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Julie Schwartz Weber December 31st, 2008

Earlier this month, the Sloan Network surveyed its readers regarding their preferred way of describing the concept of efforts to manage work and life. While ‘work-life balance’ has proven to be the favorite terminology, with 46% of voters opting for it, ‘work-life integration’ was second in line, with 25% of voters choosing it. ‘Work-life juggle’ came in third, with 8% of the vote.

It is interesting to see the results, as there has been a lot of buzz lately about how ‘work-family balance,’ in particular, is an outdated or inappropriate term. Three proponents for new terms are below:

• Parenting expert and author Jodie Benvenista has tossed out the term ‘balance’ because it “suggests that people have a fixed and limited amount of time and energy. If work is taking all that time and energy, then family suffers, or vice versa.” Instead, Jodie has coined the term work family flow, believing ‘flow’ to better illustrate that work and family are interconnected and interrelated, and that the goal is about optimizing both work and family.

• Cali Williams Yost, work-life flexibility expert, advocates discarding the old ‘balance’ language, too, as “[s]omehow the term evolved into a deficit model, or the goal we all never seem to achieve. . . It’s a static word for a dynamic process with an outcome that shifts along with everyone’s unique work and personal circumstances.” Instead, Cali has adopted the term ‘work-life fit’, language that “describes the process of looking at our unique realities as they are today, and of creating the combination of work and life that supports that reality.” (Interestingly, ‘work-life fit’ garnered 6% of the vote in our recent poll).

• Paul Nyhan, family reporter at the Seattle Post Intelligencer, calls ‘work-family balance’ “a crock, an impossible goal that relies on a word, balance, which is impossible to achieve when raising young children.” Instead, he advocates for “work-family rhythm, with inevitable spikes and lulls, but a steady beat most of the time.”

Do you have any ideas on new work-life language to add to this growing list? Does the language matter to you?

• Research , Workplace
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Featured Guest Blogger December 29th, 2008

Recently, President-elect Barack Obama announced the creation of The White House Task Force on Working Families aimed at helping the working families of America.  Vice President-elect Joseph Biden will Chair the Task Force.

Said Obama, “”My administration will be absolutely committed to the future of America’s middle-class and working families. They will be front and center every day in our work in the White House. And this Task Force will be one vehicle we will use to ensure that we never forget that commitment. I think it can make a great contribution to our work, and I’m grateful that the Vice President-elect has agreed to chair it.”

One of the five major goals of the Task Force is to improve work and family balance.   To measure the success of the task force, the members will assess whether or not the middle class is ‘growing’ and ‘prospering.’

News of steps that our new administration is taking to remedy the current economic crisis has been popping up over the past couple weeks – in particular, in regard to working families.  Along these lines, Biden recently announced that Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute would be his chief economic policy advisor.  So, while the success of this Task Force has yet to be determined, we can remain hopeful that the creation of this group is evidence of forward thinking for working families.

• Policy
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Judi Casey December 26th, 2008

We recently asked our visitors (11/6–11/21/08) if technology has improved or complicated their work-family balance.  I was surprised to learn that 51% of our small sample (N=29) indicated that technology had improved their work-family balance, whereas 41% reported that technology had complicated their work-family balance.  Less than 8% indicated no change.

We’ve previously discussed this issue on our blog asking whether technology helps fathers to achieve work-family balance as well as learning about research on how technology impacts our ability to focus and be connected with one another. Recently, I discussed the top trends in work-life and included the blurring of work and family boundaries due to technology.

Technology is also discussed in two Work and Family Encyclopedia Entries, Boundary and Border Theory and Work-Family Integration as well as Historical Perspective on Social Change.

Lastly, Network News interviews explore technology issues such as Slowing Down to Look at “Busyness” and Distracted: The Erosion of Attention, which includes a graphic illustrating how mobile data and communication activities vary by age.

Check out our latest poll on the home page and blog home page!

• Publications , Spillover , Telework , Workplace
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Featured Guest Blogger December 23rd, 2008

Stephen Sweet, Ph.D. is the Teaching Resources Specialist at the Sloan Work and Family Research Network, and an assistant professor of sociology at Ithaca College. Please note that the views of our guest bloggers do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network.

