Minggu, 31 Oktober 2010

Teamwork as a Spiritual Value

For many people in the workplace, work is not a "calling" but a means to an end. Here is one thoughtful woman's reflection on the challenge of making her job have value and meaning without becoming worn down by her work experience.

Once a month or so, I get together with a friend who is a retired pastor, to work on a personal study. (We just finished Primary Speech by Ann and Barry Ulanov.) At one point, she was doing some interim work for a church that was looking for a full-time pastor. My friend expressed her deep satisfaction at being able to do that which she loves and feels "called" to do. She asked me what it was like to be in a job where that is not the case. I am the office manager for a lumberyard, and I also manage "accounts payable".

For many people in the workplace, work is not a "calling" but a means to an end. There are many reasons why we stay where we are: lack of education to get something better, fear of risking change, inability to go back to school because of family commitments, laziness to go back to school and get a different degree, loyalty to the people one works for and with, the desire to be productive – but not the need to have money to live ( a second income in a two-income family). The reasons are probably as varied as the people who hold them. The bottom line, however is that we choose to stay in the job.

The challenge then becomes to make the experience of being within that particular job have value and meaning rather than allow oneself to be worn down by the experience.

For example: Is teamwork a spiritual value? Of course it is! Teamwork is a thing of beauty when it is done well. It has the capacity to bring satisfaction to our efforts and learning to our minds and hearts. And always there is the challenge of learning to get along with all different kinds of people. People who hold different values make life challenging and interesting. It is a challenge to learn to be open to others, and yet hold your own ground when it is essential to do so. It is a challenge to strive to do one’s best when others on the team simply want to get the task done –well or not. The conflicts and tensions that are produced are the stuff of real spirituality – can I accept and work with the person who consistently half completes a task and leaves others to clean up? This is the place to be very clear and very intentional about what I want to accomplish in my interactions with this person.

Remember – all actions have rewards and consequences, both personally, for the other person, and for the other team members. Do I think that God is concerned about this? I consistently come away with the feeling that God is right in the middle of it, concerned about how I can learn to create a condition where love (my definition: “The desire to do good to others”) is found.

Does that mean that I don’t do the tough "calling on the carpet" response? Absolutely not. Love here is no wishy-washy ideal but a careful calling to craft a response born out of spiritual maturity and responsibility to do the best for the whole as well as for the individual and oneself.

Career Search – Quest or Curse

by Nina Ham

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

If you’re in the midst of a career search, undecided about the next direction for your work life, you may be struggling to keep your self-esteem strong at the same time that you’re trying to answer the all-important question about what you want to do. People often seem to be aching for a sympathetic outlook on their stories of career dissatisfaction. They tend to be their own harshest critics, often riddled with self-doubt and embarrassment about not getting this "career thing" right. Maintaining a constructive attitude is challenging.

In spite of contrary statistics - such as, the average American changes jobs eight times over the course of his/her lifetime - we still tend to harbor the expectation that we "should" decide by our late 20’s/early 30’s what we want to do and follow that path for the remainder of our working lives. As T. puts it, "My search for work I’m passionate about is regarded by my friends like a child’s drawing that’s put up on the refrigerator...isn’t that cute!" In this context, career dissatisfaction can feel like a curse.

It’s often the case, when facing a challenging transition, that there’s some subtle – or not so subtle – finger-pointing at yourself going on. Does any of these sound familiar?

  • I must be crazy to contemplate embarking on a new venture in this economy.
  • Maybe I should stop worrying about my calling and get a job.
  • If it doesn’t look good on my resume, it doesn’t count.
  • I’ve never been happy in a job...I need to look elsewhere for fulfillment.
  • I have responsibilities. I can’t afford to look for work I love.
  • What if I find my dream job and I’m still dissatisfied?
  • How will I explain to people...?

Whether you’re considering moving from one industry to another or into self-employment, you’ll probably agree that support systems for people in career transition are lagging woefully behind the sea changes that are occurring in the way we do work. As evidence of this, ask yourself the following:

  • What did you learn in your formal education about making a good career choice?
  • When were you encouraged to match your abilities, values, and personality to career options, and shown how to do it?
  • Would you ever consider marrying someone you hadn’t dated first?
  • Were you ever told that what you’re qualified to do, even if it earns a decent wage, is not sufficient reason to keep doing it?
  • Do you know where to go for support and reinforcement to continue the search for work you’re passionate about?
  • Do you have models for matching changes in life stages or circumstances with changes in values or priorities concerning work?
  • Did you know that having an identity crisis or upheaval every 10 years is considered normal and healthy? Experts agree that adult identity is largely shaped by love and work.

Chances are, your answers to these questions point out how poorly you’ve been prepared for the transition you’re engaged in. Imagine how different it would be if we lived in a culture in which the longing to work well – to have work that fulfills and stretches us – was recognized as one of adulthood’s quests, as human and dignified as the longing to love well or parent well. As the poet David Whyte tells us so eloquently, creating meaningful work is how we forge our place in the world, how we create belonging. Many of us find belonging where personal meets personal, in friendship or intimacy; in work, where personal meets public, a larger sense of belonging can be claimed. To forge our place we must be fully engaged both with who we are and who we want to become. Through working we express our unique natures – our values, our skills, our creativity - and we challenge ourselves to become even more fully what we’re capable of. Given this perspective on working well, not only should it take exactly as long as it takes – with no self-reproach – to do the necessary inner and outer research, but it may be an on-going, lifelong process. Just as personal change and growth distinguish aliveness from death, so must we require our work to keep pace with those changes.

The next important question to address, for those of you committed to the quest for good work, is how to sustain yourself during the process, both practically and emotionally. Meeting the daily ups and downs of a career search can be a formidable challenge. Here are some suggestions:

Prepare financially.

Consider either reducing debt to cut monthly payments or borrowing, to repay when you’re reemployed. Also consider making a temporary job move, to give yourself more time with less financial pressure. This can be a good opportunity to explore some career ideas.

Fortify a positive attitude.

The territory between your ears can be a bad neighborhood to hang out in alone at times, specially if there’s excessive worry, confusion or self-criticism. Make a point to talk with someone, a friend or a professional, on a regular basis. That person is likely to be more objective about you and your abilities than you are.

If you haven’t already, read Po Bronson’s What Should I Do With My Life? And check out his chatroom: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/life_goals. You’ll realize with relief that you’re not alone.

Maintain perspective.

Find a hero or heroine, in your personal life or in the media, someone who has drawn on courage and persistence to continue the search until finding his or her right work.

Don’t overlook the value of intuition for this process. Trying to "figure out" what to do may not be the best way. Let some insights/hunches/visions come to you.

Remember: You’re learning career development skills here. These are skills that will serve you over the long haul.

