Workplace Flexibility in the news for the week ending Sept. 12, 2009

In the News

Chasing Elusive Work-Life Balance (Globe and Mail)

Can you have it all? Do you have to be there 24/7 for clients? Three entrepreneurs weigh in

Teachers with a good work-life balance produce higher-achieving pupils (HR Magazine)

Schools with staff who are satisfied in their jobs and are valued by managers produce higher achieving students, evidence from market research agency ORC suggests.

Goodman: Grateful to have a job (San Jose Mercury News)

The talk of work-life balance has fallen as fast as a 401(k). There is still a stigma attached to flextime and only half of workers get a single paid sick day. As Debra Ness of the National Partnership for Women and Families says, worried workers are “less likely to ask for benefits and less likely to use them if they have them.”  After the dot-com bubble burst, we got a jobless recovery. Will the Great Recession and the grateful worker end up with a benefit-less recovery?

AARP salutes 3 N.C. employers (News & Observer)

In compiling the list, the AARP looks at recruiting practices; training and educational opportunities; workplace flexibility in terms of scheduling, job sharing and phased retirement; retirement benefits; and work opportunities for retirees.

SC Johnson, Acuity make AARP ‘best’ list (The Business Journal of Milwaukee)

AARP said Acuity is committed to helping employees have a positive work-life balance. Changes based on employee opinion surveys include the construction of an on-site exercise facility and enhanced retirement training. Acuity has also worked to maintain a strong benefits package that includes perks such as unlimited, paid sick leave for employees unable to work because of an injury or illness. Acuity has also gone eight years without raising health care premiums.

Agency Executives Need to Get Out on Motorcycles More Often (Advertising Age)

The best agencies can be the best and still offer careers with balance. I don’t think that when you get older you are any less adept at the essential skills that once made you a star copywriter or planner. I just think that you get burned out and realize that there is more to life than selling consumer products. It’s time for agencies to create cultures that cultivate the balance. Because isn’t it the experiences outside the agency that inform the magic that happens within?

Five Steps for Achieving Work-life Balance (Asia One)

Working longer hours and E-mail make it hard to balance the demands on your time, particularly if you have family commitments. But having a meaningful career doesn’t mean sacrificing your personal life either. Achieving work-life balance isn’t that difficult.

Why Are You Not Like Me? The Generational Gap In The Workplace (Psychology Today)

The workplace is facing a generational adjustment of values, learning and working styles that will have a huge impact on how leaders think and act. Generation X and Generation Y will transform the nature of the workplace.

Launching a start-up and having a family life: It’s possible! (Venture Beat)
What will your epitaph say? – When our kids were babies I was still struggling to try to put the work/life balance in perspective.  Someone gave me a thought that I tried to live my live my life around.  He asked me, when you’re gone would you rather have your gravestone say, “He never missed a meeting.” Or one that said, “He was a great father.” Holding my two kids on my lap, it was a pretty easy decision.

How Gen Y and Boomers Will Reshape Your Agenda (Diversity Inc)

Y’s and boomers value work/life balance and prioritize Flexibility and Remote Work. They are shedding Industrial Age conceptions of work and demanding control over when, where and how work gets done.

Flexibility could be vital for workplace productivity (HR Review – UK)

Flexibility and good employee communication are “vital” for a happy and productive workforce during the recession, one sector commentator has claimed.  Robert Janes, chair of judges for The National Business Awards, said that if a firm is facing budget challenges, the best course of acting was to be honest with staff as this could make it easier for them to face and meet these problems.

Is work taking over your life? (Metro News)
Poll show twice as many Canadians feel overworked this year over last

Hennepin Employees Try New Work Model (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

The results-oriented workplace model — where employees set their own schedules according to what they get done, rather than simply follow the clock — is said to be a hit with businesses eager to focus on tasks done rather than hours worked.   But is it good enough for government work? Hennepin County plans to find out.

Balancing Acts: If Not Now, When? (Inc)

If you allow a business, even a successful one, to dictate the terms of your life, you will always find reasons to delay making the big personal decisions — there’s the new branch that is just about to open, that merger on the horizon. When businesses survive and thrive, it’s the nature of the entrepreneur to keep expanding them.

Heavy workload biggest obstacle for women lawyers (The Kelowna Daily Courier)
A startling one-third of new women lawyers drop out of the profession within five years…The society says losing women lawyers is bad for the profession and it will only add to the expected shortage of lawyers in B.C. in the next decade as baby boomer-aged lawyers retire.

It’s about time (The Age – Australia)

Working parents fret about the hours they spend away from their children. But how do the kids feel about it? Amanda Woodard reports.

In the Blogs

The end of work-life balance? Long live work-life integration…(CSR Asia)

Work-life balance is dead and rapidly being replaced by the concept of work-life integration, if the number of articles and commentaries about the topic are to be believed. The “old” idea of work-life balance seems to imply that the two concepts are actually separate parts of someone’s existence. Whereas work-life integration is about seeing work as a part of improving one’s overall quality of life.

