Nothing like a great honor to get me back to blogging here.  SHRM was nice enough to add this blog to their list of Top 10 Workplace Flexibility blogs worth reading and wow am I feeling guilty.  Not because of the honor, but because I had some tough choices to make.

In October I started a new job and with every new job there is a learning curve and it takes a while to feel like you have your feet under you. And as part of that new job I’m responsible for their blog…and while that one is going well.  This one fell off a cliff.

There is some consolation in knowing I am not alone.  I think my friend Cindy Meltzer says it so well in her post on this subject.  And like her I’m finding it tough to write about juggling work and life, while I’m juggling work and life!

but hey, this is part of my  journey through it all.  So please stay with me and trust me. I have a lot to say…I just need a few more hours in my day.  Sound familiar?

How about you…are there some tough choices you’re making?  Things that you really enjoy that you haven’t been able to work on as much as you’d like?

I’ve always been a start-up, smaller company kind of gal.  I think the largest organization I’ve ever worked for had about 160 employees – and that was big.  Many more have been along the lines of the 25-75 range.  It suits me.  In small companies and start ups there is no time for  bureaucracy.  Something needs to be done – everybody pitches in and gets it done – not matter your title or official job description.

And that may explain why I like unconferences.  There is less (or no) structure and everyone feels comfortable contributing to the conversation.  At least if it’s done well.

And last week I attended one that was done well – TRU Boston – put on by Bill Boorman at the great Bullhorn Reach offices.  At times it felt more like a meeting of the knights of the roundtable than a conference.  I think Arie Ball of Sodexo summed it up best when she said that you don’t come out of an event like this with a big idea but you get lots of smaller ones that you can implement as soon as you return to your office.  And I agree.

What I really liked:

• It was not a kumbaya event.  There were divergent opinions and you got to air them out.
• People listened to each other and thought about what was said and then participated.  Truly!  That just doesn’t happen often enough anymore
• I’ve always felt marketing & recruiting shared many of the same skill set.  Confirmed by many at this conference for me.  But none more than Johnny Campbell and his brilliant take on how to use a webinar to get candidate leads…not sales leads.
• Every vendor there had recruiting issues and every recruiter there had vendor issues…we helped each other out with both – albeit warily. Which is why the session who came first customer or candidate was spot on.  The answer in my opinion – who cares?  We’re all customers and we’re all candidates and both need to be respected and paid attention to if you’d like your business to thrive.

What I took away:

• There are those who believe as passionately as I that marketing branding & employer branding can work together and share leads and resources and should do so more often
• That there is a science to going viral…and I’m still not sure anyone has it all figured out, but got some good pointers
• That workplace flexibility seems to be a no brainer for start ups, burdensome  for large companies and that employment laws that vary from state to state here are a difficult concept for international peeps to grasp.
• That Facebook communities should absolutely have a recruiting tab to convert those who already love your brand into workers who can help improve your brand and product.
• That there is no substitute for old fashioned skills like research, good communication, and the courage to pick up the phone and talk to someone (or maybe even “stalk” them through foursquare to show up at their local Starbucks to talk face to face)
• That apparently way more people are much more open on social media than I am…and I probably won’t be recruited as easily as they will be…and I am very much okay with that.
• That some people are actually measuring social…and it happens to be in HR at UPS.  Nicely done Mike Vangel!
• That working in an office might be fun again…I’d actually been heading in this direction for a bit, but some conversations I had at TRUBoston made me believe it may be time to head back into highly-evolved cubeland.

What  I didn’t quite buy into:

• That an unconference means disorganization.  It wasn’t my conference and I am in marketing.  But I would have had more information out earlier and promoted more about the conference, who was attending, and maybe built a community aspect for it.  I heard about how to build Facebook communities to recruit for the HardRock Cafe…I think a FB community could have been similarly used  to inform about this and all the TRU Events.
• That Facebook is a great recruiting tool for all.  We learned about 3 companies using it…all hiring hourly workers.  I’m not saying it can’t be used for higher-end, I just am not seeing the same kinds of success stories there as with hourly workers.
• That LinkedIn recommendations are all that.  Hearing some recruiters in the room say that they checked LinkedIn first and if the candidate didn’t have any recommendations they treat them as lesser of a candidate.  My take – friends ask friends to put recommendations on LinkedIn knowing they will be friendly and happy ones.
• That a passive candidate is better than an active one…c’mon, enough now on this one.  Finding the right person for the job is all that counts.  Who cares what they did yesterday…instead recruiters should care about what they’ve done long term and if they are a good fit for the company.

