorates.”
Can a Flexible Boss Improve Your Health?
“Having a supportive and flexible workplace may add years to your life, according to a novel nationwide study released Tuesday by the Work, Family and Health Network. The preliminary findings -- compiled from eight federally-funded research teams across the country -- show employers' policies can directly impact workers' risk of cardiovascular disease, how much they sleep each night, their families' well-being and personal job satisfaction. The three-year study looked at a range of industries, including long-term elderly care, hotels and hospitality, retail and grocery stores and several large white-collar firms.”
Author: Economic Changes Opened Doors For Women
“Women's roles in the workplace and home have changed in the past 50 years, thanks in part to the economy and advocacy from many corners. In When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, author Gail Collins chronicles that transformation. ‘Over the last 50 years, women have taken equal responsibility in many cases for supporting their family,’ Collins, the first woman to be editorial page editor of The New York Times, tells Steve Inskeep. [. . .] But while more women are in the workplace today, society has not restructured to reflect that fact, she says.”
Moms who left work force find extra hardships trying to go back
“Unlike Gutowski, though, many mothers simply cannot take time off work to raise their kids. This year has seen a major decrease in the number of professional women taking large blocks of time off work, because they can't afford to lose their incomes. Not included in the 14.9 million Americans who are officially unemployed are stay-at-home moms who had intended to go back to work once their kids entered school. They kept their skills up and maintained contacts and are now eager to find jobs, either spurred by the recession or because it was their plan all along. According to new Pew Research Center statistics, only 21 percent of stay-at-home moms are college graduates, while 34 percent of working moms have degrees.”
Reclaiming Mommy Track(s)
“Twenty years ago, Felice Schwartz ignited a national controversy about the ‘mommy track’ in a Harvard Business Review article titled, ‘Management Women and the New Facts of Life.’ Schwartz didn't coin the term and never used it, but her proposal that employers should create a flexible career path expressly for working mothers was roundly criticized by feminists and corporate leaders. Two decades later, those of us who care about women's advancement need to consider that she may have been right.”
Still on the Job, but at Half the Pay
“In recent decades, layoffs were the standard procedure for shrinking labor costs. Reducing the wages of those who remained on the job was considered demoralizing and risky: the best workers would jump to another employer. But now pay cuts, sometimes the result of downgrades in rank or shortened workweeks, are occurring more frequently than at any time since the Great Depression. [. . .] The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track pay cuts, but it suggests they are reflected in the steep decline of another statistic: total weekly pay for production workers, pilots among them, representing 80 percent of the work force. That index has fallen for nine consecutive months, an unprecedented string over the 44 years the bureau has calculated weekly pay, capturing the large number of people out of work, those working fewer hours and those whose wages have been cut. The old record was a two-month decline, during the 1981-1982 recession.”
Reports
The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything
“This report describes how a woman’s nation changes everything about how we live and work today. Now for the first time in our nation’s history, women are half of all U.S. workers and mothers are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families. This is a dramatic shift from just a generation ago (in 1967 women made up only one-third of all workers). It changes how women spend their days and has a ripple effect that reverberates throughout our nation. It fundamentally changes how we all work and live, not just women but also their families, their co-workers, their bosses, their faith institutions, and their communities.”
Blogs
One Year Later -- Flexible Downsizing and Hard Choices Post-Recession, Pre-Recovery
“A year ago, the economic downturn was in full gear. As layoffs gained momentum, I loudly promoted a more flexible approach to downsizing as an alternative to knee jerk job cuts. If executed correctly and strategically, compressed workweeks, telecommuting, reduced schedules, furloughs and sabbaticals improve productivity and reduce costs in numerous areas (e.g labor costs, real estate overheads, operating costs), therefore, limiting or avoiding layoffs. Additionally, this very same flexibility simultaneously achieves other business objectives, such as disaster preparedness in response to the H1N1 virus, or expanded global client coverage to generate new business.”
Shriver Report Has More Bad News Than Good for Working Women
“Get ready for a media blitz of massive proportions. Kennedy clan member and California first lady Maria Shriver has harnessed the powers of NBC, Time magazine, and a liberal think tank in Washington to profuse the Internet, print media, and the airwaves with the results of a new report she's produced. It's all timed to coincide with the consummation of a demographic trend that has been decades in the making: Women now comprise fully half of those on U.S. payrolls.”
The Job Market, in Charts, II
“Earlier this week we posted a few graphs showing some of the depth and breadth of job market problems. Here are a few other interesting charts, some submitted by readers. [. . .] Here’s another interesting chart, although its most recent numbers are from last year. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it shows the rising entry of women into the labor market, broken down by motherhood status: [. . .] Women across the board have entered the labor market in higher numbers over the last three decades, but the biggest increases have been among mothers with young children.”
Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE) in the US Capitol
“This week on the Hill, members of the Work, Family and Health Network presented their findings at a congressional briefing about the intersection of workplace policy and workers' health and well-being. When employees face conflict between work and family obligations, there is an increase in their stress level, greater risk of heart disease, and a decrease in their sleep duration. But that's not all - when things go badly with colleagues, the worker's family is affected as well. Children of stressed workers report spending less time with their parents, and they produce higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol. The old model of top down authority at work continues to lose ground.”
Global News
Government to delay implementation of EU agency workers directive
“The government is to delay key elements of its employment protection legislation until after the election in an attempt to keep the labour market flexible and slow the increase in unemployment. Ministers are expected to announce that the European Union's agency workers directive will not be implemented until October or December 2011 – the last possible commencement date under EU law. The government is also expected to announce that laws giving workers rights to take time off to carry out civic duties are to be scrapped. In addition, small businesses – that is, any firm employing fewer than 250 employees – will have a year's exemption from forthcoming legislation enshrining employees' right to time off for training.”
The profits to be found in 'womenomics'
“During the course of their research for the book they found that companies who allowed their employees flexible hours, or a four-day working week are doing much better than all the others. Other data showed that the more women at the top of a company, the higher the profits. After interviews with the managers at hundreds of top companies, the authors realised they were on to something bigger than their own experiences.”
Ofsted told to leave friends to look after each other's children
“Ofsted has been ordered to stop intervening in cases where friends look after each other’s children after its inspectors banned two police officers from a shared childcare arrangement. Ed Balls, the Children’s Secretary, told Ofsted’s chief inspector that reciprocal childcare arrangements should no longer be treated as childminding or be subject to inspections. He will also make changes to the law to ‘clarify’ the situation for parents who share childcare. [. . .] Mr Balls made the ruling in direct response to the case of two policewomen, who had a job-share arrangement and took care of each other’s children on their days off.”