When you need inspiration to stay in the quest, try this quote from William Blake: "In good work that is a heartfelt expression of ourselves, we necessarily put our very identities at risk. Perhaps it is because we know, in the end, we are our gift to others and the world."


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Jobless Think They Should Be Picky about Next Job, But Not Too Picky

By Jane Genova

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs


The 15 million jobless think they should be picky about what their next job will be, but not too picky

Some of those jobless were surveyed by the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, reports The New York Times. On the one hand, the jobless didn't agree that they should take just any job. After all, in America a job is something more than just earning a living. It is taken as a sign of a professional identity, social status, and even considered a place to make friends. On the other hand, the jobless agreed that if their former industry had been eliminated, then sure they should accept temporary assignments, lower pay, lousy hours, and enter a field they had no experience in.

Those against safety-net mechanisms such as extended unemployment benefits want the jobless to be forced to take a job, any job. Forget being choosy. That in itself, the anti-safety netters judge, would bring down the nation's unemployment level.


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Sabtu, 30 Oktober 2010

Sorting Out What's Next Takes Patience and a Career Plan

by: Bradford Agry

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

Many of us when faced with career transition jump immediately to the tactical aspects of job hunting. The knee jerk reaction is to immediately start faxing resumes, contacting executive recruiters and researching Internet sites. People often incorrectly assume the best career path is that of least resistance which is “to continue doing what you have always done well.”

But this period of unemployment may actually give you a chance to really to take a hard look at your career—both in the short and long terms. For many, a career interruption may be the first time they can stop the career “train” long enough to know if it is still on the right “track”.

For many the challenge has the important spiritual dimension of “waiting and listening for God”. Discerning what is next demands re-training our action-oriented selves to also spend some time in quiet reflection. If we are immersing ourselves 24/7 in doing and acting we may not hear the subtle hints God is giving us as to where our vocations could be headed.

One way of focusing our intentions is to consider three important elements to consider when tackling the question of “What do I really want to do?”

Skills

This means taking an in depth look at what you see as your natural talents or “gifts” Take an inventory of several enjoyable past work experiences and analyze them to see which skills you were using. You may see a pattern that never occurred before. A director of marketing, for example, may really like the numerical analysis they do but not the prospecting and presenting. Perhaps this quantitative piece of the position could be leveraged elsewhere.

Interests

Here you need to determine where you want at apply these skills. Just because you for instance have done accounting well for years, been rewarded for it and promoted as an accounting manager, doesn’t necessarily mean you may want to continue doing it. Take the time to see if there are other fields you might want to pursue. By talking to people in these fields you can determine if there is any gap between needed skills and those you currently have. This will then allow you to determine ways of getting this new training and what the cost/benefit proposition of doing this is.

Values

Recall which environments you have worked in previously where you were most content and productive. Identify what your ideal environment by looking at what kinds of people you work best with. Understand which corporate “cultures” are a best ‘fit’ for your personality. Describe in detail what the place looks like—what are the people wearing, how their workspaces are arranged and what kind of schedules they keep. Paying attention to these details will assure that you pursue interviews at places where you will be successful.

There certainly is no formula that will instantly produce the ideal job. But having a good understanding of your natural talents, potential interests and ideal environment will help focus your career search.


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A corporate trainer doesn't let unemployment get her down

By Beth Carey

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

Dara was a 9-to-5 career woman for 20 years. She commuted daily into Houston, looking confident with her auburn Halle Berry haircut and power suits, her cell phone and organizer at arm’s reach.

But when Dara lost her job with the large corporation where she’d earned the best salary in her career, the family income was suddenly cut in half. She’s been doing a lot of soul-searching in the many months since her layoff. Now the question friends constantly ask her is, “How do you keep such an upbeat attitude in the face of such loss?”

Working full-time and raising two children with her husband, Rodney, was a fact of life for Dara. She worked professionally as a corporate trainer for 20 years. The family never imagined Dara’s last job would end in just 18 short months. The job had boosted their income enough so they’d decided to sell their starter home and buy a larger home to accommodate their growing family. They also replaced their old van with a new one. Both purchases came with large monthly payments.

The family expected Dara to land a new job without too much trouble. But the months keep going by and no full-time job has come her way. Is it the economy, or a dried-up job market in their city? It’s hard to tell.



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Living My Faith at Work

by A Christian

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

As a federal law enforcement officer, I face many challenges in living out my Christian faith. I have a sense of calling that my work is what God wants me to do which empowers me in my faith life.

I believe God calls each of us to what has been described as "Ministry in Daily Life." This is basically to live out the Gospel wherever we are, believing that God has placed us there for His purpose. Each of us has been given a unique "ministry" based on who we interact with every day, whether at home, at work or in social settings. Some writer has noted, "You may be the only Jesus they ever see." I have a sense of responsibility to help others and share my faith as God gives me opportunity. I believe God has blessed me in many ways and I in turn should strive to be a blessing to others.

I often see the worst side of people, those who I investigate for federal criminal violations. Over the last 19 years, I’ve investigated outlaw motorcycle gangs, teenage prostitution rings, organized crime in New York City, and most kinds of white collar crime.

Two of the driving forces I've seen as being common in these people are greed and power. Many people show no remorse when caught, only disappointment that they were caught. And yet, in God's eyes, I know I'm no better than them, for "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." But praise God, I know I'm forgiven and serve a risen Savior who has conquered sin and death and who gives me hope and a purpose every day, along with the promise of eternal life. I am privileged by God’s grace to live the "abundant life" the Apostle John described. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!


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Jumat, 29 Oktober 2010

Running Successful Meetings

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

We're all trying to make meetings more productive, less boring, more creative, etc., and the Wall Street Journal (3-6-06) had an article that suggested some creative techniques. We thought they were worth repeating (although some are a little far out).

For instance, at Ruckus Wireless, a Silicon Valley start-up, employees remove the chairs from some meetings so participants get the point faster.

Mattel built a meeting room to resemble a tree house, complete with a large artificial tree sprouting through the floor. The design, they say, helps employees think unconventionally. (A picture shows a shaky rope ladder and a tire swing hanging from the balcony - they are a toy-maker after all.)

Intel requires all new hires to take a four-hour class in "Effective Meetings," featuring role-playing, quizzes and a 25-page handbook covering topics that range from agenda-writing to roles that should be filled at every meeting. A few of their tips: Don't mix up routine "housekeeping" meetings with those that aim to solve a specific problem. Avoid "rat holes" or off-track discussions; and always pre-publish agendas.

At Triumph Japan, the president convenes a speed-meeting every morning at 8:30 a.m. and does not circulate the agenda – the meeting lasts no longer than one hour and whizzes through about 40 topics, each in two minutes or less. Attendance is required for top managers, and if the president asks a question that no one can answer on the spot he gives them a deadline – usually the next day. (The article doesn't say what happens in the case of failure, but the company has posted 19 straight years of rising revenue and profits).

