Workplace Flexibility in the News for the Week Ending 5/24/09
May 26th, 2009 | by admin
In the News
COFFEE BREAK: Rutgers study offers insight on why female lawyers leave firms (NJ.com)
The glass ceiling may still be an issue, but for many women, a flexible work environment has become a leading issue. Many women lawyers opt to trade in a prestigious firm for one that offers them enough flexibility to balance their work with their lives outside the office.
Workplace flexibility initiatives for hourly employees are as successful as those designed for professional staff. And businesses that offer hourly employees flexible work options find that they are critical management tools that enhance recruitment, retention, engagement, cost control, productivity and financial performance.
QUALITY: Workplace Wellness Linked to Flexible Work Arrangements (New America Foundation)
Over time, employees with flexible work arrangements are less likely to experience a decline in their physical or mental health.
HR Trade Group Opposes Mandatory Paid Sick Leave (Health Leaders Media)
The Society for Human Resource Management has come out against a proposal that would require companies with 15 or more full-time employees to provide seven days of paid sick leave each year. Instead of the mandates set down in the recently introduced Healthy Families Act, SHRM says Congress should craft consensus legislation on workplace flexibility.
The Best Places to Work in Gov 2009 (OhMyGov!)
Using a set of 53 questions in 10 different categories (such as Employee Skills/Mission Match, Pay and Benefits, and Work/Life Balance), they take the responses and then sends them to the Partnership for Public Service, who uses a statistical analysis developed by the Hay Group (the most trusted name in job evaluation) in order to come up with an agency index. Then, each agency is put in a Large, Small, or Subcomponent class and the agency indexes in each class are compared against each other. Now, for the results!
Break the Habit (Philadelphia Inquirier)
Everyone prizes “work-life balance” these days, but the term is problematic. It implies that work and home life are separate realms positioned at opposite ends of a scale.
In fact, family and work relationships overlap, says Sylvia Lafair, author of “Don’t Bring it to Work: Breaking the Family Patterns that Limit Success,” (Jossey-Bass, 2009). And it’s not just spats with a spouse or fallout from a rebellious child that follow people to the office.
A Healthy Balance: Can you have work-life balance? (Ballard News Tribune)
How is it possible to balance work, family, friends, community and personal time?
There are some simple steps that can go a long way toward helping us all find balance in our busy lives. The key is to assess whether you are living consistently with what you believe to be important.
Flexibility in the Workplace – Five Success Strategies (E-Zine Articles)
Flexibility is essential to the effectiveness of any workplace and companies utilize it to maintain or improve their employee engagement and retention as well as to manage workloads. Research shows that flexible work options boost productivity, enhance efficiency, and drive business results.
Women Will Rule Businesses (Time)
So, what if we renamed work-life balance? Let’s call it something more masculine and appealing, something like … um … Make More Money. That might lift heads off desks. A few people might show up at a meeting to discuss that new phenomenon driving the bottom line: Women, and the way we want to work, are extremely good for business.
Report urges government to focus on flexible workplace (The Colorado Springs Gazette)
A report by a public policy group calls on the Obama administration and Congress to make the federal government “a model employer” by increasing its support for flexible work arrangements such as compressed workweeks and telecommuting.
Better work-life balance wanted (Straits-Times, Singapore)
WOMEN in the accounting and finance sector want a better work-life balance and a more level playing field with men when it comes to promotions. The findings stem from a survey of more than 700 female professionals in the public and private sectors in Singapore.
The Women Who Want to Save Banking (BBC News)
Audur Capital is already turning a “healthy” profit. And, unlike many others in the sector, they say they work nine or ten hours a day, no more. They want their staff, and society, to have a better work-life balance, with time for family as well as the office. Anything else would just lead to burn-out and not be sustainable.