I don’t get out much with my current work/life fit but I’m glad this conference came to me…and I’m glad I was able to juggle my way into attending.

I miss my old office job. There I said it. Yes, I know. I work from home and for myself. I set my own hours and have total flexibility. What could be better?

Well….

• Working with people I like and respect who I can learn from and continue to grow. I miss that.
• Having someone else set my goals and priorities more often because doing it all myself is quite frankly exhausting.
• Having somewhere to go that is separate from home where there is a clear definition of what is work time and what is not.
• Listening to the radio on my commute.
• Walking around the office and half-hearing 100s of conversations about things I’m both interested in and also could completely care less about. But hearing the buzz of life.
• The soda & snack machines.

Many of these may sound pretty mundane but I miss them.  So when I read that Laurie Ruettimann had taken a new job I was not one of the many who thought “how could you?!”  What I thought was “Wow, good for her.  I am jealous.”

But the reasons I don’t have an office job are because I value my work/life fit.  And last night on a chat about workplace flexibility and work life fit with human resource types on twitter (search Twitter for #TChat to see the conversation) it was once again shown to me that I won’t have an office job for probably quite a long time.

Here are some of the gems that confirmed this:

Asking about what kind of hours that company keeps during the interview process is a “non-starter” and is seen as lazy – in other words don’t even bother applying.

Well I have made the choice to pick my kid up at school during the week.  It doesn’t have to be everyday, but I would like it to be at least 3 of the 5 days of school.  And that doesn’t happen at or after 5pm.  And I don’t want to get to the final stages of an interview only to find out this doesn’t work for a future employer.  I have 20 years of experience and great references from former bosses who I’m now lucky enough to see socially years after we worked together.  But still in HR’s eyes I’m damaged goods

HR’s perception generally is still that any work/life issues you have are your problem to solve.  The company you choose to work for is simply not responsible for that.  If you don’t like it you have the choice to simply look for another job.  Apparently the fact that they need people to do the work as much as people need them to provide work still eludes them.  They feel they are still in the driver’s seat and if you don’t like the way they operate you can walk.  I don’t know about you…but that doesn’t feel like a relationship to me, it feels like an unhappy existence rife with work/life conflict.

Flexibility is still seen as more for salaried workers than hourly.  Those of us now making our working consulting sent out the hue and cry.  After all we are paid hourly and that is precisely why I have the flexibility I have.  I can pick and choose which hours I work for my clients and which I devote to personal interests.  But that seemed to fall on deaf ears.

There were glimpses of hope, too:

Like the fact that if our workplaces expect us to be flexible when they have more work than they can handle, they need to be flexible with workers when they have important non-work stuff they need to handle.

And the discussion of the term “work life balance” and how that is not really the right term.  My take was when I think of balance I think of the scales of justice perfectly side by side.  And my comment to someone was.  ”I’ve never had that work/life day.”  And he agreed.

So 3 years after leaving my office job because of lost flexibility, I don’t believe I’ll be returning to an office job anytime soon.  I feel the conversation has come far in those 3 years but human resources and companies still lag way behind where workers are on this subject – in a recent survey 87 percent of employees reported that flexibility in their jobs would be extremely or very important in deciding whether to take a new job.

The part that really befuddles me is that there are good workers out there who want work and there are companies out there looking for workers but the “rules” of work are so constrained that the two cannot help each other out.  So I will continue to set my own goals and priorities for now.  Because fixing that assinine fact would be one of them.

I think I’ve fallen into a time warp. It feels like it’s the mid-90′s and I’m in grad school again. Because the conversations I’m hearing all around me are befuddling. So take a trip into the not-so-way-back machine with me, would you please?

