Life Meets Work Blog

There’s a cost to taking time off of work.

First the obvious. You don’t get paid when you don’t work. (That’s the general rule, anyway.)

Next, there’s the impact on your social security benefits or pension.

Often, there’s the loss of an incremental salary bump, compounded over future years.

And for too many, there’s an irrevocable impact on a career—an up-or-out philosophy that suggests anyone who isn’t consistently moving forward isn’t destined for the top.

Now two well respected Harvard researchers have quantified the impact of a career hiatus. Surveying Harvard College alumni, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz calculated the financial penalty for someone who takes a 18 months off of work and found…it depends on what you do.

Earnings loss, per degree:

• Medical doctors – 16%
• BA’s – 25%
• Ph.D’s – 29%
• Lawyers – 29%
• MBAs – 41%

Clearly something is going on with those MBA’s.  As the New York Times suggests, the size of financial loss “suggests that time off puts them on a completely different career track.”

Not long ago, well-educated Harvard women were criticized for taking time away from work—“wasting” brains and education that were needed in the marketplace. Yet the study suggests that these women (or men, for that matter) aren’t valued in the workplace. How could they be, when they are so permanently and drastically punished merely for stepping back a bit?

Can we surmise that to be an MBA (characterized as accountants and financial types in the NYT) is simply incompatible with family?

New survey results released by the Society for Human Resource Management says 70+% of American workers work through lunch, work overtime and take work home on the weekends.

And the motivation for logging all these hours doesn’t appear to be the result of some top-down mandate, but rather our own internal sense of what it takes to succeed. Only 21% said they worked extra hours because of pressure from an immediate supervisor, and only 12% attributed it to upper management.

So how do we rate our productivity? That’s what I’d like to hear from this 70% group. Are we generating all sorts of results during these 50+ hour weeks? Do we feel energized and creative at 2:00 after skipping our lunch break? Are we healthy and happy and stress free?

Or, are we marking time at our desks because the employee in the office the longest “must be” the most dedicated (a la George Costanza)? Are we wasting hours away in idle chat or non-productive tasks because we really do need those mental breaks?

Are we ravaging our free time, by dragging out our work day, accomplishing the same amount of work in more time thanks to the sheer inefficiency of exhaustion? And if so, why?

Perhaps, it’s a tragic case of escalation. Silent peer pressure, if you will. And if that’s the case, managers must take the lead and model a better way.

Posted by Jaime

Corporate Voices for Working Families released a new workplace flexibility study last week (the same day Michelle Obama spoke at their forum in D.C.) that once again demonstrates the importance of flexible work in meeting business objectives. The new angle? Flexibility matters for hourly workers too.

From the findings…

• Flex has a positive impact on personnel costs, particularly overtime
• Flex works well for companies that need staffing beyond 9 to 5
• Flex allows companies to tap a wider labor pool
• Flex helps recruitment in a tough labor market
• Flex helps with retention in high turnover positions
• Formal or informal - it doesn’t matter as long as employees can flex

Apologies and all due respect to Corporate Voices (and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation which funded the study), but haven’t we already proven the business case for flex? When are we going to shift from rationale to implementation? What we really need to figure out is how to create change in the least disruptive, least threatening way possible.

We need to focus on TRAINING and HANDS ON SUPPORT for managers. We need to get out from behind our desks and fund a little more hand to hand combat in the workplace. Show our business leaders how to make these changes. Enable them. Empower them. Model and mentor the way.

How about an AmeriCorps style program for workplace flexibility??  Hire flex consultants and seasoned leaders and station them in communities all over the country and charge them with providing one-on-one support for flexible workplaces.

How many workplaces could have been mentored, how many families affected…for the cost of one more study?

Posted by Jaime

Full transcript of Michelle Obama’s May 7 speech at a forum for the Corporate Voices for Working Families in Washington D.C.

The First Lady on balance and workplace flexibility:

So this isn’t just about family balance.  This is about making workplaces stronger and more effective, and keeping and attracting the most qualified people.  This research is critical to empowering employers and is politically — particularly important during our current economic climate.

We need to discuss flexible work hours that give employees greater ability to attend to important family responsibilities like child pick-up, something as simple as that; doctors appointments for those not just with kids, but for people with elderly parents.  We’re finding more and more that families are in that crunch, as well.

She also highlighted the importance of paid sick leave, the difficulties faced by one-wage-earner families, and how hard it is to be a working mom (even if you have a Chief of Staff and personal assistant).

Posted by Jaime

Twenty-one Milwaukee schools and one daycare center are closed this week as school officials react to growing cases of the H1N1 flu (aka swine flu) in the city.  Houston is also facing multiple school closures.

The closures obviously put a burden on families. With officials asking students not to congregate outside of school, one wonders how many parents are throwing caution to the wind and arranging childcare pools this week.

I’ll watch Evan, Susie, Lisa and Sam on Monday if you can take them Tuesday…and so on.

Are the area’s business offices prepared to operate during wide-spread school closures? Again, telecommuting offers one logical response, keeping many business offices operational as schools close and as employee themselves begin to present symptoms.

U.S. business went through a surge in disaster planning following the SARS outbreak in 2003. This recent outbreak is a chance for some companies to test those plans, and a reminder for others to develop contingency strategies.

Disaster planning is certainly not limited to flu pandemics. Telework tools help maintain productivity in the face of snowstorms, floods and other natural disasters.

Posted by Jaime