Aramark sets up parenting classes to help staff with work-life balance (HR Magazine – UK)
Robbie Wheeler, HR director at Aramark, said: “We want to demonstrate to our employees that their welfare is important to us and part of this is making sure they know that they are valued and to show we are listening to them. “We are aware that juggling work and family life can be a struggle, particularly in these stressful economic times, so we want to provide coping techniques to make employees’ lives easier, both at home and at work.
Massaging a New Career (Irish Times, Ireland)
THE DESIRE to spend more quality time with her husband and two young children was the spur for Patricia Murphy to leave behind the tough, long hours of the retail world and retrain in an area that has given her much more control over her life.
In the Blogs
Baby Boomers Find Options with The Green Group (Sarah Sellers’s Blog, ERE.net)
The Green Group is a service offering that utilizes Green HR initiatives to retain and foster top talent. Their knowledge management solutions provide a combination of work life balance, efficient human capital utilization, and outsourced benefits management which help corporations lower human capital cost while retaining valuable experience and knowledge capital.
Women Docs Get Job Satisfaction from Blazing New Trails (Opposing Views)
“As a group, more than 90% of female physicians, medical students and premeds reported being concerned (with 64% being very concerned) about balancing family responsibilities with a medical career.”
Towards a “New Normal” in the American Workplace – A Public Policy Platform on Flexible Work Arrangements (Today’s Workplace) *Note – this is the second story down. The direct link to the story does not work currently*
On the heels of First Lady Michelle Obama’s challenge to find ways to encourage employers to provide more flexibility to employees, Workplace Flexibility 2010, a Georgetown Law-based think tank, has released a new report outlining a comprehensive set of policy solutions to expand Americans’ access to flexible work arrangements (FWAs) such as compressed workweeks, predictable schedules, and telework.
Personal Branding Interview with Louise Weir [Career Services, London Business School] (Personal Branding Blog)
Take the time to explore the economic, political and cultural structure and stability of each market, as well as the implications your dream job abroad will have on your work-life balance, and your career itself. If working an 80-90 hour week in China is definitely not something you are willing to attempt, are you in return eager to spend your weekends gold panning in Canada? Will a job in New York allow you a fantastic opportunity to reap the awards you dream of on paper, but mean a seven hour flight from your family? Is the relocation package being offered enough for you to relinquish one of your top five “must haves”?
May Challenge: Becoming a Boundary Hunter (The Career Consultant)
Well, I’ve finally come to the epiphanal conclusion that what I seek isn’t balance at all. It’s harmony. Harmony denotes a “pleasing arrangement of parts; an inner calm.” As administrative professionals, we pride ourselves on giving our very best to everything we do. But, sometimes, the speed of life makes for fuzzy boundaries between work and personal lives. This month’s challenge is all about starting a revolution – a revolt against the notion of balance and a new look at embracing harmony.
The just shoot me vacation: Stay tethered; Forget two weeks; Install a fax in your room (Between the Lines, ZDNet blog)
This in from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas: You must bring your smartphone, laptop and every other work-tethering item on your vacation. If not you’ll just worry about being laid off.
Here’s what America has come to—a two week vacation is deemed too long and you have to at least look like you’re working. Hell, why bother with the vacation at all?
Bosses and Workers Disagree on Social Network Privacy (Digits, a WSJ Blog)
Another difference of opinion expressed in the survey was how social networks affect work-life balance. Less than a third of employees (31%) agreed with the statement “Using social-networking sites helps me achieve better work-life balance,” with 19% strongly disagreeing. More than half (56%) of executives said a little Facebook time improves work-life, however.
Goals for Using Kanban (AgileManagement Blog)
Work/life balance isn’t only about balancing the number of hours someone spends at work with the number of hours they have available for their family, friends, hobbies, passions and pursuits. It is also about providing reliability. For example, a team member with a passion for art wants to take a painting class at the local middle school. It starts at 6.30pm and runs every Wednesday for 10 weeks. Can your team provide certainty to that individual that they’ll be free to leave the office on-time each week in order to attend the class?