A sidebar offers these tips:

• Figure out the purpose of your meeting beforehand; make sure all the people in attendance have a reason to be there and know what the reason is;
• Have an agenda (despite Triumph Japan's success) and let attendees know what it is ahead of time;
• Don't let discussions get sidetracked;
• Set a time limit and stick to it.


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Senior Tsunami: a Workforce of Old People

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

Here's a multiple choice question for you. How does your company feel about its older workers? Are you actively recruiting them? Getting rid of the ones you have? Trying to hang on to them while you pass their knowledge on?

Your answer probably depends on your industry and most certainly on whether or not your company is experiencing the pain of current or predicted skills shortages. But there’s no doubt about one thing. There will be more older workers than ever before and you may want to make a decision about that fairly soon.

In three years, 40 million people – 13% of the nearly 303 million U.S. citizens − will be over 65. In 2000 that number was 35 million and in 1990 it was 31.2 million. Many of those folks will want to work, at least part-time, because they prefer to stay active. And many will want to postpone retirement out of fear that they won’t be able to survive on Social Security. They may want to keep on working for much longer than you'd expect (in 2006, about 6-1/2% of Americans 75 or older worked, says the U.S. Department of Labor.) The Census Bureau says that beginning in just four years we can expect a “senior tsunami.”

The Brookings Institution says that about 19% of men 65 and older are currently working. And the BLS predicts that by 2012, more than 29% of men 65-74, almost 20% of women and more than 8% of men over 75 years old will be in the labor force.

For now, much of the hiring of older workers is coming from industries at risk for mass retirements − health care-related organizations, energy and electric utilities, oil companies, aerospace and defense contractors. But some of it is coming from manufacturers, colleges, financial services and insurance companies, and even consultants.

So here’s the question: what could (or should) your organization be doing about older workers?

AARP has found and honored 50 companies that are taking steps related to workers over 50. Some are working to bring older workers into their workforce and retain them. Many of the steps have to do with making retirement more attractive. Here are a few of them, and some of the steps they’re taking:

SC Johnson is one company that’s enriching life for their retirees. Their recreation and fitness facility is available to help them and their families to stay fit and connected. SC Johnson employees become honorary members of the fitness center as they retire and no longer have to pay dues, and their Retiree Activity Program sponsors a variety of activities. Many of the companies honored by AARP this year offer jobs to their retirees; this company offers temporary work, consulting/contract work, telecommuting and part-time work. And for current employees 50 and older, they allow them to make ‘catch-up’ contributions to their 401(k).

Mercy Health System also offers numerous flexible work options, including a “Weekender Program” that assigns work only on weekends, a “Traveler Option” (work short term assignments from six to 13 weeks), a “Nursing Float Option” (nurses are guaranteed benefits while floating departments), a “Registry Pool Option” (work 48-96 hrs/month with benefits), a variety of shift options, telecommuting and a “Work-To-Retire Program” (work reduced hours – seasonally). Mercy’s Senior Connection, a free program for those over 50, provides health insurance, financial counseling and a free prescription discount card, and sponsors senior activities like brown bag lunches and trips. They’re working to recruit seniors, attend job and product fairs that target them and work with area partner agencies to identify experienced candidates.

Busch Entertainment, the producer of SeaWorld/Busch Gardens, has teams of individuals 55 and over in each of their parks; their job is to provide quality employment and job satisfaction to the 55+ population. Called the Busch’s ‘Legends Ambassadors,’ they’re selected annually to help new seniors learn the ropes. They meet each month, offer suggestions, concerns, and ideas to Human Resources, and participate in training, job fairs and other recruiting efforts focused on older workers. The company also uses senior placement agencies to target mature workers and retirees for employment.

Volkswagen of America's 'Flexible Spending Accounts for Dependent Elder Care' program provides mature employees with the option to allocate $5,000 in pre-tax earnings to dependent elder care needs. Retirees with less than 20 years of service receive $500 upon retirement while those with 20 or more years of service receive $750. The company uses a nationwide resume data base of individuals who have been laid off from employers as a source for recruiting mature workers.

The over-50 population at Massachusetts Institute of Technology makes up 36% of its 11,000-person workforce. Employees can phase into retirement by going part-time in their current roles, or can apply for part-time positions as they become available.

First Horizon National Corporation offers special counseling to help pre-retirees begin the planning process. They use senior placement agencies to recruit mature workers and have a “phase-out” program that allows full-time employees with a year of service to move to a reduced prime-time schedule (20-32 hrs/week) and still receive all full-time benefits.

Stanley Consultants has had both formal and informal mentoring programs in place for more than forty years, allowing mature mentors to pass on their knowledge. A regularly held retirement training workshop is open to members 55+ and spouses, giving them a chance to hear from trained retirement counselors. Health benefits for retiree's pre-65 and 65+ include individual as well as spouse medical and drug coverage, vision and dental insurance, EAP services, individual life insurance or other death benefit coverage. Retirees 65+ also receive retiree and spouse life insurance or other death benefit coverage. New hires are eligible for all of the above benefits upon retirement.

Brevard Public Schools uses retired school principals and retired educator organizations as recruiters to help hire new teachers, and 40% of the school system’s employees are age 50+. The average tenure of employees age 50+ is 23 years.

Principal Financial Group offers retirees temporary work assignments, consulting/contract work, telecommuting and part-time work as well as the option to return to full-time work, and partners with Manpower on a program that allows retirees to work in a temporary position at the company while still receiving pension benefits. Principal also works with AARP on that organization’s project to match older workers returning to the job market or looking for career changes with companies looking for experienced hands.

Adecco recently re-launched their Renaissance program to recruit mature workers for temporary positions.

The Aerospace Corporation rehires retirees (the program is called Retiree Casual) on an as-needed basis and the retirees are allowed to work up to 999 hours a year. Currently there are 500 in this program; 250 may participate at any one time. Fifty-one percent of the company's employees are age 50+.

We found these tips for 50+ workers from AARP’s Deborah Russell in a CareerBuilder column by Kate Lorenz, and thought it might be helpful for companies to look them over and see what older workers are supposed to be looking for:

1. Examine the company's recruitment practices.
Russell says you can learn a lot about a company by how and where it recruits employees, as well as what its recruitment materials look like. Is the company recruiting at a variety of job fairs? Is it open to applications from all workers? Does it have a formal program to offer positions to retired workers? Can you see a variety of ages represented in company brochures and other branded materials?

2. Ask about advancement opportunities and training.
AARP found that many of the best companies for older workers have special programs in place to provide employees with advanced and ongoing training, help employees move positions within the company and offer career counseling. These programs help older workers keep important skills up-to-date. Some companies even offer online courses for employees, which enable older workers to take courses at their own pace.