One of the goals for work-family scholars is to shape students’ understandings of the complex linkages between home lives, employment opportunities and demands, and their wider connections with communities outside of the home or workplace.   Some of us teach in institutions that have older students, with many students already understanding the challenges of managing a family and a career.  But others (myself included) teach in institutions that are primarily populated by traditional-aged college students.  These students likely witnessed their parents’ strategies of bridging work and family, but most have yet to understand what it is like to have a full-time job, or a child, let alone traverse the terrain of schedule conflicts, dual career moves, aging parents, or manage the work of others who are experiencing strains in their work or family lives.

At the Sloan Work and Family Research Network, we have been working hard to develop resources to facilitate the teaching of work and family.  To do this, we have organized two curriculum task forces to develop new teaching modules, as well as published a variety of multi-disciplinary teaching activities and course syllabi that can serve as models for teachers.  In addition, our resources—including Topics Pages, the Work and Family Encyclopedia, Work and Family Glossary, Topics Pages, and our newsletter, the Network News—have been written with student audiences in mind.    This slide show below (presented at the 2008 National Council on Family Relations Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas) offers an overview of the ways that the Network can be used to teach classes and develop courses that focus on work-family concerns.

If you currently teach a work and family course and would like to publish your syllabus or teaching activities, please contact Stephen Sweet at ssweet@ithaca.edu.

• Publications , Research
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Featured Guest Blogger December 22nd, 2008

Juliet Bourke is a partner at Aequus Partners, a management consultancy on diversity and flexibility that provides strategic research and advice, training and workplace investigations. In 2007, Aequus Partners launched flex-e, an e-tool to assist managers with managing workplace flexibility and in 2008, www.workplaceflexibility.com.au, a free information resource to bridge the flexibility policy to practice gap.  Juliet is also the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Network of Australasia, a not-for-profit organization of diversity and HR practitioners, author of Children, Careers and Workplace Culture (2000) and is listed in the 2009 Who’s Who of Australian Women. Please note that the views of our guest bloggers do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network.

The current economic crisis is forcing me to articulate a new argument for workplace flexibility and, I confess, I’m feeling a little uncomfortable. Whilst I like the idea of stretching my thinking and, to be frank, trading in the well worn argument that flexibility enables organisations to attract and retain talent (it does, but I’m tired of repeating myself), I’m not entirely comfortable with where the “reshaped” argument for flexibility is heading. It’s like I’m looking at a new pair of shoes – and although they seem attractive I’m not sure they’re for me.

In these times of job loss, pitching flexibility as a way to attract and retain talent is missing the mark. So a new “flexibility” argument is getting a run – and this argument emphasises the benefits of flexibility in terms of reducing overhead and boosting productivity. The new argument highlights the ways in which flexibility can reduce fixed costs (e.g., real estate costs by enabling staff to work from home), reduce staff associated costs (e.g., by offering unpaid periods of leave), and increase outputs (e.g., by enabling staff to be more focussed and fresh and therefore more efficient and creative).

While I agree that flexibility can generate those business outcomes, I am concerned that the whole paradigm has shifted to something a little negative– i.e., flexibility is now about how we get more out of fewer people– and I fear for the unintended consequences of this line of thinking. Will employers see the economic crisis as an opportunity to push flexibility in ‘nasty’ ways, e.g., to reduce an employee’s hours when that is not needed or to make staff work even longer? Have we done enough to embed a “win/win,” or “mutual respect” approach, to ensure that employment practices will benefit both employers and employees?

Maybe I am being a little precious about the “right” motivation for flexibility. At the end of the day if the economic crisis offers a stimulus for managers to get more comfortable with flexibility, then so be it. That comfort (and those implementation skills) will remain when the economic crisis has passed – and the case for flexibility will have gained a greater level of mainstream acceptance. In this regard, the current economic crisis could do for flexibility what the Second World War did for womens increased levels of workforce participation (both during and after)– i.e., break down attitudinal barriers to “talent” and doing work differently.

So now I am looking at these new “flexibility” shoes and wondering if my discomfort is misplaced. In fact, I’ve already taken my first few steps in these new shoes by framing my flexibility conversations with clients and colleagues differently. Instead of thinking about flexibility as a nice to do in good economic times, I’ve started to ask whether workplace flexibility could provide one of the solutions to help employers find their way through these economic times. Early days, but so far, the shoes seem fine.

