Editor’s Note: The Sloan Work and Family Research Network would like to thank Noelle Chesley and Phyllis Moen for providing the following information.

How can we connect researchers with policy-makers, practitioners, and engaged citizens in ways that create new synergies for innovation? How especially can we foster changes in workplaces and communities that enhance the life quality of workers at all ages and life stages, as well as working families? Can states and businesses lead in resetting the clockwork of work, retirement and civic engagement?

This was the challenge laid out a few weeks ago at a research and policy forum hosted at the University of Minnesota by Phyllis Moen. The forum aimed to stimulate conversations about the mismatch between the goals and needs of Minnesota’s workforce, its growing “retired” force, and the existing clockwork of regulations constraining options around paid and unpaid work and engagement.

The forum drew on the expertise and hands-on experiences of local business and community leaders as well as scholars to identify, assess, and discuss best practices and possible innovations offering greater flexibility to workers, retirees, and families. The underlying theme was how to widen the circle of opportunity around the time and timing of workdays, work weeks, career paths, and retirement. This focus on the need for flexible careers and flexible retirement, in addition to greater flexibility of work schedules, draws on research reported in Moen and Roehling’s 2005 book The Career Mystique: Cracks in the American Dream. Both the research and the forum were funded in large part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Thomas Kochan, co-director of the Institute for Work and Employment Research at MIT Sloan School of Management outlined a series of strategies for creating innovation at the state level. Erin Kelly, Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota, lead a panel of organizational practitioners and leaders from Best Buy, the University of Wisconsin, the AFL-CIO, and ECM Publishing to highlight the “view from the trenches.”

Marc Freedman, who created Civic Ventures, a non-profit focused on both individual and community renewal, shared his vision about the possibilities for engaging older Americans in what he calls “good work.” This was followed by a panel discussion of local leaders involved in aging organizations, moderated by Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes from Boston College.

Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute gave the luncheon keynote address about her latest research on effective workplaces. Chai R. Feldblum, Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center outlined possibilities for changing workplaces and the importance of state-level initiatives. A final panel of local policymakers, scholars, and business leaders gave their views on the types of changes that are necessary. Lively debate and discussion from audience members throughout the day added to the event.

The “Resetting the Clockworks” forum was made possible through the generous contributions of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, but others also helped support the event: the McKnight Foundation and organizations located within the University of Minnesota, including the Life Course Center, the College of Liberal Arts, the Humphrey Policy Institute, and the President’s Initiative on Children, Youth and Families.

For more information about this research and policy forum please go to the forum website: http://www.soc.umn.edu/clockwork/ or contact Phyllis Moen (phylmoen@umn.edu) or Noelle Chesley (now at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, chesley@uwm.edu).