3. Research the company's benefits.
While you might not be able to find out everything about a company's benefits in the early interview process, you can research the company's Web site and other materials to find out what benefits it offers. Many of the companies on the AARP's list have benefits that are particularly attractive to older workers, such as allowing 401(k) "catch-up" contributions and time off to care for dependents beyond what is required by law. Some also offer phased retirement programs, and several hospitals on the list offer healthcare services either at a discount or at no cost to employees covered under company health plans.

4. Examine the overall company image.
Take a look at all company collateral and its Web site. What is the image the company is portraying? Also, look around the company when you are interviewing. Do you see other older workers? Ask about the company's mission and goals. Russell says it is important to determine if the company "values its workforce, or just its bottom line."

AARP says many companies still have a long way to go when it comes to attracting and retaining older workers. But ,"many companies," they say, "are increasingly focusing on this segment of the American workforce, offering older workers more flexible work options and helping them better balance work and life."

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Ten Tips for Negotiating Workplace Conflicts

from Jeffrey Krivis

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

1. Let people tell their story. Allowing people to speak their minds may increase the level of conflict, but that’s okay, says Krivis, because feeling heard can dramatically change an angry person’s outlook. And in the process, new information may surface that allows a solution to naturally emerge.

2. If someone refuses to budge, take the spotlight off them. When there is one hardliner refusing to budge during a multiparty conflict, suggests Krivis, just begin “settling around” them and work with the other parties. The holdout quickly sees the value of compromise when his or her perceived power is neutralized.

3. When someone seems “locked up,” dig for the emotion behind the stone face. Krivis recommends asking, “What is it you really want to achieve here?” Tapping into the person’s repressed emotion may provide the key to a solution.

4. When people are “picking flyspecks out of pepper,” come in with a reality check. It’s the mediator’s role to bring people back to reality by “wrenching their attention away from the grain of sand and having them focus on the whole beach.”

5. Identify the true impediment. In every conflict, says Krivis, ask yourself, “What is the true motivating factor here? What is really keeping this person from agreeing to a solution?”

6. Learn to “read minds.” Krivis suggests paying attention to body language and emotional tone as well as a person’s words. If you give people an opportunity, he says, most people involved in a dispute will gladly talk about themselves, which gives you a chance to ask more questions and gain more information about their perspective. That helps you anticipate how they might react, and manage the negotiation accordingly.

7. Think creatively about ways people can cooperate rather than clash. Spend your time building up the relationship, Krivis suggests, rather than just divvying up the matter in dispute.

8. “Edit the script” to help people see their situation in a different light. Retell their story in positive, forward-looking terms, says Krivis, and you can “give them the words to see their options in a new light.”

9. Avoid the “winner’s curse” by carefully pacing negotiation. When a solution seems too easy, people may experience second thoughts about whether they could have cut a better deal. Don’t rush to a conclusion even when you know you can wrap things up quickly, says Krivis. Keep the negotiation proceeding normally, for a reasonable amount of time, before the inevitable settlement.

10. Finally, realize that not every conflict can be solved. “Not every negotiation is going to have a win-win outcome. Not everyone can live together in harmony. ... There are times you just have to accept that both parties are going to leave the table equally unhappy.” When that happens, Krivis recommends, “Isolate the participants if possible and just move on.”

Improvisational negotiation, says Krivis, is “kind of like jazz. ... The chords you use depend on the chords you hear from the other participants, and vice versa. It’s a conversation. It’s organic. There are no limits on what can come out of mediation, and that’s what makes it such a powerful skill.”


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Successful Employee Surveys

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

The August 2006 issue of Human Resource Executive had a wonderful article about employee surveys. It made the point that if they're done right, their impact can be significant. But if they don't produce action, that impact could be a negative one and you're better off not doing them. When we design a survey for an employer, we make sure the questions aren't what we call "so what" questions – questions that produce answers you can't do anything about. Experts here agree that the answers should be able to produce action.

Here are a few more tips from this article, and from our own 20-year experience.

• Michael Hinshaw, Mcorp, suggests you begin by asking why you need a survey, what you hope to learn and how that will affect the way your organization operates.

• Mark Royal, Hay Group, says "the survey must be positioned as something to help managers accomplish things already on their plate." Give them a chance to have input into its design.

• Sherry Whiteley, Intuit, says their surveys are followed up with chats to get more information in important areas. Then they implement initiatives based on employee feedback.

• Barbara Brannon, Playmore Corp., suggests re-asking the same questions three or four times over the year and charting improvements or decreases, then tracking the activities that drove the responses up or down.

• Kurt Twining, Freescale Semiconductor, suggests tracking information using multiple filters, such as location, function and specific demographics. That's a way to identify which units are excelling in which areas, so others can tap them for guidance as they work to improve their own performance in those areas.

We suggest making the survey the third step in a four-step information-gathering process. Begin with senior management interviews and make them mutually educational; your number one priority will be to find out what's keeping them up at night so you can work on finding ways to alleviate their pain and link your final recommendations to what they tell you.

But you can also take advantage of the one-on-one opportunity to 1) let them know what competitors are doing in the way of creating a more supportive and flexible culture, 2) tell them what you're hoping to do, and 3) find out what they need to know in order to be convinced.

Next, interview top HR staff to find out what policies and programs they may be concerned about, what they know is working and what they suspect is not, what they may be thinking about adding, and would like feedback about.

Use the information you've gathered to help in the survey design. That will be number 3 in the 4-step process. And to get ready for the 4th step, we sometimes let employees know on the survey that we'll be conducting focus groups and are open to volunteers.
The last step in the organization information-gathering is focus groups. Make them representational, including groups from all locations and from all levels, supervisory as well as entry-level.

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The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

A wonderful new book by HR consultant Leigh Branham - "The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave" - has taken an in-depth look at the subject, based on interviews with no less than 19,000 departing and current employees. While 90% of managers believe "employees leave and stay mostly for the money," that's far from the truth, says Branham. The real reasons: issues with job, manager, culture or work environment. Here's a little more about each, digested from a summary in the May 2005 issue of HR Magazine:

-The job or workplace "was not as expected." Managers misrepresent pay offers, hours aren't as promised, training or promotions don't come through. In other words, expectations aren't met. To narrow expectations, allow team members to interview candidates and let them sample job experiences, perhaps through computer-based simulations.

-There's a mismatch between the person and the job. Employees may not know their own strengths or what work fits them; managers may be in a hurry to hire and willing to take any warm body. The result can be employees who are bored and stressed.

-There's not enough feedback or coaching. Again, it's a manager issue and the symptoms are inattentiveness, irregular or non-existent feedback and criticism instead of praise. He suggests buddy or mentor programs and holding managers accountable for feedback.