Providing a good work life balance will make your company a more attractive employer in your local market. It will help to motivate employees and it will give your team members the energy to maintain high levels of performance for months or years. It’s a fallacy that you get top performance from knowledge workers when you overload them with work. It might be true tactically for a few days but it isn’t sustainable beyond a week or two. It’s good business to provide a good work/life balance by never overloading your teams with too much work.
Getting Flex-Able (Finding the Work You Love)
Computers and the Internet have created new ways to work–and think about work. Flextime, as the name implies, allows employers and employees to carve out nontraditional work arrangements. For many older workers, including those juggling childcare, eldercare, or other needs (including a simple desire to work flexible hours), flex-time may be the ticket to greater satisfaction and work-life balance.
Pic of the Week (The DVE Chronicles)
This photo is of our President, Barack Obama enjoying his daughter Sasha’s soccer game. Its good to see that our president presents a good work/life balance.
So What’s the Big Picture Now??? (Marquis’ Weblog)
Eventually, something major happens to make you understand how the weight of it all is affecting you, but, by then, who knows if the effects of that stress can be undone. Now that I’m in an environment where I have work-life balance, I can’t imagine what it would be like to give that up and go back to my former life. I’m not bringing this up to complain about working hard or to judge anyone who relishes that lifestyle because there are merits to having this type of experience. Rather, I want to encourage people to think about both the short-term and long-term implications of the paths they choose.
Working From Home: 10 Unconscious Cues to Create a Work-Life Balance (Awake at the Wheel)
Working from home sounds like a very simple concept. But there are a lot of built-in structures and boundaries inherent in a going-to-the-office job that we often take for granted. Recreating those boundaries when our home and work is one and the same is a crucial part of achieving a work-life balance.
Your Job is Not Your Life (FP Posted)
First of all, get a life! Have meaningful purpose, activities and pursuits that are as important as work. Develop a healthy work life balance, where you are not emotionally tied to work 24/7. Redefine achievement and accomplishment. When people gather at your graveside when you’re life is over, it’s unlikely they’ll be talking about what a hard worker you were or refer to your resume.
Plannng Your Day (Startup Blog)
Diagram author uses to keep work and life flexible each day
ONE in six workers would take a pay cut to work from home, new research shows.
Workers give up pay to work from home (Business Opportunity Startup – Australia)
Independent research commissioned by Citrix Online found 16 per cent of Australian workers and 17 per cent of small business owners would give up 5 per cent of their salary to work from home one to two days a week.
Press Releases
Healthcare Jobs Firm Focuses on Healthy Work-Life Balance
CHG Healthcare Services, a leader in providing healthcare jobs, knows a strong balance between work life and personal life leads to happy, productive employees. Because of this, CHG helps their employees develop a well-rounded approach to overall wellness.
Resources
A Conversation on Workplace Flexibility part 7 (Student Scholarship)
Panel conversation on what Workplace Flex means to younger workplace flex scholars
Worklife Balance Resource Articles (Monster.com)
A list of links to articles to help workers/managers better balance work and life
Career Life Connection News and Events
Small Business Expo and Career Fair, May 21, Quincy, MA
Leanne Chase of Career Life Connection to speak on Social Networking: Linked In, Facebook and Twitter
Career Life Connection Founder featured on Workplace Flexibility teleseminar
Flexibility Isn’t All About Mommies: Why Flex is a Cross-Generational and Gender-Neutral Issue; summary of teleseminar discussion on Workplace Flex.
Advice Isn’t Always Good For You (MSNBC)
Leanne Chase, president of Career Life Connection, was excited about attending a SCORE meeting in Boston, but didn’t end up with much help. Despite that, she plans on attending again next week.
New Nanny Math (Forbes)
Leanne Chase, 40, mother of a 3-year-old and owner of a business, Career Life Connection,
Twitters Work-Life Balance Tips (BusinessWeek.com)
It takes many villages – 1 at home to help with family life, 1 at work to fill in as needed, 1 full of friends to keep you sane #worklife
Career Life Connection on You Tube
