Workplace Flexibility News for the Week Ending August 15, 2009

In the News

Salt Lake City Employers Featured in New Guide to Work-Life Balance (KCPW)

“The 2009 Guide to Bold New Ideas for Making Work Work” highlights several Salt Lake City employers among the 260 featured in the guide. Two-thirds of the employees in these businesses voted for their workplace for embracing policies that help them balance work with their personal lives. KCPW’s Elizabeth Ziegler spoke with Ellen Galinsky. President and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute, a New York City-based think tank that has authored the guide since 2005.

Indy law firm named 1 of most “women-friendly” (Indianaopolis Star)

The Indianapolis law firm Ice Miller has been named one of 50 most “women-friendly” firms in the country by Working Mother magazine and Flex-Time Lawyers.The organizations said that work-life balance has become a key recruiting and retention tool as law firms position themselves to survive the recession.

Andrews Kurth, Vinson & Elkins among best law firms for women (Houston Business Journal)

Perks include 18 weeks of paid maternity leave as well as the ability to work reduced hours….In addition, Working Mother liked that women hold four of five seats on the firm’s compensation committee.

My work-life balance problems (The Guardian – UK)

I have always been a proselytiser for working mothers. How could I not be? For four years in the 90s, I edited the Guardian’s women’s pages and launched the parents pages in G2. My mother ran several of her own businesses, and her mother, too, for a while. Work to me denoted independence, adventure, glamour and, of course, money. As long as I could afford to employ reliable childcare, why would I want to walk away from all of that?  It is only recently that I have been able to acknowledge that mixing work and children comes with its downsides.

National Work-Life Balance Awards (Australian Labor Party)

The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard, today launched the 2009-10 National Work-Life Balance awards.  This national initiative is part of the Rudd Government’s election commitment to help working families better balance their work and family responsibilities.  The National Work-Life Balance awards will recognise those businesses that have a demonstrated commitment to innovative family-friendly workplace practices.  The awards will also encourage businesses, large and small, to think about how they can better support parents in their workplace.

The secret to work-life balance (Armidale Express – Australia)

IT’S NOT selfish to put yourself first, insists nationally renowned expert on health and wellbeing, Petrea King.  “The greatest gift you can give to your family and your community is the gift of your own physical, emotional and spiritual health. Then you might be useful for something,” she said during a visit to Armidale…She noted that the only place you see this idea actively promoted is on aeroplanes.  “They say first put the mask on you, then on the children. They don’t say run around and put a mask on everyone else until you collapse.”

In the Blogs

Free Guide Available on Making Work Work (Acronym)

Aside from a steady expansion of telecommuting-telework programs to help employees reduce commuting costs, other recession-friendly practices are

- Giving employees four Fridays off in the summer in lieu of raises the organization cannot afford
- Creating funds to support their own employees or others in the community who are suffering during the recession
- Giving employees the option to take unlimited, unpaid personal time off during the downturn, while keeping full medical benefits and the right to return to their jobs
- Allowing employees greater scheduling flexibility if their spouse has lost a job or seen their hours reduced and the family needs to make changes
- Creating flex year and flex career programs
- Creating workflow coordinators to monitor overwork and developing wellness scorecards to promote wellness

Finding the Right Balance (PWC Connect)

Developing and maintaining a healthy work-life balancecan be tricky. On the other hand, one of the first things that I quickly discovered during my first interview with PwC is that a healthy work-life balance is a top priority. As part of this balance, I took advantage of the STOP/Flexible Time Away Program which allows employees to take time off. As a result, I just got back from a 3 week vacation in Greece!  Although achieving work-life balance is increasingly difficult, especially during busy season, PwC encourages both personal and professional development. Whether you choose not to do much business travel because of family commitments or you are looking for more ways to discover, like myself, and get the chance to travel across country as well as beyond the border, PwC provides access to flexible work arrangement that fits all needs.