-There are too few growth and advancement opportunities. There may be barriers between departments, training focused only on current positions, and lack of help to define career goals. Online self-assessments, career management tools and workshops can help. Information on career paths and job requirements should be readily available and the internal job posting system should be efficient and fair. Employers should show a preference for hiring from within.

-Employees feel "devalued and unrecognized." Managers should be aware that problems may arise if good employees are overdue for pay increases or are paid the same as poor performers, or if new recruits make more than experienced workers in similar jobs.

-Employees suffer "stress from overwork and work-life imbalance." Look for those who consistently work late, work through lunch, work sick, take work home, don't take vacations, are always rushing to meet deadlines or have recently experienced a family or personal crisis. The philosophy that top-flight places to work have in common: "Give first, get second."

-There's a loss of trust in top leaders. Many workers see those at the top as greedy, isolated and unconcerned about workers. In the post-Enron era, keeping worker trust in executives is vital.


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Empowering the Employed Caregiver: A Shift in Focus for Elder Care

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs


Leading employers have begun shifting the focus of their work/life initiatives that support employees caring for aging relatives, offering employees access to empowering experiences like on-line skill-building courses and telephonic support groups. This new approach complements and goes beyond the traditional elder care information and consultation model. This article describes two such efforts:

  • “Powerful Tools for Caregiving,” an initiative of the American Business Collaboration for Quality Dependent Care (ABC) and Mather Lifeways Institute on Aging and
  • the AT&T Telephone Caregiver Support Groups.

In the late 1980’s, pioneering companies like IBM, Johnson and Johnson, and others began offering elder care consultation and referral (C&R). Modeled after childcare resource and referral programs, these initiatives gathered vast amounts of information about elder care programs and services and made the information available to employees via trained counselors. The idea was to both cut the time the employee spent looking for information and to improve the quality of decisions that employees made about elder care situations.

Over the past 15 years, the information-based model has evolved to include user-friendly databases that include every conceivable topic related to elder care. Today’s corporate elder care programs deliver instant access to such information via the Internet. Some have added telephonic and on-line information sessions on elder care topics and even company-paid geriatric care management services that arrange for an in-home assessment and development of a care plan for the older relative.

Beyond Information: “Powerful Tools”

Recent research has documented the financial cost of unrelieved caregiver stress in terms of negative health outcomes and increased medical costs. The key to avoiding such costs – and keeping employees with elder care responsibilities healthier – is to intervene earlier. This means not only providing information about services, but expanding the employee’s coping skills, thus empowering the employee to take control of this vitally important aspect of life.

The Mather Lifeways Institute on Aging (Mather) developed “Powerful Tools for Caregiving” to help family caregivers of elders cope. First offered in community settings, “Powerful Tools” began as a six-session series of interactive workshops, with an accompanying 300-page Caregiver Helpbook.

The program’s design included an evaluation component from day one, enabling Mather to document the program’s impact. Statistically significant findings from the original community groups show improvements in self-confidence, self-care activities (relaxation and physical exercise) and increased use of support services, like adult day care, chore services, care management and support groups.

Judy Presser of WFD Consulting is coordinating implementation of the “Powerful Tools” pilot project at ABC champion companies ExxonMobil, IBM, and Texas Instruments. She says that the fact that Mather had the evaluation data to show program results provided the impetus needed to fund an adaptation of the approach to the workplace setting. “The stress of caregiving and the related illnesses and use of medical care and prescription drugs was a concern,” says Presser. “We wanted something that could be replicated, not tied to geography. And it was an evaluated product where you could say ‘This works.’ “

The ABC pilot project is underway. It offers a self-paced, on-line learning module, combined with a weekly telephone call-in time and on-line chat groups. About 200 employees from the three firms have taken the six-week course so far. The ABC pilot program will also measure job performance.

Do the ABC companies have an ROI target in mind? “We will be looking for some health and wellness outcomes, says Presser. “You could translate this into an ROI. We went into this hoping that it will help employees manage their caregiving roles better. If this is achieved, then there will be an ROI, even if we don’t measure it. If it’s successful, you’ll know there is an ROI.”

Dan Kuhn, Mather’s education director, says “The experiment is to find out if caregivers using the web-based model can derive some or all of the benefits that caregivers have derived in the live experience at our sites in Chicago area. We’re grateful for the opportunity to test this out and we hope it’ll be effective and become available to other companies and individuals who are interested in taking care of themselves via this course.”

AT&T’s Telephone Support Groups

AT&T is taking a telephonic approach to employee caregiver empowerment. The company began offering its employees and their spouses access to telephonic elder care support groups in March 2003. Today, seven support groups meet on a weekly basis.

The support groups are limited to a maximum of seven participants each, and they meet at a variety of times of the day and days of the week, drawing callers from all over the U.S., according to Aimee Barr, an elder care counselor who facilitates some of the groups. Barr is an employee of Atlantic Health System, the contractor who operates the service with funding from a grant from the AT&T Family Care Development Fund.

How it works

  1. Employees learn about the availability of elder care support groups in many ways, including word-of-mouth, AT&T’s internal website, AT&T publications, and through the efforts of Bernadette Fusaro, Director of the Family Care Development Fund, who visits work sites and informs managers and employees about this and other programs supported by the Fund.
  2. When an employee calls or sends an email expressing interest, Barr or another elder care counselor conducts a brief telephone interview to determine if the telephone support group is an appropriate option for the caller.
  3. If appropriate, the employee or spouse is informed of the dates and times of the support groups, selects one, and is given a passcode to join the conversation, as well as a book entitled “Caring for You, Caring for Me,” developed by the Rosalynn Carter Institute.
  4. After participating in all or some of the ten weekly sessions, the employee receives a follow-up call from an elder care counselor to obtain feedback on the experience and to assure that the employee or spouse is directed to follow-up elder care resources, if needed.

After participating in all or some of the ten weekly sessions, the employee receives a follow-up call from an elder care counselor to obtain feedback on the experience and to assure that the employee or spouse is directed to follow-up elder care resources, if needed.

  • A stronger sense of the importance of their dual roles as employee and caregiver
  • Fresh ideas from others who have “been there, done that”
  • More insight into what their older relatives are going through
  • Better understanding of the resources available, both from AT&T and from public agencies like Medicaid and Medicare, and
  • New ways to find out about long term care options in the community

“We have two goals in operating this program,” says Barr, “ First: Don’t compromise confidentiality. Second: Don’t compromise convenience. We have people who are sometimes working 12-16 hours per day. The telephone access allows them to do this at their office or at home, whatever’s most convenient. We bring the service to them.”

Although no one is asked to reveal his or her name or job title in the course of group discussions, Barr says she has gleaned enough information from the conversations to know that the groups have drawn employees from every level of the AT&T.

