There’s been a lot of talk lately about how beneficial it is for kids to play outside at recess. Which of course then led to how important it is for adults to also have recess. Simultaneously there’s been lots of talk in the HR World about how to recognize good employees in this economy when employee recognition plans have either been slashed due to budgets or are frowned upon if you’re using taxpayer money.

Here’s a solution. Recognize your employees by giving them an adult version of recess at work. It costs little or nothing, it will make the employee feel valued and the higher ups might be surprised to see the productivity of employees with recess actually improve.

Telecommuting – Offer them the opportunity to work from home 1 day a week for a month – yes this takes some infrastructure – you need a laptop for them (but most companies have a few for traveling execs) and you need IT to set it up for them.

Working On Their Schedule – Not everyone’s a morning person but some people are. Offer your good employees the chance to choose what hours they want to work for a week. Of course it should be within reason but does a 7-3 or 10-6 shift really make a material difference for the company? Probably not, but it might make a big difference in retaining good employees.

Recess – Literally – Give your good employees an extra long lunch break where they can choose to do errands, go to the gym, get a Doctor’s appt. out of the way, etc. without taking time off. Again this should be scheduled so it works for the team – but really a couple hours off in the middle of the day is a real treat for the employee with little downside for the employer.

Gym Break – head to a nearby gym and ask if you can have some guest passes for employees to try it out. In this economy I’m thinking it shouldn’t be a problem. Then give your employees the free pass and a some free time to work out – so they can leave early, come in late or extend lunch. Again free, but for the right employee, will be really well received.

Grocery Delivery to the Cube – partner with a local food store that delivers in your area. Have your employees place an order and pay for it and you pick up the delivery fee. They’ll appreciate having free time later when they would have had to be at the grocery store.

I’m sure there are many more of these types of incentives that don’t cost a lot but get a lot of goodwill in return. Just be creative. Maybe even ask your employees, I’m sure they’d be happy to tell you what kind of adult recess they would like for a job well done.

And if you’re an employee who’s been told that you’re great – but your company just can’t afford to do any employee recognition right now…suggest one of these options. If you’d like more flexibility at work – this could get your foot in the door.

The boomers have not only left the White House they are starting to think about leaving the workplace.  That may be delayed due to their typically dismal ability to save for the future, but it is coming and Generation X it’s your turn to make the workplace the place you want it to be.

As an Xer I find myself resenting what Gen Y accomplished in the workplace.  But they are really not to blame, I’m just miffed that we as a generation didn’t gel and work together to get what we wanted as they have.  Clearly it’s possible and here are some things we can do in the next five years to accomplish what they have in such a short time.

Get Over It – Yeah we were the first generation with absentee parents, we’re the first generation of Americans who may not do as well financially as our parents, and we’re sandwiched between two very large generations of incredible self-promoters.   We followed the rules and continually watched those who didn’t follow the rules get raises and promotions.  It’s time to get over it.  Thankfully we’re not entering the workforce now.  We had it good.  College was semi-affordable and there were plenty of openings to go around, if you didn’t go Ivy League you could still have a great career and make a good salary, and we have grown to be more independent than most generations.

There was a research study last fall suggesting happiness is contagious.  Let’s make it our mission to be positive in the workplace and to lighten the mood and keep from tying our entire identity to our work life.  Our attitude has always been that most of life and work are not rocket science and should be seen and weighted appropriately.    I’m not saying take work lightly but also don’t feel that if you go to lunch, your work world will collapse, trust me, most of us just aren’t that important.   Let’s be realistic and optimistic.

Stop Using the Term Work Life Balance – it’s not achievable.  There will never be a true balance in those two realms.  Besides isn’t work part of life?  Start thinking in terms of flexibility.  Getting the flexibility at work to be able to take care of your personal interests and having a support system in your personal life to cover you when your work life takes higher precedence for a time.

Questioning Rules = Good, Changing Rules = Best – Gen X never liked the answer “because that’s how we’ve always done it” but we also don’t do much to change the system, except maybe opt out.   If we do change the system it’s usually not for the good of all but more secretly to make it work for you, personally.

