Startup Sunday
I'm looking forward to the start of the workweek tomorrow more than I usually do. No, it's not because I've been trapped at home with my family for five days. We actually had a lovely Thanksgiving celebration with plenty of child care help from grandparents, aunts and uncles, so I’m not as burned out as I often am following a vacation.
No, tomorrow is exciting for me because it's the beginning of Focus on Workplace Flexibility, a conference I'll be attending here in Washington D.C. that spotlights the advances in work-life balance, the challenges and the distance yet to cover. The Georgetown University-sponsored event springs out of the first-ever White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility, which I attended earlier this year.
Not only are some of the world's smartest minds on workplace issues speaking (I'm not exaggerating), the Focus on Workplace Flexibility program promises to bring together leaders from the private sector, academia, government and labor to debate the very real issues that arise when we start to discuss workplace flexibility. For instance, my recent Fiscal Times article about workplace tension over holiday time off (and CNN appearance about the story) highlighted the zero-sum reality that many workplaces confront. Someone needs to cover the unpopular weekend, late-night and holiday shifts; how do employers handle scheduling in a way that is fair to all employees and meets the business needs?
In an ideal world, employers and workers could arrive at a solution to any scheduling dilemma that is a win for both parties. Indeed, as pointed out by Rex Flexibility (a new personification of workplace flexibility) 88 percent of managers overseeing employees with flexible work arrangements report no negative impact on their ability to supervise.
But in the real world, staffs are stretched thin by layoffs and right-sizing. In the real world, the immediate need to cover a shift or meet a production deadline often outweighs the long-term benefit to the organization of happy, productive workers who are able to meet their personal needs. (Also from Rex: employees without flexibility are most likely to miss work, at an annual cost to business of up to $2,000 per worker.) It's no simple matter to get managers and organizations to focus on long-term benefits over immediate need: the world financial crisis in 2008, at heart, was caused by financiers who put short-term gain ahead of long-term risk. As a journalist who's been covering work-life issues for nearly a decade, I have seen theory collide with reality multiple times -- usually to the employees' detriment.
I decided to work for myself because I couldn't find the flexibility I wanted in my chosen field of work, journalism. I miss the camaraderie of a newsroom. I miss the security of a pay check -- although I've managed to match my previous salary for 2010, that's no guarantee that 2011 will be as good to me. And I really miss paid vacation and sick days. So I'm very much aware of the difficulty in bringing the theory of workplace flexibility to the real world.
As I attend the Focus on Workplace Flexibility conference, I'll be listening for ideas to address this crucial dilemma and examples of real-world models. Because not only does workplace flexibility have to be a win-win for both the employer and worker, the case needs to be made that the inevitable hassle of implementing something new is worth the long-term payoff for everyone concerned.
Twitter users: follow and comment on the conference through the hashtag #focusonflex
(Disclaimer: I wrote this blog post while having stickers placed over my face and Batman drumming on my left knee. Any less-than-clear phrasing can be attributed to my children.)
Comments