Life Meets Work Blog

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

• Flexible Work: Create a program to educate businesses on the advantages of flexible work.  Increase federal incentives for telecommuting.  Make the federal government a model employer by adopting flexible work schedules.  Obama is also a co-sponsor of the Working Families Flexibility Act, allowing employees to request flexible work schedules and receive fair consideration.
• Family and Medical Leave Act: Expand the act from businesses with 50 or more employees to 25 or more.  Also expand the act to include elder care needs, up to 24 hours for children’s academic activities, and domestic violence issues. Provide incentives for states to adopt paid leave system—such as California’s Paid Family Leave Insurance Program.
• Sick Leave: Require employers to provide workers seven days of paid sick leave per year that could be use for themselves or for the care of a close family member.

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

• Flexible Work: Create a Commission on Workplace Flexibility and Choice to make recommendations to him as President on how to modernize labor laws, retirement planning, and health care portability, and promoting telework.
• Family and Medical Leave: Does not support expanding the program or providing paid leave. Favors relying on market demand for such programs. 
• Sick Leave: Does not support mandating paid sick leave—again in favor of market demand.

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.

Life Meets Work and Ask Liz Ryan have launched a survey to gauge opinions about the work/life issues affecting the everyday lives of American families.

Launched during National Work and Family Month (October), the survey is designed to capture the opinions of both American workers and employers regarding work/life challenges, flexible work programs, and the role of government in work/life policies.

The results of the survey will be revealed in a free webinar on October 28, 2008.

Posted by Jaime

Fan of Suze Orman or not (when did she start yelling?), she has some good words of advice for self-employed women: charge what you’re worth.

In Orman’s Q&A column in the August issue of Oprah magazine, she counseled a real estate agent who’s been coaching families through the foreclosure process—for free.

Orman credits her good work, but says this: “You need to make money, and you don’t have to apologize for it.”

She writes,

“List the services you provide, decide on a fair fee—then add 20 percent. Why the bump? Because the thousands of self-employed women I’ve spoken to have a tendency to ask for less than what they want and deserve. Economically that unacceptable. How can you do your best work if you don’t feel properly compensated?”

It’s a solid message for the self-employed and those negotiating salaries.

I’ve sooo been there myself. I got over it (well, mostly) by talking with other people in my industry—all of whom were generous with advice—and looking to a couple of good mentors who helped me recognize the value of my skills.

Here are some more tips for figuring out what you’re worth. Now, have the courage and the conviction to ask for it!

Posted by Jaime.

Our Returning to Work news feed picked up two different Babies-At-Work stories last week. This small credit union did it and so did this multi-million dollar ad firm.

Not familiar with Babies-At-Work policies? Basically, new parents are allowed to bring their infants with them to the workplace—usually until the babies are mobile. This isn’t an on-site childcare arrangement. Parents care for the infants and work at the same time.

Advocates suggest it’s an effective way to retain talent, foster employee teamwork and boost morale. It can even build customer loyalty. The credit union (above) regularly receives positive customer comments on the practice.

Will this be a growing trend? Judging by other recent media coverage (“Bringing Up Babies at Work” – Boston Globe; “Bringing Babies to Work” – Time, and “The Littlest Cubicle Warriors” – People) we think it will be.

More info at: Babies in the Workplace and the Parenting in the Workplace Institute.

Posted by Jaime

Here’s the hypothesis: Telecommuting = lower energy use = lower carbon footprint. True or False?

According to Sun Microsystems, an unequivocal TRUE. According to a story on telework savings published in Network World, Sun Microsystems set out to calculate whether its telecommuting program was really saving energy or just deferring energy costs to their employees.

Using kilowatt meters, Sun discovered that home office equipment used half the energy than equipment at the corporate office, from approximately 64 watts per hour at home to 130 watts per hour at a Sun office.

Sun also calculated that an employee’s commute accounted for 98% of his/her work-related carbon footprint.

Employees in the study saved more $1,700 per year in gasoline and vehicle wear and tear by working at home 2.5 days a week. That means any additional electricity costs an employee takes on by working at home, pale in comparison to the financial return of telecommuting just a few days each week.

For more on the benefits of Sun’s work-at-home programs, (like how telecommuters are happier with their compensation and rate their managers higher) visit the Sun Open Work pages.

Posted by Jaime