We are poised for great change in this country.  One change is a shift to a more human approach to business and profits – a time where employees and vendors can be treated well by companies who can still turn a nice profit.  Let’s make it our mission to move that idea along by supporting and working for companies that have this approach and rejecting companies that do not.  I for one am unwilling to work for companies who don’t respect their employees enough to offer a decent benefits package and the flexibility to take care of ourselves personally.  If we all got together and refused to work for these companies they would need to change their ways.

Don’t Discount Who You Are – One of the reasons it’s so hard to achieve harmony between work life and personal life is because we’ve spent so long putting more weight on what we do instead of who we are.  It’s okay to have personal interests.  It’s okay to talk about them at work.  It’s okay to show people who you are.  It’s especially okay if you do your work well.  In my last desk job one of my fellow employees was a bird watcher.  Our office was located adjacent to some wetlands.  He brought his binoculars to work and would spot a bird, check it out with his binoculars and tell you about it.  It was nice to take a break and learn something new – just don’t do it at the expense of your work product.

Manage as You Would Like to Be Managed – As you were coming up in your career it felt good when someone really listened to you, heard you, took your suggestion, helped to make it work, and gave you the credit.   Well then pass it along.  And be sure to really listen.  Gen Y employees are some of the most innovative and creative thinkers in business in a long time.  You can learn a lot from them and they from you.  But you need to listen and think outside the box – not just give lip service.

You Can Have It All, Just Not All At Once – In the realm of being realistic… you can have a career and have time for your family.  You just might not be able to be an executive and still read bedtime stories every night.  And that’s okay.  It should be whatever works for you and your family.   Last fall I talked about the brouhaha over Michele Obama choosing to take some time to get her kids adjusted to their new lives at the White House.    I’m guessing she’ll be interested in working again in her adult life, but for her, now is not the time.

We need to educate HR professionals that it’s okay that a resume is not always a straight line and that taking care of your family does not require an apology.  As our generation takes over the VP role in HR I hope for some real change here both in HR and individual hiring managers.  After all remember the television show “Square Pegs.” Don’t we all feel like square pegs sometimes no matter how old and experienced we are.

Save For a Rainy Day – Saving for a rainy day allows you to comfortably change employers.  We’ve all seen the boomers spend their paychecks as soon as they got them and now we’ll watch them hang around the workforce longer than they or we want them to.   Not drowning in debt means you have power over your employer because you can change your career life when you want or need to.

I mean really how much stuff do you and your children need.  I saw some flabbergasting media articles around the holidays about how to tell your kids you are cutting back on Christmas spending.   I’m not saying Christmas shouldn’t be fun it just shouldn’t be as excessive as these articles suggest.  You can buy presents that are reasonable and your children will still love you.  And I’m definitely not suggesting we be miserly – the economy needs money to flow in order for it to work but there should be some middle ground between conspicuous consumption and not spending at all.

I think as a generation we’ve tried to get everyone to agree with us or complained that they don’t.  For the next 5 years, let’s embrace the difference between the Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y and use our knowledge to change the workplace so that it works for all generations.   We need action, not words or we just may miss our window to end our careers on our terms.

I’m a big fan of having flexibility in the workplace and in your personal life.  It allows me to wear the many hats I need to in a day without feeling like I’m missing out at home or in my career.  Some friends envy the fact that I’m not sitting in a chair in a cube from 9 to 5 each day.  I think they think I’m watching Judge Judy and eating Cheetos.  I’m thrilled that that’s not true.

But I do get to do what I need to when I need to, or sometimes even what I want to.  Here’s more the reality for me and my husband in the past 2 weeks (as he’s also been working from home).  We got to exercise during the day, head to a doctor’s appt. for our daughter as a family, have some together time, clean the house for visitors, and get the car washed and cleaned.  Not exactly glamorous but real life stuff.

Now what would I be doing if I weren’t working…that’s a different question – Vegas, drink in hand, waiting for the great spa treatment I had scheduled for later…

What would you do with your time if you worked flexibly?

Just a few months ago I hadn’t friended anyone, I didn’t write articles for cyberspace and I didn’t tweet.  But all that changed because I started a business and I’m funding it myself and have no money for marketing.

So, no Superbowl ads for me this year.  Nope I’m relying on my ability to attract eyeballs with networking in cyberspace and my witty, engaging repartee.  Clearly I’m not good at this – in my second tweet ever, I spelled the website I was trying to promote wrong so instead of promoting www.iwearyourshirt.com – I promoted “I wear your sh** dot com.”   The tweet (or twitter – I’m still not sure which) was only up for a nanosecond before I saw the error of my way – but some of those people who are following me hopefully had a good laugh.  Especially Jason Sadler – who runs www.iwearyourshirt.com.