• Flexible Schedules , Organizations , Scheduling , Workplace
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Karen Corday December 19th, 2008

Did you know that the Literature Database contains not only journal and book citations, but also citations with links to many full-text research reports from a variety of research and policy organizations? These reports usually contain more recent data than journal articles, so reading them is a good way to stay as up-to-date as possible. They are almost always available in their entirety, free of charge. Here is a sample of some of the reports. For more, access the Literature Database and search “Paper or Report” under the Record Type drop-down menu.

Recent additions include:

Employment in Europe, 2008, from the European Commission

Snapshot: California’s Uninsured, from the California Health Care Foundation

Latino Workers in the Ongoing Recession, 2007 to 2008, by the Pew Hispanic Center

Small Business Survival Index 2008: Ranking the Policy Environment for Entrepreneurship Across the Nation, by the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council

Marital Status is Associated With Health Insurance Coverage for Working-Age Women at All Income Levels, 2007, by the National Center for Health Statistics

• New on the Network , Policy , Publications
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Judi Casey December 17th, 2008

Did you ever feel that everyone was embracing a concept that just didn’t make sense to you? Maybe it seemed to happen so often, and in so many arenas, that you begin to think, “It must be me!”

Well, for years I’ve felt that way about the buzz around generational differences, and the notion that workers who grew up in specific generations want the same things from their employers, have the same priorities or values and need to be managed in a similar fashion. It just didn’t ring true for me. I’d reflect about the Gen Yers that I’ve managed, and think gee, she is really different than another Gen Yer that reported to me. I’d note that some seemed to like a lot of feedback and supervision, while others seemed to prefer to work more independently, asking for feedback only when needed. They didn’t seem to want the same type of support from me, so how could I possibly manage them the same way?

Then, I’d go to HR conferences where people with prestigious titles from Fortune 100 companies would talk about how they had implemented generational awareness or training programs. I’d even ask questions at their presentations such as, “What were the drivers for these efforts? Have you been able to demonstrate any measurable positive outcomes?” After some serious glares, I’d get answers that they had read a book that was purely anecdotal, or that their competitors were focused on these types of efforts. Again, I’d think, it must be me.

I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to read two recent articles that get me! The first, “A New Breed of Ageism,” by John Sullivan at Workforce.com, notes in reference to generational stereotyping, “if you are a manager or HR professional who has fallen for this ruse, it’s time to rethink your approach.” After discussing how generational stereotyping flies in the face of what we embrace in diversity, he goes on to say, “…the best way to motivate a certain generation is [realizing] that effective management requires treating every employee and every situation differently.”

Another article in Workspan (for members only) by Frank Giancola, “Is the Generation Gap a Bogus Issue?,” cites numerous high-quality, credible sources of research that “raised serious questions about the validity of the generational approach.” He cites reputable studies such as “The Lives and Times of Baby Boomers,” “What Generation Gap?” from the March 2008 Gallup Management Journal, and The Generation Gap: How Employees Young and Old Can Find Common Ground, by Jennifer Deal. He concludes: “The generational approach has many serious weaknesses…. these weaknesses make the Cohort Generation a challenging concept for HR professionals and provide a valid rationale to focus on other talent strategies.”

I think it really comes down to taking the time to ask your employees, how is your work going? Do you have the resources that you need to do your job? Is there anything that I can do to make your life easier, while still getting our work done? No magic formulas. No ten tips. I feel vindicated!

• Gen X/Gen Y , Older Workers , Organizations , Publications , Workplace
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Featured Guest Blogger December 15th, 2008

I recently guest lectured in one of the ‘macro’ graduate social work classes here on campus. I talked about the state-level policymaking process in general, and how I find materials and legislation to post on the Sloan Network. I had a wonderful time sharing our work with the students, and I felt that it helped them get a handle on how legislation can be followed and synthesized to inform their own work.

One resource that I always bring along when I guest lecture on this topic is the Policy Briefing Series (or the PBS as we lovingly call it). Many of you may be familiar with this 4-pager, but for those of you who aren’t, it is a brief that is sent to policymakers and interested individuals on a particular work-family topic.