It’s 1996. I’m a graduate student in the school of communications at Boston University and I’m working full-time for an independent television station in Boston producing live sports broadcasts. While my major is not television, I have some classes that overlap with television professors. And they are talking about what it’s like to work in television. Only it’s not like that at all. At least not in 1996 in Boston. But these are full-time professors and they used to work in television. A long time ago. They have spent the last decade or so in the much more comfortable bubble of tenured university life. The problem is they are teaching people who are headed out into the world hoping to work in the industry and they are grossly misleading them. I’m sure you all understand, I spoke up. And I’m sure you know how that was received…not well.

Well here I am again. It’s 2011 and I guess for lack of better description I am a work/life professional. I’m not even sure what that means…but I do know I’m not alone. And I’m very lucky to have worked in the human resources industry and have many smart, progressive friends there. And for a few years I’ve been trying to get them to talk with each other. The HR people because they have been letting me know that work/life is an issue they know they need to deal with. But change is scary, and it needs to be taken slowly and it needs to be well thought out and it’s still a little progressive for some of their work cultures. And I’ve been talking with the work/life pros who have great research and knowledge to help HR & C-suites make the change and have done so with a minority of employers.

And now that minority is poised to turn into a majority, and both groups want to meet each other. Articles are popping up in HR publications, workplace flexibility sessions are being added to HR conferences, and work/life consultants are swamped with work and the conversation is moving forward. Yippee, right?! Yes….but then NO!

I’ve participated in and overheard conversations between work/life pros and HR types recently and I’m cringing. It’s like the work/life pros are living in a tenured university bubble. Instead of engaging in conversation and listening (stop) (pause) (breathe) (think) (read that last part again) really listening they are in telling mode and wanting to control the conversation.

And when you’ve been trying to create a movement, sometimes it works and the movement takes over the conversation and it changes and it moves forward and it’s not quite what the founders of the movement had in mind. And they hunker down. They continue to message without input and they want to “teach” others what they have known and been working on for so long. And I’m seeing and hearing lots of disconnects and plenty of discontent.

Like last night when I was told that I couldn’t have possible worked in a results oriented work environment in the 90′s because it was not “invented” until 2004 (huh?!?!?!) and like the beginning of this week when I was asked to sugarcoat the realities of what flex can do for companies and how easy it is to do so, so it doesn’t sound too hard.

Yeah, no.

I’m the first to say that workplace flexibility is a great for business bottom lines and is also great for employees stress levels. I’m the first to question why someone in HR thinks it’s impossible to implement. But I am not going to tell them that that they are wrong and that flexibility is a magic bean that will magically make all their workers more productive and happy while their revenues grow overnight.

Nope I won’t do that.

I will have a conversation with anyone about workplace flexibility. And I will listen and hear their thoughts and concerns and I will expect them to do the same with me. In the end we may not agree but I will not tell them they are wrong or that it will be easy for them. Because I don’t walk in their shoes or do their job.

I guess I just don’t like living in a bubble. I’m much more comfortable in reality. No matter how messy and uncontrollable it is.

I was asked recently to be part of a Podcast at ERE.net about women in leadership roles in the workplace.  It was a very good discussion over 15 minutes.   And I believe what we all said in that short amount of time was highly accurate.

But I also think there is so much more to the story.  For one women have been in the workforce for the blink of an eye.  Seriously. When my mother was growing up the prevailing wisdom was she had 3 choices  - she could be a teacher, a secretary or a nurse…yes there were variations on that theme…but those were predominantly the careers open to women.

And one generation later we are looking around and saying – why aren’t more women managers? directors? ceos? on boards? C’mon give us a break.  We’ve accomplished much in 40 years – let’s celebrate that.  And let’s also really look at reality at work in that time.

Now I agree with Darren Shearer that there isn’t outright discrimination usually when hiring for a position.  I definitely do not believe that someone looks at a resume and says “we can’t hire that person, they’re a woman.”  Absolutely.  However as I look at my history in the workplace, the amount of unintended and societal discrimination that I’ve faced over the years is both shocking and yet, normal.

Job #1

• I overheard about 2 weeks in that I was essentially hired because I looked good in a skirt and had less of a Boston accent than the person I replaced.  But it was a recession and I had student loans to pay 6 months after leaving college so no fuss on my part.
• My duties in that job included going to the ATM for my boss and taking money out for him and shopping for birthday presents, Christmas presents, etc. for his wife.  Clearly not what I went to college for and certainly not what any male around me was doing for his boss, but again, a recession was on and I had already pushed back on fetching my boss’s coffee daily and getting his lunch from the cafeteria.  Mind you, this was 1991!