Which brings me to my marketing savvy.  Thursday, February 19, 2009 is my day on iwearyourshirt.com.  Yup, I bought that day last fall for $50 and I am maximizing that investment.  Jason has the T-shirts I had made for him – not just any shirt, mind you, a baseball shirt – I researched, I watched, I want to stand out.   He has talking points about Career Life Connection, we’ve discussed ways to get people more interested in workplace flexibility.  We have a plan.  Which is how the twitter debacle happened.

First he and his cohorts at his other venture thoughtandtheory.com said I needed to blog to get more content on my site.  I was reluctant and put if off, but then finally gave in.  And now I like writing… a lot. I don’t always love the pressure of having to put up a good post weekly, but it’s really helped me understand my business and myself better.  I have a facebook page and 98 friends – 96 of whom I actually know personally and thanks to that page I’ve got lots more hits on my website.  And now, today I tweet.

I’m not sure how I’ll be able to sustain my witty comments to keep all my friends, subscribers, and tweetees engaged but if I keep writing things like sh** instead of shirt – I’m sure someone will notice.

If you’d like to be there when I open mouth and insert foot in cyberspace follow me on twitter.  I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.

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As you can see no hard feelings over the Iwearyoursh*t incident. A fun time was had by all.

Workplace flexibility is not a women’s issue.  There I’ve said it.  This is not new information.  The fact that men want more flexibility at work has been discussed for years in this article, and this article, and more recently in this research report.  But I don’t need to read articles and research reports to figure this one out.  All I need to do is look around at people I know personally and professionally.  Here are examples of some of the men I know who work flexibly and why they would prefer to keep it that way.

The Corporate Types:

When I worked last with Lee Byrne he was at the gym at 5:30a at his desk usually by 7:00a, worked until at least 5:30pm and then commuted 45 minutes home.  Not exactly a very flexible schedule.  All that changed when he became the Director of Ad Operations for Bizo.  Bizo is located in San Francisco and Lee lives in New Hampshire.  So he works from his home.  He needs to put in at least 40 hours a week, and knowing him, he’s probably putting in many more.  He also starts and ends work a bit later than most east coasters but he can also break for dinner with his family.  What does he do with his flexible time?  “I go to the gym later than I used to which is nice. In the summer I can play 18 holes of golf before most of the people I work with are even awake. I’m able to coach football in the fall which any commute would make impossible. I can help around the house more than I used to since I am almost always home. I can take my son to the bus stop in the morning.”

Jason Sadler is the marketing guy and the network guy at Thought and Theory…the guys who designed this blog and are working very hard on my website.  He is also the only guy at iwearyourshirt.com.  Why does he work flexibly?  And why does it work for his company?  “We, at Thought & Theory, have all had experience working in standard 9-5 jobs, ad agencies and other large corporate gigs. We know that strict hours, limited vacation time and all that other nonsense stifles creativity. When creativity goes, so does productivity. A lot of times our best work is done late at night or really early in the morning. As long as the work gets done and everyone is honest and up front, we will continue to be successful.”  This flexibility has also allowed him to try the hair brained marketing website iwearyourshirt.com.  Which may not be so hair brained after all – it was written about in many media outlets including the New York Times and I’m on deck for him to wear a Career Life Connection t-shirt on Thursday, Feb. 19th.

Doug Cornelius is the Chief Compliance Officer for a real estate private equity firm.
“Being involved with my two kids is an important part of my life. I did not want to only spend a few minutes in the morning with them. I love dinnertime, bath time and story time with them.  My flexibility is also key to my wife’s job. She is a partner at a big law firm and often needs to work late.  I obviously agree that work-life balance is not just a women’s issue. If you have two people working, it is both of you. My wife’s career is just as important as mine. If we want to spend time with each other and our kids we both need to find the balance.”  Doug works in the office from about 7a-4pm each day so he can leave in time to pick up the kids.  As his firm is global with offices in many cities including London and LA, the line between work and personal life is often blurred.  But with the aid of technology he is able to work in the office, spend time with his family and work as needed when the other offices need him.

