Life Meets Work Blog

So, how do we address our collective malaise when it comes to workplace flexibility? How do we firm up the squishy middle? We need to move beyond the research, beyond business case—promises of greater profits are clearly not enough.

1. Stop paying lip service to the availability of flexible work. Awards are no guarantee of a flex-friendly reality. Employee surveys as a part of the award process are a step in the right direction, but awards in general can be a band-aid for the greater challenges facing these organizations. And while, we’re at it, stop counting the opportunity for occasional flex in the case of a snow-storm, or sick child as equivalent to a flex-friendly culture.

2. Government must play a role in creating incentives for businesses to move in this direction, and in changing labor laws and tax code to accommodate the new, independent worker. This will accelerate the rate of adoption of structural supports that benefit both companies and their employees.

In our 2008 study, Work/Life issues in America, over 62% of employers indicated they’d like to see government move in this direction.

3. Within our corporations, middle managers need incentives to support flex policies. Build them into their compensation plans.

4. Initiate corporate training programs so middle managers can express, work through and develop solutions for overcoming their resistance.

5. Establish informal networks of work/life leads throughout every organization, by location or business practice, to actively communicate the company’s vision for work/life as part of its living, breathing culture.

6. CEO’s must do more than just subscribe to work/life as a vision, but must communicate the strategic necessity to their direct reports and hold them accountable to quarterly goals and again, tie compensation to the achievement of these goals.

7. Management must set the tone and model positive work/life practices. Think meet-less workdays, email-free vacations, and setting realistic deadlines to avoid heroics that become part of the culture “just because that’s how we’ve always done it.”

8. Educate managers about why flex CAN BE available for every employee by expanding their definition of flex to include best practices for hourly workers as highlighted in the recent Corporate Voices for Working Families study and implementation guides.

9. Tie flex to HR, talent development and diversity initiatives. Help HR managers get comfortable with flex as a cultural, strategic initiative that helps them accomplish their talent development and inclusion goals, not just as a tactical alternative to employee recognition programs.

10. Stress performance as the primary responsibility of every employee and a condition for employment, and build both IT and performance management systems to monitor and communicate performance. When performance is the driving factor for success, management can build a culture based on trust—a culture where rules don’t restrict innovation or engagement and where flexible work cultures can thrive.

Why is this so critical?
Consider the most recent Catalyst report Catalyst report Pipeline’s Broken Promise. Researchers found that the pipeline of professional women poised to fill the ranks of corporate boards and executive management (the pipeline corporate America thought it was developing these last 15 years) is woefully lacking.

Add to it that, for the first time, American men are now experiencing more work/life stress than women.

In order to build a pipeline of professional men and women from all races and socioeconomic backgrounds, we need to build structural supports that both acknowledge the needs of our businesses and the needs of our workers. The prosperity of our nation depends on it.

Part I

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been busy. Really busy…networking, speaking and listening to people on all sides of the work/life issue: top female executives; middle managers; women in construction, technology, manufacturing; advocates for women and girls; executive directors of social service agencies; vice-presidents of diversity and HR, heads of media organizations; and government administrators.
And I’m convinced now, more than ever, of the real workforce challenge facing our nation.

We need to move beyond lip-service, work/life awards, and the business case for flex and get to the real work of making it a reality in business today. The solution lies in addressing the lack of support by middle managers.

We need to firm up the squishy middle. Middle management attitudes are preventing flexible work from becoming a reality for most Americans.

Listen to employees and top executives of a number of the Working Mother Top 100 companies, as I have, and they’ll tell you that often the policy exists on paper and flex is available to some. But, the opportunity for flexible work and work/life balance in the day-to-day lives of their employees is no different than for employees of non-flex friendly companies.

Listen to human resource managers of “best workplace” companies and they’ll tell you that they lack the know-how to get flex policies to be a living, breathing part of their company’s culture. They face resistance from executives and middle managers, as well as from employees who are too afraid to ask for the flex they need.

Talk with companies who boast flexible work policies but don’t want their employees to know about, or take advantage of, them. They believe policy is good enough and fear the repercussions if all of their employees requested flexible work.

Look at the resources we devote to training under-privileged, low income individuals to get job training and join the workforce. Now look at how many of them remain low-wage earners throughout their careers. They do not have access to the professional development, mentoring and structural supports (think after-school care, transportation) to enable them to compete. Joining the job ranks isn’t enough.

People ask me all the time, what is it going to take to get this to change. I believe the answer lies in both external, labor market realities and an internal shift in management attitudes. It’s not a matter of building the business case to show companies the profitability, productivity and efficiency gains they’ll achieve by adopting these practices. It will require a shift in the mindset of management, especially middle management, to see their employees as an integral part of their company’s success– as much as their capital investments, product innovation, or stock price.

This enlightenment will either evolve willingly as it has in some companies (see our Patagonia blog post) or it will come because of the fundamental economic and labor shift taking place in our country today.

The future of the workforce is in independent contractors who will work for themselves, moving fluidly from job to job. Companies will hire the services they need, when they need them.

Gone will be the paternalist control of employees in exchange for health benefits and advancement opportunities. The levers management currently uses to motivate workers will be removed and replaced by the exchange of money for services rendered and results achieved.

This future is evolving now—as our country shifts from a manufacturing to knowledge/service based culture—as the sheer number of skilled workers diminishes. Do you question this logic? Ask a recruiter in your company about open job orders. Even in this recession, good talent is hard to find.

- Kyra Cavanaugh
President, Life Meets Work
March 17, 2009

Next….10 steps to firm up the squish middle: LMW Manifesto Part II.