Job #3

• Each dept. had to cover the front desk during the receptionist’s lunch hour.  My dept. was made up entirely of men, except me.  Guess who was asked each week to cover?  Until I pointed out that it was not fair as I was not the lowest ranking member of the dept nor the highest – so why couldn’t others help out.  The result…my dept. no longer had to help cover the receptionist’s lunch hour.  A win for me…but definitely not for women in workplace.
• I became aware of a survey being done at work – who had the best body part.  Some of the men put together the ideal woman using fellow workers body parts.  They voted on who had the best legs (apparently I, the long-distance runner won that one), face, smile, hair, etc.  Even when this survey became public…no discipline was handed out for it.
• I mentioned I was the only female in my dept. – my boss – who actually was highly evolved and cared more about how well your work got done than your gender was a large champion of mine.  But he had to constantly fight to get me high-profile projects and when I did get them, it was clear to me that I had better do a much better job than my male colleagues would..or another good project may not come my way.  He said it much better than I with “I got you this…now don’t fu*@ it up.” No pressure.
• There was a male co-worker who was notorious for making women uncomfortable by complimenting their clothing, and leering at them constantly.  He was written up multiple times for this behavior, but never formally disciplined.  He was also in management.
• I was a sports producer.  It was my job to interview, get information about and be around male sports professionals.  I was good at getting interviews…just so long as I didn’t complain too much about the leers, totally inappropriate comments & proposals, or locker room behavior that was simply offensive.  I knew the minute I complained I would become too much trouble and lose my assignments and possibly my job. Mind you, I never gave anyone reason to think I was available…and in fact was already engaged and simply not interested.

There were other examples…but I think these show that women are in no way considered the equal of men in the workplace – in fact they are seen as less.   They are still too often not judged on their abilities, but other factors.  Which certainly helps explain the wage discrimination that is still a reality.

I also think my Dad’s words way back in my 20′s are still far too true.  He, the father who watched us kids 3 nights a week while my mom worked, who told his daughters we could be anything in the world we wanted to be, he said, “I don’t know why you’re spending all this money and time on grad school.  Some day you’re going to have kids and stay home with them.”  He was and is certainly not alone in his thinking.

Finally I think there is one other thing that studies about women in managerial roles do not take into account, who is being managed.  I’m guessing if you really look at how many people professional men & women are managing – it’s close to the same.  It’s just that the men manage people at work and the women manage people at home from child care workers, children & their schedules, house cleaners, babysitters to teachers and school bureaucracy.  I’m thinking maybe when men start managing more of the home workers, women might have some time & energy to manage more of the professional workers.

I feel like it’s been a quiet winter.  Like there was lots of fall activity and then we all went into hibernation for a bit.  Of course there were all those snow days.  And I am still getting used to the next phase in my work/life – living on a 9a-2p schedule now that my little one is in school.  So it could be just me, but I felt pretty disconnected from the HR gang, the work/life gang, and my Boston networking gang the past couple months.

Thankfully the thaw is on in Boston both for the snow and ice and also for the quiet.  Today I’ll be participating and leading a few online discussions on topics that definitely affect everyone…at some time.

At noon I’ll be talking about how cancer has touched my life.  And it has.  3 years ago I lost my Dad to lung cancer after a long cardiac illness and last May we lost my husband’s stepfather ironically to a heart attack, even though he had been fighting cancer for the entire 15 years I knew him.   For both of these men their families supported, nursed, drove to appointments, held hands, took a deep breath when they were appropriately cantankerous and had their lives turned upside down by the disease as if they had come down with it themselves.  It is one of those issues that will become more and more of an issue that needs to be thought about and dealt with in the work/life sphere.  Please join if  you’d like to share your story or learn from others who have been there or are there now.