Kevin Plantan is the VP of Sales for ERE Media.  They are based in New York, but also have employees working in CA, FL, UT, WA and VA where Kevin lives.  In fact the majority of ERE’s employees work from their homes, not from the NY office.   Kevin told us first hand why workplace flexibility is so important to him.  “When I first joined ere, in the late summer of 2000, I was living in Connecticut and we had an office in Brooklyn, NY.  From the day I joined, we had about seven months to plan and produce the first ERExpo (March 2001) so it was important for everyone to be in the office a lot.   It was four hours – door to door – to get from home to the office.  So I spent 8 hours a day either in a car, on metro north (commuter train from CT to NYC), a subway, or walking – and 8 hours in an office. There wasn’t any wi-fi back then either. By Friday I was sleepwalking and seeing things. After a few months of that, well, pretty soon I was working from home one day a week, then two, then three, then four…. Working from home makes this a completely better job, to say the least.”  And what does Kevin do during all that time he spent commuting?  Well he works during some of it, but he also likes to head to the gym.

Finally for the suits there’s my husband, Larry Sax.  He works in turnaround consulting – which is code for consulting for financially troubled companies…maybe the only industry that is currently booming.  And with the work that’s coming their way, his NY firm could certainly have their people working 24/7.  But that’s not their culture.  Don’t get me wrong.  If my husband’s client is in dire straits, it is all hands on deck during the workweek and he is usually in a state other than the one in which we live.  But once that client has stabilized my husband is on the road M-Th and working from home Fridays.  Also, when he’s between clients his time is his own as long as he is easily accessible.  Last week he was between clients and he enjoyed taking our daughter to pre-school, having a mid-day date of lunch and a movie with me, catching up with friends and even going skiing with the boys.  I know soon he’ll be back out on the road working very hard, but then I also know he’ll have time at home again to take the time we need to recharge family and our relationship, not just on weekends but weekdays, too.  But you don’t have to take my word for it.  Read what he thinks about the flexibility he has at work.

The Independent Spirits:

Joel Cheesman is the Head Cheese over at Cheezhead.com and works on HR SEO, a search engine optimization firm.  He and I met because he is really smart about the HR industry and I want to be really smart about the HR industry.    When his creativity was frowned upon at former employers and he couldn’t spend the kind of time he wanted visiting family he struck out on his own.  Being his own boss gives him total flexibility.   He says that, “as long as clients are served and employees are managed, it’s all good.”   And while he admits to being a workaholic he likes the upside of working flexibly.  “A major benefit, however, is seeing family during the holidays. Before my business, I typically had to rush back home from visiting loved ones in other states. Not anymore. I can work from wherever and make it back whenever. It’s very gratifying to connect with those who matter most without “back to work” hanging over your head.”

Jon Steinberg did not always have a flexible job, I should know, he was the Operations Manager for a retail company my family owned.  That job caused him stress headaches and left him working all hours day and night 7 days a week.  So perhaps that explains his current choice to work for himself without any employees as a Certified Real Estate Appraiser.   He likes this flexibility much more, “This works well for me as it allows me more time with my family.  I am able to take my daughter to pre-school once a week, attend her gymnastics class and have dinner with the family nightly.  I frequently will work from 8a to 5pish but am able to take time when necessary.  I then spend time with the family until the kids go to sleep…around 8p and work until 10 or 11p.  While I’m still working well over 50 hours per week, I am able to spend time with my family and not miss putting my daughters to bed, helping my wife where needed and enjoying the little things daily.  Once these years pass and the girls grow up I’ll never get this time back.”

My first job out of college was at a video post-production company where I met Carl MacNeal.  He has worked for companies that were too big, too small, went bust and even owned his own video editing company with the coolest lunchroom furniture.  Now he is freelancing and working on really cool projects.  Like last month when he edited a commercial with Kevin Costner and Kyle Petty in it.   He admits this economy is challenging for freelancers and some of his flexibility has diminished as his clients are in the drivers’ seat for when and how he works. But he likes being flexible…”a flexible schedule allows me to keep up with technology, software and trends that I can’t do at a job. I also get to take care of my family when they are sick, I spend more quality time with my son during the day, instead of getting home at night to read him a book and kiss him goodnight. It also allows me to go to art shows, vendor exhibits, get the car fixed and just put those hours in on another day. I also can work 4, 12-hour days and take a long weekend. It is my choice.”