While this resource seems like the perfect tool for a policy audience, I have noted that students and instructors also find it to be an incredibly useful learning tool. It starts with a problem statement of sorts, offers statistics as evidence of the problem, and then illustrates policy action that has occurred as a result of the problem. Often, it is hard to take a piece of legislation or a legislative trend and break it down for a fundamental policy course, particularly one with mostly ‘clinical’ students, but I think our PBS does just that.

Take a look, and let us know if you have used this resource in your own class or training!

• Policy , Publications
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Karen Corday December 12th, 2008

Work and Family News Headlines:

• Why Baby Boomers Will Need to Work Longer
  Eric D. Beinhocker, Diana Farrell, and Ezra Greenberg of the McKinsey Quarterly discuss recent research on the need for many Baby Boomers to work longer and avoid a decline in their economic and living standards.
• Time Off for Good Behavior
  Sarah A. Needleman of the Wall Street Journal discusses how employers can support employees’ volunteer work.

See our site for more!

Work and Family News from Around the Globe:

• “I’m Sick of My Job”
  Anton Ferreira writes for The Times of Johannesburg, South Africa, writes about absenteeism due to mental health problems and stress.
• Unicef: English Children at Risk Because Mothers Go Back to Work Too Soon
  Martin Beckford of the U.K.’s Telegraph writes about a new report from Unicef that found the U.K.’s maternity provisions “inadequate” compared to those of other countries, including Slovenia and Iceland.

See our site for more!

• New on the Network
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Featured Guest Blogger December 10th, 2008

Stew Friedman is the founder of Total Leadership. He is an innovator in both the leadership development and work/life fields. A faculty member at the Wharton School since 1984, in 1991 he founded both the Wharton Leadership Programs and the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project. He created the Total Leadership program in the late 1990s while he was a senior executive at Ford Motor, where he was responsible for leadership development worldwide. This blog entry originally appeared on Stew’s own blog. Please note that the views of our guest bloggers do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network.

I recently spoke to a gathering of European business leaders focused on creating healthier workplaces at the annual Enterprise for Health conference. I won’t tell you here how much fun it was, as the pre-dinner keynote speaker, to try to keep the attention of 125 ravenously hungry people while we were cruising up and down the Thames. But I do want to share with you my surprise at what I heard during one of the fascinating panel discussions earlier in the day.

Many readers know first-hand about how crippling health care costs are crushing the growth prospects of many businesses. What I hadn’t known was that the most pressing and costly health care issues in the workplace are no longer physical ailments, as in days of yore, but mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, and what’s called “presenteeism”—when you’re physically present but psychologically absent, hence under-performing. Would you have thought this to be true? Even more compelling is the realization that, because of the stigma still associated with mental illness, its incidence is under-reported. This is a major issue for the business world, and an increasing one, according to the experts who spoke at this conference. I am eager to hear from readers about how you see mental health problems affecting their work organizations and ideas about what can be done to address them.

Among the more interesting observations our research team has made, when examining the impact of the Total Leadership program on performance in all domains of life, is that the greatest gains are in what we call the “self” domain, that part of life that involves physical and emotional health, and spiritual growth and development (the other three domains are work, home, and community). This result is in part due to the fact that people tend to put themselves and their own personal needs last.

We ask participants to rate, before and after going through the Total Leadership process, on a scale of 0 to 100 percentage points, how important are each of the four domains and how they allocate their actual attention in a typical week. Does it surprise you to learn that there’s typically a pretty big gap between how important the “self” stuff is and how much attention people give it? Probably not.

Our participants also rate, before and after, their satisfaction and performance in each domain. Better alignment between their everyday actions and their values (e.g., shifting more attention to their physical, emotional and spiritual lives) led to increased satisfaction in all domains, especially in mind, body and spirit, as well as to better performance in all domains, even work—but especially the self.

I am eager to conduct a more detailed exploration of which aspects of the self domain our program benefits most. Anecdotally, it’s clear that the greater sense of control, confidence, focus, and optimism that results—changes in one’s mental health, that is—are the primary source of the renewed strength to perform better in the other domains of work, home, and community. I know there is great work being undertaken around the world to make work less psychologically toxic. Fill us in on what you know about this issue and what you’d like to know more about.

• Organizations , Workplace
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