Then tonight I will be a bit less reflective and much more radical on a twitter chat called #RadChat.  Here some recruiters, HR folks, work/life folk, everyday Canadians, Americans, and all around good tweeps will get together and chat on different topics.  Last time it was personal branding.  Today it’s work/life balance.  I’m hosting which with this crowd probably means – throwing out questions, getting a few jokes & barbs thrown back at me, me learning from lots of smart people, and having lots and lots of fun.  If you are feeling balanced, aren’t feeling balanced, hate the word “balance” as I do.  Come on along at 9pm on Twitter and type in to the search box “#RadChat” to lurk, listen or participate in the convo.  I think I’m ready for all that will be thrown my way…but won’t it be fun to find out?

It’ll be quite the day for me from somber to laugh out loud funny.  But isn’t that what life is all about?  No ability to really balance, just rolling with what comes and having the support system at home and at work to help it all fit together.

So let’s talk.

“Can I speak to the head of the household, please,”  said the voice on the phone.

I’ll admit I was stunned.  I had never in my 13 years of marriage and 8 years of home ownership been asked that question.  It took me a few seconds.

“Well you’re speaking to one of them.” I replied. Which pretty much set the tone for a very short sales speech and even shorter “not interested” response.

This recent exchange came to mind as I was reading an article about the Class Action suit being brought by women workers against Walmart:

Detrix Young, a Wal-Mart employee in Aiken, South Carolina, reports that she sat in a store-wide meeting where one of her female co-workers asked why the men in the store earned more than the women. One of the male managers answered that “men are working as the heads of their households, while women are just working for the sake of working.”

I know in my parents day and age husbands were considered the head of the household.  It’s not how it worked in my family.  My parents made financial decisions together.  But that was how it worked in some.  But now it’s befuddling to me that that image would enter anyone’s mind.  Let alone be a way to decide salary increases and promotions.

I don’t know about your house but in mine we have two breadwinners, who have equal education and equal clout when it comes to decisions.  At times in our lives together I’ve made more money, at times he has.  At times he’s worked much harder, at times I have.  There is no one in charge.  There are two people working together to make decisions, pay the bills, take care of the household and children and to be considered on any and all decisions.  We are a team.

And while I feel equality at home is moving forward by leaps and bounds, not so much in the workplace.  Wouldn’t it be nice if the work world thought of employees as a team, too.  They work together toward a common goal and each individual should be judged based on the quality of their work and given raises and promotions accordingly.  Enough of this antiquated “head of household” vs. working for “pin money” crap.

And for those of you thinking this is just a Walmart problem, ask a woman in her late 30′s-60′s – I’m guessing she’ll have a story to tell you that shows you otherwise.  I know I do.

This is not an article about why you should network.  You should.  End of story.  It’s how you get jobs, make friends, find out information about your industry, neighborhood, school, company.  It’s something we all should do more.  But I’m not your mother or your career coach so if you don’t want to network – I don’t care.

I network.  I do it as much as I can.  Why?  Because often I don’t have time.

I have clients who pay me for projects and they expect they will get done.  I have a little one who needs to be dropped off and picked up at school each day.  She needs to be fed every day and from what I’ve heard leaving her unattended is frowned upon…by society and by her and most definitely by her father.  Speaking of her father, I haven’t seen him all week.  He’s working and he loves his work and there are weeks like this when he comes in late at night, goes out early in the morning or is staying in another city for work.

So my human contact thus far this week includes my little one, my hairdresser, a couple of store clerks and brief interactions at school pick up and drop off.  Thank goodness for the play date we had this week…where there were other interesting adults in my home for far too short a time!

So I network.  Not because I’m looking for a job but because it staves of the loneliness of working from home in a home where your husband often commutes by airplane.  Don’t get me wrong…I’m sure my next job will come from networking…it’s just not today’s goal.  Today’s goal is basic human contact, and getting the juices of my mind flowing on something other than client issues and pre-school schedules.

What about you?  Why do you network?

I’m often told by new community members how much they like this site and the concept of more flexibility at work and more balance in their life…but how can they accomplish it?   My first advice is you must truly want it.  After all if you really want something, you go after it, hard.  You don’t wait for someone to offer it to you.

Then yesterday I was hanging out with a luncheon group I frequent called The Community Roundtable Live.  At that lunch we discuss building, growing, fostering communities and we also talk about daily life.  Yesterday’s discussion veered to leaving your community to manage itself or not while you go on vacation thanks to Rachel Happe’s great blog post.