Okay I guess I’ve made my point..flexibility in the workplace is not just a women’s issue.   There are plenty of men out there who flex.  Are you a real man who flexes?  Do you know any?  Or are you skeptical that real men can flex?  Let’s talk about it.   Comment here or post your story in our newly launched community and forums.

Recently I was reflecting on how smart I am.  Okay, not really, but I am pretty proud of myself.  I left my job to start a new venture in June without really being sure where it would take me.  I knew where I wanted to go but I wasn’t quite sure how to get there…and I’m still really not always sure where to go next.  But I know the decisions I’ve made were right…for my company.  And I’m proud of the fact that I stuck with my gut even when other, very smart people thought I should do otherwise.

I also know I’m not a good self-promoter.  I never have been.  While I always make sure I give credit to others, I’ve also let others take credit for my good ideas.   But secretly I keep score of the things I’ve done that I’m really proud of.  I may even confess one or two to a good friend.  But I still don’t really put it all together and tell anyone.  But I should.  I actually think I’m pretty good at what I’m doing but that’s really hard for me to say publicly, I don’t take compliments well – even from myself.   So I’ll justify this post (to myself) by saying that maybe someone out there can benefit from my experiences.

Self-funding.  I’m not rich, but I’ve always lived below my means and have saved.  So when I started on this adventure I decided I wanted it to be mine.  I would be the boss and make the decisions and not have to live with the decisions of others.  Last fall at a conference as I was still hashing out my exact business plan, several people suggested I should seek funding.  When I said I wasn’t going to, they were aghast.  They knew people, they could put me in touch, and venture money could take my business far and quickly.  I stuck to my guns and said, “No, thank you.”  All the while wondering if I was being foolish.  Then the bottom fell out of the financial world and I am so glad I went with my gut.

What’s In a Name? At the same conference where many thought I should go after funding, some thought a name change would do my company a world of good.  The URL was too long and the name wasn’t descriptive enough.  I left the conference thinking that I’d made a terrible mistake with the name, and the logo, which had already been designed.  After a few days of inner turmoil I again went with my initial decision.  After all I had worked on the name and URL for months.  I had thought it through and I liked it…I felt it fit.  After a few rounds of beta testing…I’m happy to learn it also resonates with my target audience.

Understanding my subject.  When I started this blog I was pretty much operating in a vacuum.  I had my opinions and thoughts on flexibility in the workplace and I felt very strongly about them, but I didn’t do much market research or take polls of how others felt.  One of my first blog posts was about why I use the word flexibility not balance when I talk about work life.    In a session at another conference I attended the debate was all about the wording of balance vs. flexibility.  It was quite validating to have a room of about 200 people debating a subject I had written about months before.  I sat silently in the audience happy that I had felt this subject to be important, even if I didn’t have any solid research to back me up.

Even more recently I wrote about how this economy is good for workplace flexibility and older workers.  Again, I had no hard research at the time. Yesterday I came across this article about why job flexibility is on the rise and this article on why more workers over age 55 are holding on to their jobs that validate my thoughts.  To be fair I do read a lot both on the Internet and in magazines.  But I’m surprised to see that what I get out of that reading is what others see too.

And lastly indulge me for a silly one.  I’m not really sure exactly what the word kerfuffle means.  What I picture is a bird all puffed up with his feathers all ruffled over much ado about nothing.  That’s what I picture as a kerfuffle.  Which is exactly what I felt the whole Michelle Obama media circus was around her deciding to be a mom in the White House.  So I used the word in my blog title.  When I showed my husband the blog post – he was skeptical – “kerfuffle” should I really use that in my title?  I said emphatically that yes, I liked the word and it conveyed exactly the feeling I wanted.  Two weeks later I saw the word in Time Magazine and another few weeks after that it was used in the New York Times.    I know it’s silly, but I felt that again I did the right thing.

And hey after all many of the decisions I finally made, came after an internal kerfuffle started by others’ comments.  I am grateful to everyone for commenting, though.  It makes me think and question myself and these are smart people that I respect and they were interested enough in what I am doing to have an opinion.  Which makes me believe my gut reaction to quit my job and take this path is also the right decision.