September 1, 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
Don't let your phone rule your life
“Smart phones give us instant Internet access and e-mail connectivity. They're also making us work more. A British employment law firm, Peninsula, surveyed 600 white collar workers and found that BlackBerry-equipped employees worked an average 15 more hours a week than colleagues without smart phones. This does not surprise Beth Stuever, a Michigan State University Extension Services communications manager. She says the iPhone she purchased three months ago has ‘revolutionized the way I work.’ [. . .] While the technology increases flexibility, MSU professor Ellen Ernst Kossek, who teaches in the School of Labor and Industrial Relations, says the blurring of the line between home and work can increase stress.”
Afraid to Take Time Off?
“A couple of things became very clear to me after I spoke to and visited with law students at both law schools in Wisconsin on several occasions during the past year. The students were very concerned about their job prospects (half the members of each graduating class reportedly were without job offers on graduation day), and many of them were not interested in the old-fashioned corporate-law-firm style of advancement. ‘Paying one’s dues’ by billing more than 2,000 hours per year and working 12 hours or more per day was not their notion of the ideal law job. Most of the law students I talked to were more interested in a healthy work-life balance. More experienced lawyers know all about making personal sacrifices to become professionally successful. It’s how many of them got to where they are today.”
Stay at Home Workers Still Stay Connected to Office
“Telecommuting has proven to be a popular perk offered by employers to cut down on commute times, allow workers flexibility to attend to their children and doctors appointments and keep employees that they might otherwise lose to a competitor. A 2008 study by staffing firm Robert Half International found that 13 percent of chief financial officers named telecommuting and flexible work schedules as important to landing job candidates. Working from home is also credited with increasing productivity and saving money that would otherwise pay for office space and supplies.”
Can't Get a Raise? Push for More Vacation Time
“Many employees who aren't getting raises because of the recession are resorting to bargaining with their bosses: How about more vacation time instead? Asking for a few extra days off may sound simple, but career consultants say it's not always an easy request for an employer to grant, given the bare-bones staffing at many companies. After multiple rounds of layoffs, furloughs and cutbacks, employers may be unwilling to part with any remaining workers, even for just a few days. Still, there's hope. With the right strategy, employees can eke out some additional time for a weekend getaway or just a day away from the cubicle.”
Lack of paid sick days compounds flu problem
“Health officials are urging businesses to keep sick employees home this fall to control the spread of swine flu. But for many San Joaquin Valley workers, a sick day is a day without wages. So they’re still showing up for work, exposing others to the highly contagious flu strain, researchers say. Nearly 60 million workers in the United States and 5.4 million in California do not have paid sick leave, according to studies by Human Impact Partners, an Oakland-based health-policy advocacy organization. Valley statistics are not available, but it’s likely a more serious problem here due to poverty. Seventy-nine percent of the lowest-paid workers in California do not have paid sick days, according to the studies.”
EEOC Delivers Lawsuit Over UPS Medical Leave Policy
“The world's delivery giant, United Parcel Service, has been receiving some unwanted packages these days from the federal government: lawsuits. Late Thursday, in what the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is calling a ‘major class lawsuit,’ UPS was sued in federal court in Chicago for allegedly denying sufficient medical leave to disabled employees. The Thursday suit claims UPS sets arbitrary deadlines for returning to work after medical treatment -- in one case firing an employee who would have exceeded its 12-month leave policy by mere weeks -- in violation of federal law.”
Economic recovery gives frustrated workers job options
“The boss' perception: Given the rough economy, workers are thrilled just to have a steady paycheck. The employee's reality: Many are frustrated, secretly seeking new opportunities — and soon could be scooped up by another company as the economy recovers. More than 8 in 10 employers feel that their workers are "just happy to have a job," while just 53% of employees feel this way, according to a new survey from online job-listing company Monster.com and the research group Human Capital Institute. And 17% of workers are thinking of changing jobs in the next 12 months, according to a survey that employment website SnagAJob.com released Thursday.”
Creative Management Practices for Making Work Work
“The economy is uncertain, unemployment has increased, and with U.S. productivity at a six-year high, employers everywhere are doing more with less. So why is now the right time to make bold moves to keep your workers engaged? ‘Our people are our greatest asset.’ The sentiment is ubiquitous, but translating this management rhetoric into practice can be a stumbling block even in the best of times. Yet even now—with a beleaguered economy still in the tentative, early stages of what could be a long road to recovery—it is more important than ever for managers and organizations to help employees manage their work and personal lives. Why? The answer is simple, though maybe counterintuitive: because it makes good business sense.”
Blogs
Would You Want Your Office To Be More Like Home - or Vice Versa?
“We often think of the juggle as a matter of managing two very separate and often antagonistic worlds, with home and family pitted against office and career. But can the two sides learn from each other, improving both? My wife was musing recently about that question, considering what from work she’d like to have at home and vice versa. One aspect of work that we’re starting to institute at home is a brief weekly planning meeting, a chance to go over our schedules and responsibilities for the week ahead and make sure we’re not missing anything. We’ll do ours Sunday nights to set the stage for an efficient week, which will be especially important with school resuming soon.”
The Telecommuting Town
“The promise of the telecommuting future- where workers could work from home, creating a zero commute and allowing people to live where they like- has failed to completely germinate. On the one hand, certain job sectors have moved to a 'gig' economy, where individuals can run small businesses from home and in practice work for a number of employers part-time. On the other, larger businesses have come to distrust the concept of telecommuting as a few bad apples have exploited the practice. The lack of face-to-face contact also poses a challenge, as employers and co-workers miss the direct connection and sense of community that comes from sharing an office.”
Why You Need a Vacation
“We all need to take a break, and the President is sending a strong message — make time for yourself. Working hard is a laudable American tradition, but so too is working long hours. According to the World Tourism Organization, Americans take the fewest vacation days of any nation in its report — just 13 paid days. Compare that to 42 days for Italian, 37 for French, 35 for German, and 25 for both Korean and Japanese workers. Enough is enough. Working diligently and deliberately is a must; working through exhaustion is folly. Here are five reasons why you need to take a break.”
Learning from Down Under: Where Labor Policy is Center Stage
“Those of us from the U.S. who attended the just concluded World Congress of the International Industrial Relations Association in Sydney, Australia experienced a rare treat and learned firsthand how out of sync are America's efforts to modernize labor and employment policies with what is happening here and around the world. We visited a country in which the last federal election turned on labor policy, where work and employment issues are viewed as a central part of economic policy, and where the newly elected government enacted a major reform and modernization of labor and employment policy within a year of taking office.”
Global News
UN to guide parental leave: McClelland
“The federal government's approach to paid parental leave will be guided by a United Nations convention on gender equality, Attorney-General Robert McClelland says. Australia is in the process of becoming a signatory to the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The federal government committed itself in May to introducing a paid parental leave scheme. Australia is one of just two OECD nations without a national program.”
Paternity rights: In the name of the father
“From her suggestion that women would not have caused the banking crisis to her proposal that the Labour party leadership team should always consist of one man and one woman, Harriet Harman has covered plenty of topical work-related ground this summer. But for all her supposed outspokenness, it was the deputy Labour leader's comments in support of extra parental leave and flexible working rights that invoked the irritation of her cabinet colleague Lord Mandelson and captured some of the biggest headlines. This year the business secretary postponed plans to extend paid maternity leave to 12 months and to allow parents to split this allowance between them, citing the economic climate and the costs and bureaucracy it would cause employers.”