The groups are diverse in terms of the elder care situations that participants face, as well, according to Barr. “Some are caring for persons with Alzheimer’s disease, some with Parkinson's or other ailments. The diversity allows people to gain perspective and allows those who are new to caregiving to connect with those who have experience. They are great at sharing resources that have been helpful to others, like suggestions on who to find a good geriatrician or elder law attorney.”

Barr says the call-in approach appears to be a good cultural fit for AT&T: “Because we work with people who are very good communicators on the phone and people who are technologically savvy, they are used to dealing with things on a technological level. Some are in virtual office situations that allow them to work from home, relying on communication via telephone and their personal computer.”

The program includes an evaluation component, measuring each participant’s degree of “perceived caregiving burden” before and after participating in a support group. “Coming into the groups, participants are all over the place (in terms of perceived caregiving burden),” says Barr. At the end of the sessions, the results have been positive. “The employees have written in very positive comments on the evaluation forms,” she says.


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Work-Life as a risk management issue

by Professor Joan C. Williams

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

We have been taught to think about work/life issues through the lens of employee benefits, but, increasingly, effective handling of work/life concerns is a risk management issue. At WorkLife Law, we have been tracking cases in which employees sue for caregiver discrimination for nearly a decade. Such suits have increased by 450% since 1990. Over two hundred plaintiffs have gained relief in the courts, yielding judgments and settlements in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars.

What is caregiver discrimination? The most obvious type is when a supervisor demotes, fires, or fails to promote a woman because she is a mother. In one Virginia case, a woman’s boss fired her when she phoned to arrange her work schedule after maternity leave, opining that women with children are not dependable, and that she belonged at home with her baby. Another supervisor refused to promote a pregnant women, looking straight at her pregnant belly and saying, “I was going to make you head of the office, but look at you now.”

We call these jaw-droppers. What leads people to make such inappropriate remarks? A new issue of Journal of Social Issues documents the “maternal wall” that affects all too many mothers. Experimental psychology studies show that, while “businesswomen” are seen as highly competent, similar to “businessmen,” “housewives” are rated as extremely low in competence, alongside the elderly, blind, ”retarded,” and disabled (to use the researchers’ words). Thus, in a story famous among women lawyers, a Boston attorney returned from maternity leave to find that she was given the work of a paralegal; “I wanted to say, look, I had a baby, not a lobotomy.”

What happened? She fell from businesswoman to housewife. Another study found that mothers typically have to do more to prove their competence than fathers do, including putting in longer hours are work – this helps explain “schedule creep,” in which the hours of part-timers creep back up towards full time, as the worker tries to establish that she is still committed and competent. Other studies document the stereotypes associated with part-time work. One found that women who work part-time are considered to be less warm than housewives, but less competent than businesswomen: they seem to get the worst of both worlds. These studies help explain the stigma so often associated with part-time work and flexible work arrangements. That stigma appears to track documented patterns of gender stereotyping.

Fathers, too, may experience caregiver bias if they seek an active role in family care. There appears to be a threshold effect. If a father does just a little – an occasional visit to the pediatrician – then his career actually may benefit as he is considered not only competent but also warm. But if a dad seeks an extended parental leave or a flexible work arrangement, he may well experience even more severe stigma, and career stall, than do mothers do. Gender stereotyping, again: in this case, the stereotype that a “real man” does not cut back on work for family reasons.

This new research has important implications for work/life professionals. It suggests that effective handling of work/life issues is not just an issue of optional benefits, to be offered to employees when times are flush, and cut back when budgets are tight. Increasingly, it is a risk management issue. An increasingly important component of the business case for family friendly policies is that a company who does not manage work/life issues in a pro-active and enlightened way faces the increasing risk of legal liability. At WorkLife Law, we are seeking funding to develop a training for employers and HR professionals to bring them up to speed on the emerging fields of caregiver discrimination and work/life law.



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A Balanced Leader

by Chris Ortiz

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

Finding a balance between work and family is tough. Both require devotion, loyalty, respect, and hard work. Unfortunately, in today’s society, those attributes seem to be more directed toward our jobs. There is a serious imbalance in how American workers juggle the hours they are at work and how much time is spent with their families. Sound like you?

The United States is now the most overworked industrialized nation in the world and manufacturing has become one of the main contributors to this dilemma. Is it worth it? Can people be productive after 10, 11, or 12 hours a day? It is time for a change. The 40-hour workweek has run off into the sunset, and working overtime has become a reality for millions of Americans. With the onslaught of jobs going overseas and massive corporate downsizing, Americans are overwhelmed with large workloads, high expectations, and the pressure to work as much as possible.

So why is it like this? Many leaders today have lost the ability to recognize skill sets in their employees. Also, they forget to take interest in the personal lives of those employees making them rich. Employees' families are perceived as the internal competitor to upper management, both vying for time. Extra hours rarely equal better performance. Corporate leaders and even middle management embrace the workaholics of a company as a perception of loyalty, while the truth is that employees who have very good time management skills and can juggle multiple projects at one time are more valuable than someone who is simply in the building for 12 hours a day.

Employees need to be embraced as the only true asset to a company. Turnover is extremely expensive when compared to investing time and money into enhancing those assets. That's why it's important to not only identify employees' positive attributes, but also their shortcomings. Managers need to balance the workloads of their employees to ensure their success. And at the same time, managers should provide the necessary training and challenges that will provide the employees with an opportunity to make them more valuable to the company.

My leadership approach differs from traditional management techniques. I call it the 5 Leadership Rules for Creating a Work/Life Balance

1. Hire People with Passions Outside of Work

It is good to surround yourself with employees who understand the importance of family and leisure life. People who have passions in life generally have a good work ethic. I want well-rounded employees on my staff because creating an environment with diverse people is exciting.

2. Do NOT Hire Workaholics

Workaholics create imbalances within a group. My people are allowed to have a life outside of work and their fellow employees should respect those lives. Imbalances create animosity between people. Tension can build because those working excessive overtime will start to question the loyalty of others. I do not want to hear “leaving already?” I work very little overtime myself. I do not want to give a bad example to my people.

3. Create a Comfortable Interview

My interviewing process is more centered on them as a person. I ask perspective employees what kind of interests they have outside of work. Do they ski? Are they affiliated with certain organizations and clubs? I ask them what kind of hobbies they enjoy.

I try to create an interview process that encourages a sense of self worth and lets them know that I will recognize the importance of their personal life. Toward the middle of the interview I talk about my family and how I enjoy being home with them. The positions in my department are highly technical and job candidates come to me with all the necessary skills needed to perform the work. My job should be to balance their workloads to ensure they can enjoy life away from work.

4. Be a Result Driven Leader

I am a result-driven leader and I do not care about hours. Most of my employees are salaried and I pay them for results, not time. If someone can get their work accomplished in thirty-five hours a week; great! If they feel the need to work forty-five hours one week to get caught up on an assignment, so be it. However, it is my responsibility as a leader to identity their positive qualities and balance their workloads so they can be successful for me and be away from work to enjoy their lives.