I like it.  #1 Nutella is European.  They take their vacations…they see them as part of life and something to embrace not something to put off or avoid.  #2 It’s Nutella – seriously for 2 weeks how much could not having up to the minute information about a chocolate hazelnut spread harm anyone?  #3 They are setting expectations.  And setting expectations is one of my how to’s to achieving your own personal balance.

After talking about Nutella for a bit some of us shared our favorite “out of office-isms.”  I learned about one CMO whose out of office email says basically – “Hey, I’m out until blah, when I get back I’m deleting all the stuff in my inbox…if you want me to read your email send it to me when I’m back in the office.”   I love this one so much I’ll be using it as my out of office next week!

Another one was someone in their 40′s on their honeymoon.  Their voicemail message said essentially “I waited until I was 40 to get married.  I’m on my honeymoon.  If you really need to reach me, you can track down my in-laws and you can explain to them why what you have to say to me is important enough to interrupt their only daughter’s honeymoon.  Then if they agree they can give you my contact number.”  Hah!  How’s that for setting expectations and stating the obvious…a honeymoon is important….most business matters can wait a few days or weeks even.

Last year I got some notice for putting this as my out of office:

“I will be on vacation the week of 8/10.  I will be checking email just not at my usual responsive pace. If I am missing a deadline of some sort…do please call and remind me at 617-510-xxxx.  Otherwise…I’ll get back to you when my vacation needs a “work break.”  — A much more American sort of out of office message and an honest one for me as I own my own business and occasionally do need to take a “work break” on vacation.  Still I set the expectation that I’ll get back to work, when and if I choose.

Clearly all of those listed above (including me) value their time away from the office.  They wanted to have a vacation on their terms.  And they made it happen.  It’s possible.  That is your “how to” for this week.

We all make deals in life.  Whether it be less pay for more flexibility, whether it be postponing a “have to” do for a “want to” do, whether it be going to one family event so you can skip the next one.  It’s life.  And as life changes and grows and morphs the deals we have made may require some renegotiating.  Because let’s face it what worked 10 years ago is likely not to work today and may not work tomorrow.

So I get a little confused when people get upset at me for calling the condo my husband and I are buying our new deal.  It may not be romantic, but it is realistic.  In marriage deals are struck all the time – having kids vs. not having kids, living closer to his work or hers or splitting the difference, whose family gets Thanksgiving, whose gets Christmas.  A marriage is a series of negotiations and agreements.  That is reality.  Ours is no different.

Over the past year my husband and I have been re-negotiating.  We had a great deal.  We both worked, we both had great careers, we had a good income, we lived frugally, we traveled apart and then would come back together and enjoy each other.  It worked.  We didn’t see our home or each other a lot but we felt fulfilled.

And then we added something…a wonderful, bright, curious little one.  And everything changed.

I traveled less, I was home every night, I cooked dinners more regularly, I scheduled the household, I lost some of me.  While changes were more subtle for my husband, they were still there.  He couldn’t work out whenever he wanted.  If he had traveled during the week, his weekends were mostly family-time.  He lost touch with friends.  Needless to say we were both grumpy.  And neither felt any sort of balance.  We were always lamenting that which we weren’t doing instead of enjoying that which we were.

As I was lamenting my husband being a road warrior I stumbled upon our “dream home.”  I was not looking for it, but it is the perfect place for us for the next 10-15 years of our lives. And it was time to face up to my reality…my husband is a road warrior.  He has tried to change but the one time he did, it went disastrously, so he is hesitant to try again.  He also has a great job that he loves and thrives at.  I would love to have the career I used to, but to do so would mean asking a lot of him.  And while I’m not the ooey gooey mommy type it is important to me that our little one is raised by parents and that we are the ones that tuck her in most nights and soothe the aches, pains and bruises of life.

So after a year of soul searching, talking to each other, to counselors, to friends….we have struck a new deal.  And not everyone will get everything they want…right now.  But it’s a good deal.  I get the home that makes being a home body more appealing but forces us to live less frugally, he gets to stay on the road with an eye toward coming home earlier and more often and my little one will have mommy or daddy walk her to and from school, and she’s very excited to pick the colors for her new room & play area.  It’s a good deal and I’m taking it…until we become unbalanced again…and need to renegotiate.

What sort of deals do you make in your life to feel more balanced?