How do smart employers make work “work” in a down economy? (MomsRising)

Smart employers are using flexible work options to manage through the recession—and help their employees manage. The organization I head, the Families and Work Institute, highlights 260 award-winning employers across the US using innovative approaches and practices including:

• Giving employees four Fridays off in the summer in lieu of raises the organization cannot afford
• Allowing employees to work at home 1-2 days a week to save on commuting costs
• Giving employees the option to take unlimited, unpaid personal time off during the downturn, while keeping full medical benefits and the right to return to their jobs
• Allowing employees greater scheduling flexibility if their spouse has lost a job or seen their hours reduced and the family needs to make changes
• Reassigning responsibilities when no hiring is possible
• Offering employees reduced hours or additional unpaid days off to avoid layoffs

Balancing life alongside deadlines (AAJA Voices)

Increasingly, the idea of taking care of oneself, of striking a balance between the professional and the personal life, is finding the way into programs at journalism conferences, including those of AAJA.  This year, sessions like “Eating on Deadline” and “Balancing Act: Working Parents” underscore the continued emphasis on “enriching the whole person,” said Frank Witsil, a copy editor for the Detroit Free Press and a co-chair for programming for this year’s convention.  Witsil can relate. He is still healing from a debilitating car accident a few years ago — one that occurred, he said, when he was “trying to work, pick up my son and drive at the same time.”

Santa Barbara’s Craving Balance Let’s You Set Your Own Rate (and Donate) (craving balance)

We’re talking about balance here, so we want to make it simple and turnkey,” said Gates. “The real reason we crave balance is that we want a life of purpose that benefits something bigger than ourselves. And as coaches, we want to walk the talk.”

Economy Driving More Work/Life Balance at Law Firms (Legal Blog Watch)

The article describes a bunch of changes at law firms, many of which are news to even someone like me who’s been tracking this issue since the start of my beat here at Legal Blog Watch. According to the article, of the 50 Best Law Firms for Women, nearly all offer reduced schedules to lawyers, while 62 percent offer full-time telecommuting, and 42 percent have written flexible-schedule policies. Still, I’m a little bit skeptical — and I wonder how many women are actually taking advantage of those full-time telecommuting options. The article doesn’t say.

Coaches – Manage Your Work Life Balance Effectively with Kirsten Beireis (ecademy.com)

What a great Stretch Your Mind And Body blog talk radio show today! We had the pleasure of hosting Kristen Beireis from Coaches Marketing Source and we discussed Work / Life balance – how it can easily get out of balance and some practical techniques for regaining the balance.  While I was listening to Kristen speak, I relived many of my experiences as a younger woman (and not so younger woman) when my life ‘got out of balance’. It happens so easily. Kristen gave some great pointers on what to look for as symptons of poor work / life balance:

Telecommuting News Summary 081009 (undress for success)

News and resources summary for those who telecommute, work from home, or are digital nomads.

BARRIERS TO ACHIEVING BALANCE (Finance, Business, Economy)

In Breaking Into the Boys’ Club 2009, we identify some traps women too often fall into when struggling to manage work, family and the rest of their lives. Whatever the particulars of your hectic life, here are some mistakes to avoid.

Relationships 101: How to maintain work, life balance (Examiner.com)

Consider a Merck Poll which asked participants to list three things that ‘will bring their lives more into balance.’ Here are the results.

1. Spending more time with family and friends.
2. Reducing stress.
3. Doing more to make a difference in their community.

Work Life Balance Tips (Travel Registered Nurse)

When you take away all of the ‘shoulds’, you begin to see how effective your internal compass really is. You have to stop ‘shoulding’ all over yourself if you hope to ever really find work life balance.

Work Life balance is still a myth for many people (Examiner.com)

Sixty percent of executives report working at least 50 hours per week, including the additional time they spend thinking about work, while 10% work more than 80 hours per week. This situation is even more intense for 92% of working women who go home after a full day of work and manage household and family responsibilities.

Press Releases

Sidley Austin LLP Named a Best Law Firm for Women by Working Mother & Flex-Time Lawyers for the Third Year in a Row

American InterContinental University Online Announces New Scholarship For Working Women

Smith Moore Leatherwood Selected as a Top Law Firm for Women

New Book Highlights 260 Ways Employers ‘Make Work Work’ in a Down Economy

Quarles & Brady: Named to Top 50 ‘Best Law Firms for Women’ List by Working Mother Magazine and Flex-Time Lawyers

Career Life Connection News and Events

Career Life Connection is excited to announce that IWearYourShirt.com’s September 10th show will be streamed live from their booth at the ERE Expo on Sept. 10th.  Stop by booth #205 to meet Jason Sadler and talk with him about how he achieved social media ROI success.

Career Life Connection at ERE Expo Sept. 10-11, Hollywood, Florida

Career Life Connection will be in booth #205 at the ERE Expo.  We will be talking about workplace flexibility and video taping interviews with companies and workers who flex.

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