OBT Magazine

We all know times are tough. What, if anything, is Corporate America doing to support its overworked and underpaid workers—especially Working Parents—these days? I asked Donna Klein, executive chair and president at Corporate Voices for Working Families, for her thoughts.

You say that the U.S. has failed working families because public and corporate policies do not mirror their needs. What countries do a good job of promoting work and family issues?
This is a complicated question. Doing a “good job” with work and family policies is a function of the demographics, culture, traditions and forms of government in a particular country. That being said, there is some consensus around the Scandinavian countries as role models for good working family practices. Scandinavian countries encourage both men and women to pursue careers by providing programs and policies (family leave, dependent care support, and some financial support) that help families balance both jobs and parenting.

Also, some European countries have progressive programs. France, Germany, Belgium have “father friendly” programs and policies that encourage and support men to engage in careers while maintaining full engagement with their roles and responsibilities as fathers.

Unfortunately, the Untied States is far, far behind these nations.

Which companies in Corporate America today set the "gold” standard for programs to promote work and families?
Indeed, there are many U.S. corporations that are progressive in their support of working families. Many of the Corporate Voices for Working Families partner companies are among this elite group. Companies like Accenture (ACN), PNC (PNC), Merck (MRK), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Baxter (BAX), JPMorgan (JPM), Ernst & Young and Allstate (ALL) are among the best of them.

Working Mother magazine annually highlights the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers. And now to level the playing field between professional employee support and hourly employee support, Working Mother, in partnership with Corporate Voices, is shining the light on those companies who employ predominately hourly workers, with the same opportunity to brand their workforce supports for hourly working families.

The first edition of Best Companies for Hourly Workers will be published in Working Mother magazine in the spring 2010. The strategy is to use the competitive mentality of corporations to brand and encourage advancement of these supports for hourly workers who have been somewhat overlooked in the past.

Can you talk about any innovative/unusual/successful programs?
There are many examples of these “best-practice” programs occurring in the field of work and family balance. Flexibility continues to lead the way. Available for many years for professional employees only, flexible work opportunities are now being offered by many progressive companies to their hourly employees.

Companies like Marriott (MAR) and PNC are experimenting with flexibility for hourly employees and realizing returns on investment equal to those evidenced by flexibility offerings to their professional staffs.

Companies are even piloting workplace lactation support for hourly employees. Female labor now represents 50% of the American workforce and that represents permanent and fundamental change. We are dependent on female labor in the 21st century workplace and that will drive even greater innovation in coming years.

Corporate Voices, by the way, would be most interested in feedback from companies about their innovative, unusual and successful programs. We know from experience that these best-practice models are drivers of change involving public and corporate policy. And we would welcome the opportunity to engage those companies in concert with our current corporate partners that really are leaders in designing and implementing programs aimed at work and family balance and improving the lives of working families.

Why is the conversation about workplace flexibility focused on professional workers?
Flexibility has been focused primarily on professional/management employees to date, because of two primary reasons. First, U.S. labor law (FLSA) does not apply to professional employees, so tracking hours worked is not required. Employers can ask professionals to work as few or as many hours as they deem necessary, as well as whatever work schedule they feel appropriate.

Secondly, the cost of professional turnover, which resulted from rigid, inflexible scheduling of hours, began to increase dramatically as productivity gains began to be associated with longer hours rather than more efficient processes. Companies who demanded long hours with no flexibility began to lose their best talent.

The cost of that turnover, including recruiting, training, and on-boarding new hires, was time consuming, which means costly. In many industries, the cost of replacing a fully functioning employee was estimated to be as much as 2-6 times that employee’s annual salary. Keeping talent became a key management objective. Offering flexibility, a fairly cost neutral solution, kept professionals loyal, on the job and actually increased engagement scores.

By contrast, why aren’t there more flexible work options for hourly workers?
As I mentioned previously, labor laws require tracking and recording hours worked. A company had to employ some mechanized system to do that, like clock cards, or they verified hours worked by observation. And unfortunately, to many managers, seeing is believing. It has been perceived to be too difficult to implement flexibility for hourly employees.

Additionally, in an economy that had an overabundance of qualified workers, the replacement of an hourly worker was perceived to be easy. Hourly workers were perceived to be pretty much undifferentiated – the old industrial model.

But in today’s world, with the skills gap widening and employers in all industries agreeing that there is a shortage of qualified workers, both hourly and professional, I think we are poised to see the rapid decline of those antiquated management beliefs. Business is now more knowledgeable about what constitutes a productive employee.

Do you think the Motherhood Penalty exists in Corporate America? Why or why not?
Unfortunately, I do think the motherhood penalty exists. One popular Sunday night drama recently and dramatically brought the discussion into the forefront when one of the “desperate housewives” denied her pregnancy to retain a promotion she had been granted. But we don’t need to see evidence in the popular media to know it exists.

Many aspects of career track jobs penalize motherhood – not intentionally but because of traditional thinking about what it takes to succeed (based on the prevalence of male models in the past). Today, in the best of cases if you are lucky enough to have paid maternity leave, it is still only a few companies that will hold “your” job open until you return.

FMLA requires that “a” job be available when you return. The time it takes to develop credentials in a new position inadvertently delays the advancement of women. And there are many less obvious reasons why mothers are penalized. Perceptions of loyalty, ability to travel, reliability on the job, while not policy driven, remain unspoken and many times unrecognized barriers.

The recession is having a huge impact on the physical, mental and fiscal health of American workers. How are employers helping workers weather the storm? Can you share some best practices?
The economy has indeed taken a toll. Employees who have retained their jobs are extremely insecure and job stress is becoming unmanageable. Many times that stress is a function of work overload accompanied by guilt at being retained when close co-workers have been dismissed. Companies that recognize and solve for this aftereffect are indeed among the best places to work.

But as recently reported by the Families and Work Institute, we can point to 80% retention of flexible work practices by those firms that have them, and a 18% increase in the companies that are offering them. Additionally we are seeing more workforce support for those retained, and outplacement services for those being dismissed including career counseling, retaining in job search skills and of course EAP services which are being proactively offered to workers and their family members.