Making work work

by Paula C. Squires
Virginia Business
August 2005

In what could have been a career-wrecking admission years ago, many college-educated men and women from Generations X and Y don’t aspire to move up the corporate ladder. In fact, about a third of them polled during a recent national study said they’d like to have less job responsibility so they can spend more time with their families.

This downshifting in career aspirations underscores a revolution in younger worker attitudes about the need for a healthy balance between work and home. “People are saying something needs to give. The old model doesn’t work,” says Lois Backon, vice president of the New York-based Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit that studies the American work force and emerging trends.

While in Virginia recently for a statewide summit on early childhood learning, Backon talked about the changing workplace. Today, there’s less job security and employees are putting in longer hours — an average of 48.2 hours a week for men and 41.4 hours for women. With technology blurring lines between work and home, more people feel squeezed for time and unable to meet family and marriage commitments. To recruit top talent and retain existing workers, American businesses need to be more flexible, says Backon. “People don’t leave jobs; they leave managers. They don’t leave companies for more money; they leave for more flexibility.”

Younger workers are more focused on the family than the aging baby boomer generation, according to research from Backon’s organization. In fact among workers under age 31 — polled as part of a national study on the changing work force — 81 percent described themselves as family-centric (putting family before work). They want options including flextime, compressed work weeks (fewer days/longer hours) and overall career flexibility that provides on and off ramps at various points in their careers without fear of penalty.

Companies that create flexible work environments, which help employees raise families and care for elders, will reap rewards, says Backon. Research shows that workers are more engaged, more satisfied and less likely to leave companies that offer schedules beyond the traditional 9 to 5.

With the retirement of the aging baby boomers on the horizon, some companies are heeding the message. In Richmond, Brendan Gwaltney Fleming, owner of a small interior design firm, is a believer. As a single parent of a 15-year-old daughter, Fleming appreciates the struggles people have balancing parenting with a career.

Plus, she has learned over the years that “great employees are hard to come by.” To attract and keep them, Gwaltney Fleming Inc. offers flextime, compressed work weeks, 100 percent employer-paid health and dental insurance, three weeks of vacation including the week off between Christmas and New Year’s, an additional week of personal time, corporate ownership incentives, a 401(k) plan and a membership to a local gym.

At Fleming’s company, the benefits let employees know they’re valued and that it’s okay to have a life outside of work. “They are expensive,” says Fleming about the benefits, “but it’s more expensive to have a high turnover rate …”