A personal nod of recognition goes out to LMW team member Kia Baker who served eight years in the Navy as a hospital corpsman. We’re honored to work with you and ever-impressed with your leadership and dedication.
Three cities going on 50 states, that is.
The citizens of Milwaukee, Wisconsin voted yesterday to become the third city in the nation to require its employers to provide paid sick leave for all employees.
Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, said paid sick leave was an issue that belonged at the national level.
That just might happen. In his campaign platforms, Barack Obama advocated seven paid sick days for all employees—days you could use if you got sick, or if a child or parent needed your care.
One of my neighbors is losing a renter this month. Her tenant is moving out to go live with her daughter who has oft-ill child and is in danger of losing her job. This grandmother still works fulltime herself—a nighttime cleaning job—and will now be commuting over 30 miles to get to work each evening.
These women aren’t asking for a handout. They’re sacrificing and working hard to keep their jobs and make ends meet. Seven paid sick days wouldn’t be enough to resolve their particular challenge…but it sure would provide a little relief.
Posted by Jaime
We know most of our major politicians juggle family and work responsibilities, but this year the nomination of Sarah Palin brought that issue to the forefront.
To date, much discussion has focused on the candidates’ personal work/life situations—Palin bringing her baby to work, Obama keeping in touch with his girls via webcam, Biden raising two young sons as a single working dad.
But despite growing market focus on work/life concerns, the public debates and ad campaigns haven’t been focusing on the issues from a policy perspective. That’s why the Families and Work Institute organized conference calls to get at the issue. They spoke with top policy advisors from the Obama and McCain campaigns on September 16th and September 24th, respectively.
Conference transcripts are available. Here’s an overview of the candidates’ plans regarding key work/life issues—as reflected during the calls:
Obama
Obama’s representative also addressed issues such as health care coverage, early education, childcare tax credits, and fair pay. More from the Obama/Biden issues pages.
McCain
McCain’s representatives also discussed issues such as trading overtime pay for compensation time, health care coverage and access, energy policy, early education, and elder care. More from the McCain/Palin issues pages.
Posted by Jaime.
We just finished our first national study examining Americans’ attitudes on flexible work on the role of government in work/life issues. Here’s one key finding: Both employers (63%) and workers (78%) support the Working Families Flexibility Act.
The act (S. 2419 has been referred to the Senate Committee of Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) would give every worker the right to request job flexibility and would require employers to respond to the request.
This kind of legislation is already in place in Italy, Spain, Germany, and the U.K. Lessons learned: It didn’t create a new protected class of citizens and it didn’t open the floodgates with requests for flexible work. It simply encouraged more companies to develop win-win scenarios for themselves and their employees.
In this day and age, it often doesn’t matter when or where we work. It’s productivity and results that matter. Best Buy is reaping rewards with its results-only workplaces, and companies like Deloitte are saving millions in turnover costs.
Read the bill for yourself and tell us what you think.
We’ll review more findings and discuss the implications at our free webinar at 1:00 CST on Tuesday, October 28.
Posted by Jaime.
A follow up to yesterday’s post. Seems the Chicago Tribune was reporting manufacturing labor shortages a month ago.
From the article:
LaVezzi’s workforce totals 75, up from 50 five years ago, and it is recruiting for five machinists, Kremer said.
Ideally, the company looks for workers with a minimum of five years experience, but increasingly it has been supplementing less experience with training, Kremer said. It also has an employee-referral program, offering workers $1,000 if they bring in a qualified employee for a highly skilled job.
Wages are competitive, with machinists’ jobs typically paying $70,000 to $100,000, Kremer said. Yet the candidate pool is slim because of a misperception that manufacturing is dead.
“We want to expand our customer base but we are pretty much at maximum capacity,” he said. “We can’t grow without good help.”
No, no you can’t.
Posted by Jaime
With collapse in our financial sector and jobs on the line, some large name media outlets felt it was appropriate to give Stephen Viscusi’s new book Bulletproof Your Job some valuable press space.
Viscusi offers four rules for weathering a touch economy at work: Be Visible, Be Easy, Be Useful, Be Ready. Admittedly, there’s merit in many of Viscusi’s suggestions, such as be a mentor, dress well, and build your network.
Those are well and good, but unfortunately Viscusi peppers his book with reckless throwback suggestions like these:
“Don’t stay late, just stay later. Leaving a mere ten minutes after your boss has gone reinforces the impression that you’re the world’s most committed employee.”
“It doesn’t matter if your company pays for your health club membership or even provides an on-site health facility—that’s to make it look good, not to help you lower your cholesterol… admire those perks, brag about them to your friends, but don’t get caught using them.”
Apparently Viscusi doesn’t believe that having a good opinion of your employer or respect for your managers will get you anywhere. And the idea that companies offer wellness programs simply for PR purposes shows a concerning lack of corporate insight.
Viscusi provides some short-sighted suggestions to save a job. We wonder, though, whether some of his recommendations could do more harm than good.
In the next few posts, we’ll respond to more of Viscusi’s advice and offer suggestions to bulletproof your career.
Posted by Jaime
Wow, these days the news is full of compelling reasons for businesses and governments to implement telecommuting programs. Today, I found two more.
In today’s Chicago Tribune, the headline reads “Traffic Cost: $1580 per driver.” Turns out, that’s the amount the average commuter wastes every year sitting in traffic jams. In Chicago, that is.
That’s a whopping $7.3 billion according to a study by the Metropolitan Planning Council. “Wasted fuel, lost time in traffic and environmental effects are dragging down the regional economy and crimping lifestyles.”
It’s getting harder and taking longer to get to work which causes employees to be late and to miss out on more quality time at home. That affects productivity, employee satisfaction and a company’s bottom line.
Did anyone think that rising energy prices would impact employee retention? Well it appears it will. According to a recent study, “The Impact of Commuting on Employees“, 65% of employees expect employers to do something to “ease their commuting difficulties.” And, 26% of employees are considering changing jobs to improve their commutes.
48% of employees say their commute is getting worse. And, their experience is backed up by the Metropolitan Planning Council report. By 2030, the cost of commuting is expected to rise to $11.3 billion by 2030.
Yikes! How much more evidence do we need?