5.Create an Efficient Workplace

It is very difficult to have work/life balance when your company operates inefficiently. I create structure and organization within my department so my people know precisely what needs to be done. My employees do not walk around looking for things to do. Their assignments are given to them every week. An inefficient workplace automatically creates overtime because employees participate in wasted work.

So, what have I gained? This philosophy has allowed my department to have the lowest turnover and absenteeism in the company. My people are at work and on time everyday. They are able to leave work for family emergencies and can adjust their hours as needed as long as their work is complete. Since I am result driven, I expect my people to complete their work as required, and if they slip, it is addressed. They are given a lot freedom, and when that freedom is abused it is dealt with in a positive professional manner. Turnover is expensive and I don't have the time to constantly be hiring people.

We as leaders need to realize that a company's people are its number one asset. Leaders have a tremendous amount of responsibility not only to improve the bottom line but also in the way we improve it.


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Steps to a Successful Diversity Program

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Job Vacancies

This month, one of our Newsbrief stories quoted experts who say while a solid diversity program is more important than ever before, it's time to be more subtle about it. Advertising your company as an Equal Opportunity Employer just doesn't do it any more. It can even be a turnoff, making minority job-seekers think they're being courted just to fill a quota. Here are some steps that companies say have helped them to build a successful diversity effort, reported in the latest issue of Staffing Management.

View diversity as a business advantage

"It has to be a business goal," says one recruiter. The Urban League reports that most companies noted for good diversity practices have been involved in those efforts for more than 20 years. The most important traits are commitment and involvement of top leadership. That doesn't happen unless it's linked to business.

Define Diversity, set goals and measure progress

Looking across the board at your company, says Texas Instruments' Diane Johnson, is not always a good assessment of diversity progress. Many times minorities and women are well represented in the workforce but not in leadership positions. She studies U.S. census data to find out how many engineers are in the population, the graduation rates and the percentage of women, blacks, Hispanics and other groups in those pools. "Then we compare our current population to see if we're on target" and set hiring goals. Managers make the final decisions, and their buy-in to hire diverse candidates is critical.

Hold managers accountable

At Pitney Bowes, diversity metrics are built into the corporation's business objectives and management compensation is tied to diversity. Managers are also held accountable at Allstate, which has mandatory diversity training. The company has moved away from emphasis on affirmative action and looks at having a diverse workforce as business strategy, as opposed to a legal mandate.

Tap the college market. Building a strong campus relationship requires a presence that is constant, positive and consistent. Staples has established ties with the student chapters of minority professional organizations, and brings in students as interns with an eye toward eventually hiring them as employees.

Connect with diverse professionals

Pitney Bowes has been recognized for its strong support and sponsorship of minority professional organizations and CEO Michael Critelli is current chairman of the National Urban League. Supporting such groups is one way the company stays on the leading edge of the diversity movement. One of their newer initiatives is an MBA Leadership Summit for members of Hispanic and black MBA associations, which is focused on career and technical development. They attend career fairs and national meetings, sponsor sessions and provide speakers for professional organization conferences.

Make community connections

Both Texas Instruments and Allstate reach all the way down into grade schools, supporting programs that target diverse seventh and eighth graders. Allstate is involved with numerous community programs that deal with tolerance, inclusion and diversity, partnering with the NAACP, the National Crime Prevention Council, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement and the Hispanic Association of Police Commanders. They support the Women's Business Development Center and the Entrepreneurial Youth Institute, a partnership with the NAACP that teaches entrepreneurial skills to young people. All enhance their reputation as a company that is tolerant and inclusive of minorities.

Focus on a long-term strategy

Companies that have effective diversity efforts view diversity as a long-term strategy and use multiple vehicles to find viable candidates. That means committed time and resources. Said one executive, "Leadership commitment has to be real, not ceremonial. . . It means being an advocate. . .We as leaders must do this job ourselves. Diversity can't be delegated."


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After 20 years, a whole new set of work-life issues

by WFC Resources

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Job Vacancies

This year WFC Resources – and arguably the entire work-life field – celebrates its 20th anniversary. Back in 1984, “work and family” was a brand new term, totally focused on childcare. There’ve been some dramatic changes in the past 20 years, changes in the field of work-life, and in the focus of the work-life professional.

Some things have not changed. Quality care for children of all ages is certainly no less important. In our rush to please Wall Street, it often looks as if American society has forgotten that without healthy, nurtured children there will be no future.

Eldercare and other caregiving programs are more important than ever, and will continue to grow in importance as our workforce ages.

And it is still vitally important to help employees meet their other personal and home life obligations in order that they may be fully present when they're at work.

So we're not suggesting that we work-life professionals change our focus. We are suggesting it be broadened to include the basic needs of all workers. Here are some thoughts about what some of those needs are, and where we believe we work-life professionals must put our attention.

Wages

Wages may be the most critical work-life issue. This spring, a study by Northeastern University researchers reported that while output increased 7.3% between 2002 and 2003, hourly compensation grew only 1.2%. In every other economic recovery since World War II, labor compensation increased at a greater rate than corporate returns. This time, while corporate profits have achieved healthy growth, the real hourly and weekly earnings of the average wage and salary worker increased by only 1.6% over the past two years, from $15.10 to $15.63. As the attention of financial executives focuses on human capital, more work-life professionals are being called to the table where business decisions are made. Let's not let them forget while we're there that people must earn a living wage.

Health care

Health care is a key work-life issue for several reasons. First, of course, there are the uninsured, a group that’s growing by leaps and bounds. And now the link between high health care costs and jobs is painfully clear. Economists are saying that the unaffordable cost of health insurance is one of the main reasons job growth hasn’t kept up with the rest of the recovery. It’s also one of the reasons, along with wages, that U.S. jobs are going to India and China (although that’s a more complicated issue). The latest Mercer study says providing health care benefits could cost employers as much as 13% more in 2005 on top of the huge increases over the past few years. Many firms will shift as much as 4% of that increase to employees. Work-life professionals had better join the lobby for government help on this one; employees and employers must be confident about affordable health care that includes prevention as well as catastrophe protection.

Workload, stress and the focus on productivity

Every study ever conducted on the matter has linked stress with higher health care costs! Employers are trying hard to reduce employee angst with “stress management” programs, but there is no “program” that can counterbalance 70-hour weeks and the stress of unmet expectations and obligations both at home and at work. Researchers are finding that the benefits of stress management programs are, at best, short lasting, said a recent article in the Science Times section of the New York Times (9-7-04). With the assistance of Blackberries, Palms and WiFi, work obligations have pushed “like a climbing vine” into almost every corner of private life. An article by American University professors Joan Williams and Ariane Hegewisch published last month (9/6/04) in the Minneapolis Star Tribune (and originally in the LA Times) points out that the U.S. “productivity advantage” is just another way of saying that we work more hours than workers in any other industrialized country except South Korea. Our lead in the world vanishes when productivity is measured per hour worked. One mission for work-life professionals should be to encourage their employers and clients to know what a normal day's work is and enforce it.