Thoughts on Work-Life Balance (Chandler Criminal Defense)

Being able to move around my schedule to be home was priceless. I didn’t have to ask anyone if I could take time off. I didn’t have to use any sick days or vacation time. Anyone who knows me in even the slightest personal capacity knows how much I love that dog. Personally caring for her in the comfort of her own home for the last days of her life was incredibly important to me. I don’t know if any firm would have given me that much flexibility to care for a pet.  Work decreased, but it never stopped altogether. I had filings to draft, interviews to conduct, and a jury trial the following week.

What Great Bosses Know about Work-Life Balance (Poynter)

During Labor Day week, it seems only fitting that we spend a little time on the topic of work-life balance. What do great bosses know about the struggle? Plenty, because many wrestle with it themselves.

The New Rules of Nine-to-Five – 13 Ways to Get a Flexible Work Schedule (Job Fair USA)

Imagine leaving your cubicle at any time of the day and working outside via a wireless campus your company has set up. If you worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, you could. If Utah-based Arup Laboratories were your employer, you’d work seven days on, seven days off — and still be considered full-time. Ever have days where you can’t seem to break away for lunch? NRG::Seattle forces you to. Every day around noon, the insurance company goes dark so that everyone must take an hour break for lunch. The goal: come back feeling recharged.

Why a Four-Day Work Week Will Be the Norm (Bedeviant.com)

What would you do with an extra day added to your weekend? Go fishing? Sleep in? Get some yard work done? How about work out? According to a recent article in Time, that’s what most of the Utah state employees mandated to take a four-day work week would do…I know of a few friends who have adopted this schedule and can attest that they are loving it.

Mothers Group To U.S. Senate: “We’re Trapped in the Last Century” (Insight New Mexico)

The National Association of Mothers’ Centers recently told a bipartisan U.S. Senate working group that a lack of flexibility in the workplace is punishing vast numbers of family caregivers in New Mexico and the rest of the country.

Is Work-Life Becoming More Intertwined? (workshifiting.com)

A theme that I heard repeatedly was that there’s no line between work and life now.  Workshifters have anytime access to work and the people they work with. I couldn’t help but ask myself, are we losing the “life” in work/life balance? Here are two different perspectives I heard from the small biz owners group

How employers are using schedule flexibility during recession (examiner.com)

One example of more schedule flexibility provided in the 2009 report was from Salt River Materials Group in Scottsdale, Arizona.  Employees can choose to reduce their workweek by 5 – 20% and or take unpaid leave without affecting their eligibility for benefits.

Labor Day – Everyday (Examiner.com)

A job shouldn’t suck all of your life-force from you leaving you with nothing to give yourself or your family when you get home from work.  But so many people believe that to be a contributing member of society you need to punch a clock and work from 9-5 every day.  But this shouldn’t be the case.

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Press Release

New Book, “WOMEN WANT MORE,” Reveals How Companies Can Capture Their Share of the World’s Largest, Fastest-Growing Market

Consider the following findings of the BCG survey:

• As of 2006, about 71 percent of mothers in the United States were in the labor force
• Most — 56 percent — had children under one year old
• Yet, 88 percent of women are still responsible for grocery shopping
• 85 percent do most of the meal preparation
• 84 percent do the laundry
• 84 percent do the bulk of the cleaning
• 77 percent manage the tasks of household administration
• Nearly half of all women (47 percent) say that the big stress in their life is demands on their time
• 48 percent say that they feel pressure related to managing household finances and that it’s the major point of stress in their lives
• 45 percent of women say they don’t have “enough time for me”
• 38 percent say conflicting priorities cause stress

Career Life Connection News and Events

ERE Expo Fall ‘09: The next killer recruiting app (HR Marketer Blog)

Career Life Connection had the most innovative booth – stocked with four inflatable chairs that provided a welcome break from standing, a surprising degree of comfort, and a great place to start a conversation

Conference Recap: 2009 ERE Expo (HR Bartender)

I really enjoyed spending time at the Career Life Connection booth.  Career Life Connection was not only an exhibitor but one of the conference sponsors.

Leanne Chase, president of Career Life Connection, shared with me a special offer for ERE Expo attendees and said that I could share it with you.  Just fill out their employer form and get a 3-month board listing.  Be sure to check it out along with their blog.  Lots of great info about workplace flexibility and balance.

Sunday HR Shout-Out: Women of #EREExpo (PunkRock HR)

I am lucky to connect with great women in my life. I spent some time with Leanne Chase who is always interested in talking politics, gender issues, and work/life balance.

Career Life Connection from ERE Expo in Fort Lauderdale

The first leg of my travels for the next two weeks brings me to the ERE Expo courtesy of Leanne Chase (@leanneclc) of Career Life Connection. I think I fit the description as someone with a flexible job and that’s what Career Life Connection is all about it. It’s a site devoted to spreading information about job flexibility and the waves of changes going through corporate america as employers everywhere are finding out people work harder when they can have flexible (NOT 9-5) schedules. Keep up with industry news and find/post jobs on the CLC Job Board.

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