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Featured Guest Blogger October 5th, 2009

Juliet Bourke is a partner at Aequus Partners. She works with leading organizations to develop and implement organizational change strategies to promote equity and diversity, deliver training programs, and conduct workplace investigations and mediations. Juliet Bourke is also a part-time chairperson with the Government and Related Employees Appeals Tribunal, in which capacity she conciliates and determines workplace disputes. 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 experienced the visceral alienation of those who fall outside the “work/family” paradigm and it brought me up short. Of course I have written about a “work/life” approach–in an effort to be inclusive–but if I am honest I probably had more of my heart in the “work/family” camp.

My wake-up call came about this way:

Last month, I was commissioned to write an on-line opinion (for a national news service) about the recently introduced “right to request flexibility” (“r2r”) laws in Australia.  Under this law, from January 1, 2010, eligible employees will have the right to request of their employers access to a flexible work arrangement.  The legislation also provides that an employer must respond in writing in 21 days and that a request can only be refused on “reasonable business grounds.”

I’m a big fan of the r2r, but I titled my opinion “Looking past a golden opportunity” to highlight some research we had conducted that found that  3 months out from the start date of the r2r, the majority of employees and managers are unlikely to be aware of their new rights. Given that the legislation provides a workable framework for transparent conversations about flexibility and evidence-based decision-making I see this knowledge gap as problematic. And that was the focus of my article–or so I thought.  What was picked up by the deluge of on-line comments was the unfairness of legislation which gives rights to some people (namely parents with children under school age, or children under 18 with a disability), and not others. For example:

• “It’s always the breeders who take the rights. What about special consideration for those caring for aged or infirm parents or siblings or partners? When I hear ‘family friendly practices’ I want to vomit.”
• “Those of us who choose to benefit the planet rather than selfishly pass on our own equally worthwhile genes, by remaining childfree get what? Stuff all …”

I was stunned.  I had struck a nerve, but not the one I had intended.  I had thought that readers would see the logic of a legislative starting point that was relatively narrow in nature, i.e., one that would allow employers to get used to the new regime and then lead to expanded rights over time for all carers, which is exactly what had happened in the United Kingdom.  What (some) readers saw was exclusion: working parents are in an inner circle that is deemed worthy of primary support and they are not.

It struck me that they are right.  So many of our legislative initiatives have working parents at the center, working families (e.g., those with elder care responsibilities) in the outer ring, and working “lifers” (do we even have a name for this group?) left out. This carries over into workplace policies.  We may entitle the policy “work/life”, but what we really mean is “work/family”, and what gets pride of place even in this group are “parents”.  How can we expect employees to behave in a collegiate way towards each other if our workplace practices endorse a hierarchy of “needs”?  I may have opened a can of worms here, but isn’t it time we face-up to the practical consequences of paying lip-service to the work/life agenda?

• Flexible Schedules , Policy , Publications , Workplace