Demographics and the quandary of the older worker

Each month our collection of news features more and more articles about the older worker, and it's a confusing state of affairs. Some companies are still offering early retirement packages to get rid of them and others are knocking themselves out to keep them as long as possible. Here are three factors involved in the decision:

1. As workers get older, their benefit costs rise (again, health care raises its ugly head) decreasing their value.
2. It behooves companies to hold on to those expensive older workers and keep their experience. Whether or not we agree that there is a severe labor shortage ahead, there seems to be no disagreement about the approaching shortage of leadership skills and experienced workers, as the Gen Xers, fewer in number, move into leadership positions.
3. You can’t fire a worker just for being old, and fewer are going to be enticed by a retirement package unless it replaces the savings they lost in the recent recession. More will feel forced to stay in order to replenish their savings.

Put them all together and they add up to an older workforce, and once employees begin to age, they need some accommodation. While there may be some costs involved, next month’s Trend Report will show that not only are companies doing that, they're also demonstrating a firm belief that the cost is nothing compared with the payoff. Work-life professionals should be ready to offer advice and counsel on how to go about it.

Flexibility and control

We all know by now, 20 years after the birth of our field, that these are two of the most important words in a work-life professional's vocabulary. We must help employers see that if they want employees to take responsibility, they must treat them like responsible adults, not school children. That means collaborating and agreeing on goals, making results measurable, and giving employees flexibility and control over how the work is done. And it means redesigning jobs so that those tasks that demand to be done in the office can be separated out wherever possible, leaving a "job" that's appropriate for flexibility. Work-life professionals can help.
Once we thought that if we did a good job, companies would catch on to the importance of hiring whole people and allowing them to have a life, and we work-life professionals would put ourselves out of business. Twenty years later it looks as though that's not going to happen any time soon. While work-life may be integrated into other areas of the company, and may even be called by names like "talent manager" or "retention strategist," the tasks of the advocate are expanding rather than contracting, and the stakes are only getting higher.


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Colleges and universities meet to discuss work-life

by Leslie DiPietro

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Job Vacancies

Reflections on Culture Change in the Academy

“We’ve come a long way, Baby!” That was the sense I got at the CUWFA (College and University Work/Family Association) conference in Santa Barbara in March. There was more talk about strategic planning and a focus on what Linda Siebert Rapoport (University of Illinois, Chicago) termed “total institutional transformation” – broad scale shifts in culture, rather than piece by piece change efforts. Work/life practitioners at universities are getting much more skilled in finding ways to integrate and “brand” what they are doing to further the overall mission of the school.

I also had the sense that the upper echelons of administration at many schools are—(finally!) beginning to “get it.” Several work/life directors came with their bosses (or their boss’ boss!) in tow, and they seemed actively engaged in the conference.

Competition for human capital is the driver here, expressed most frequently in terms of faculty recruitment. Academia is only just beginning to understand the impact of the large numbers of faculty who are fast approaching retirement. The AAUP (American Association of University Professors) calculated that in 2003, 35% of all full-time faculty were 55 and over. Work/life directors and practitioners are finding ways to calculate the percentage of potential retirees – both staff and faculty – and broadcasting ways the work/life program can help.

However, I did not hear a lot about the need to target programs or policies to staff, particularly hourly workers. (There are notable exceptions, i.e. UC Berkeley and Ohio State). Although there is general support and some movement toward flexibility policies, I didn’t hear of many institutions that were actively making progress towards adopting new policies, let alone policies that had an appeal process. Likewise, I didn’t find much movement toward management training for flexibility – something that we all agree is necessary to bring about a real culture change. This may be a function of many “old school” HR administrations, where a majority of work/life programs are housed, but work/life programs need to figure out how to make change in this arena.

Childcare services have (finally!) come into the limelight, particularly in terms of infant and toddler care. Several of the “top tier” schools, such as MIT, Harvard, Michigan and UC Berkeley, have built, or are building, new centers, and it's just a matter of time until pressure from peer institutions brings more schools into the fold. Many are choosing to outsource the management of these centers, although some have formed creative partnerships between the work-life programs within the University and outside vendors. Most of the change in this area seems to be coming from the need to recruit top-level faculty by showing the “bricks and mortar” commitment, whereas students’ childcare needs are by and large being met through additional scholarship money. In this way, more student-parent families can be served than would be the case if they were allotted a small proportion of spaces in campus childcare centers.

If you had asked me a year ago whether domestic partner benefits were prevalent at universities and colleges, I would have said a resounding “yes” (with the exception of some Bible Belt schools.) Today, however, I am less optimistic, given the voters’ repudiation of Affirmative Action policies in states like Michigan, where the courts recently overturned domestic partnership benefits in public universities and colleges.

Also, there are clear indications that students are leaving school – both graduate and undergraduate – with staggering amounts of debt. This may be an area with which work-life programs (the ones that serve students, at any rate) may be able to help by sponsoring financial planning workshops for students, for example..

I asked some attendees if they thought there were areas where business could learn from colleges and universities, and Sam Hester, CUWFA President and work-life manager at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, had this to say: One of the strengths of the academy is its emphasis in providing and nurturing an environment that promotes creativity and freedom of though and expression. Some of the “great” companies have created a corporate culture that fosters creativity and open expression of ideas. I think that our long history of academic freedom might provide a model to business in creating this type of open environment.”

Linda Rapoport believes businesses could apply the tenure clock flexibility model (the practice of pausing the “time to tenure” clock for faculty who need time off due to birth, adoption or care for a family member with a serious illness) to careers in accounting firms, for example. And Jennie McAlpine, director of the Office of Work/Life at the University of Michigan, pointed out that some colleges have had childcare programs as part of their teacher training curriculum since the 1940’s, and that currently they set a high bar for quality in the communities where they are located.

CUWFA members saw a potential for partnership, agreeing that universities have a lot to offer in terms of research capabilities. Businesses would do well, they said, to tap their expertise.

David Thompson, a friend and former work-life director at both Purdue and Microsoft, once told me that it takes universities about seven times as long to make meaningful cultural changes as it does for private industry. (I don’t know what his source was, but I’m confident he has one!) This fact obviously reflects huge differences in academic culture versus business culture. Although it can be maddeningly hard to wait to see these changes adopted, if I learned one thing when I was in academia, it was that change will happen, and it will be “well-tested” in the process. So hopefully, the change will stick!


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