Spoiler: It’s all about creating a world where everyone can do meaningful, growth-promoting, and financially rewarding work regardless of their dedication to priorities outside the workplace. How would that world impact your ability to reach your dream?

Over the course of my career, I reacted with initial surprise anytime I discovered a mom who was not taking advantage of the work/life benefits of our shared work environment. Sure, there were some who generally didn’t need them (often those who could afford luxuries such as a live-in nanny, stay-at-home partner, or concierge service) or couldn’t afford them (the financial implications of part-time work, for instance, were just too high). But there were others who turned down weeks of parental leave, never visited the lactation room, or dragged themselves into the office every day rather than take advantage of the telework policy.

With a growing awareness of the objectives and effort these work/life supports represented on behalf of employers, I began to wonder whether these supports pay off as intended, why more mothers don’t utilize them, and what might be preventing them from jumping in with both feet.

You may have your own answers to these questions. Even if all you have is your own set of experiences with the work/life supports available in your workplace, I want to hear from you. If you have been in the workplace while pregnant, mothering a child under age 18, or undergoing fertility treatments or seeking adoption, I hope you’ll take my online survey, conducted as part of my Master’s research. The results of this study will be used to develop a set of tools for employers seeking to support mothers in the workplace.

And the gritty details: The survey takes 15-20 minutes to complete. It asks about what work/life supports you have used and why, the impact of these programs, and perceptions of people who use work/life supports. All qualifying participants will be entered to win a $25 Amazon.com gift card. The survey will be open through November 23rd.

Let your voice be heard today, and help make work/life work for mom.

The first encounter came in response to a message I’d sent reaching out to this colleague after several years of being out of touch. As warm, encouraging, and personally dynamic as this person has always been in my experience, I read the regret in his mail as he acknowledged being too busy to reconnect. I felt more than a tinge of sadness for myself at the diminishing of a vibrant and influential relationship and even more for him as I imagine what it must be like to surrender the small moments that are the building blocks of relationships to the constant running here and there of great achievement. Of course, this was just one of those small moments, many of which he hopefully retains, and I cannot ignore the many ways in which he inevitably touches lives, albeit indirectly, through the larger actions he devotes his time to. That said, my dominant emotion after receiving that mail was grief.

The second encounter came as I glanced through this morning’s Facebook feed. There next to the smiling profile picture of my friend with her family was a remembrance of her father: “He always knew how to make me feel like the greatest kid in the world.” Perhaps it was the context of remembrance through loss that made her post catch my eye the way few posts do. While I remember her father well, I had little personal interaction with him and, because I moved from the area, never had the opportunity to see him as a community leader as many were later to do. But as little direct impact as he had on my life, I could feel the effect he had on his daughter’s life – helping her see herself in a way that set her up to succeed personally and to positively influence others – and that impacted me today. I resolved to hold up making my children feel like the greatest kids in the world as a standard for my own parenting. Five minutes later I was giving them each an extra kiss and rousing them with gentle teasing rather than the hurried tones that often underlie our morning ritual.

I am thankful for the small moments of learning that come our way each day when we make time to reflect, and for the influence and example of others – in moments strong and otherwise – that help us refocus our own efforts on being the best we can be.

While I was expecting campaigns and protests and impassioned characters, once class began I discovered I was utterly unprepared for the fire I felt watching the world of women transform or for the connectedness I saw with my own work in diversity and workplace flexibility. When I wasn’t studying, I found myself haranguing my husband on Republican Motherhood, woman’s suffrage, and the Feminine Mystique. The more I read, the more we discussed in class, and the more I wrote, the stronger I felt the importance of these reforms and of the individuals who worked so hard for them. And the more I understood how we got where we are today – as women, yes, but also as a society working to incorporate lessons served up by women that address the needs of all people.

As we made our way through the decades, I thrilled at the expanding freedoms of women – property ownership, reproductive control, access to the workplace, increasing freedom from violence, and so many others. However, I couldn’t ignore a nagging observation that many attempts to better women’s world seem to have funneled us into new and different configurations of prescribed choices. I began to reexamine the reasons behind changes championed by fiercely brave, intensely motivated women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Florence Kelley, and Margaret Sanger, as well as the lives of the women themselves. I began to ask “Why did they do all this?”

What is the point of all this progress? And how do we know when we’ve arrived? These questions weighed on me for days until an epiphany struck, as it often does, during a morning walk. One approach to measuring the effectiveness of a particular reform is to assess how much it contributes to three measures of individual success:

1. Contentment: Enjoying a level of personal wellbeing that enables us to look in the mirror each day and honestly feel good about who we are,
2. Growth: Learning and growing toward the potential we feel is within us, regardless of our life circumstances of choices, and
3. Giving: Contributing to a greater good outside ourselves, on whatever scale or plane is appropriate to our current position and stage of life.

If we truly recognize and value the wonderful diversity of our backgrounds, beliefs, desires, and needs, we will legitimize a broad range of options for women (and men) that free us to configure the life that works best for us individually, considering both those we support and those who support us. We will create an environment of opportunity, mutual respect, and cooperation.

Throughout the coming year I’ll be writing on themes inspired by various readings from last semester’s class. In the meantime, I’d welcome your thoughts on what we who champion work/life progress are really fighting for. And how do we know when we’ve won?

Highlighting virtual companies as a practical way of the future

Some companies, like Fuentek, have built their whole business model around workers who stay at home.

“When I started this in 2001, right from the start, the idea was that it was all going to be home-based,” she says. “To create a brick-and-mortar environment really wouldn’t have provided any better service for our clients, and it really wasn’t what we were looking for.”

Schoppe says the decision was a practical one at first. When she founded the consulting firm with just two other people, they saw no need for formal office space. But as Fuentek grew — and began hiring engineers, technical writers and others — she found they were more productive when they worked from home and set their own schedules.

“I think you get better loyalty. I think people are more willing to get the job done,” she says. “And part of that is that flexibility of allowing people to have their personal life or their family life be primary.”

Overview on the benefits and drawbacks of implementing furloughs in place of layoffs

The increasing number of companies investigating telework as an element of continuity planning is highlighted in this article:

The possibility of a widespread swine flu outbreak is prompting companies to think about business continuity and how options such as telework may become a necessity. . . .

Research firm Gartner said the recent outbreaks of swine flu highlight the need for companies to have in place pandemic plans that address workforce absenteeism rates of 40% or higher. . . .

“In order to make a really effective telework program, and make it work for your employees, you really need to use it,” says Cindy Auten, general manager of Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership focused on promoting telework. “Encourage your employees to telework, and test not only the infrastructure but also the cultural issues, such as how comfortable your employees are working remotely.”

“If you declare an emergency telework situation, and you haven’t really tested it before, you can run into a lot of problems,” Auten says.

InfoWorld’s Bob Lewis poses an interesting question:

Since telecommuting is good for everyone but in the short term increases costs for employers, we seem to have two choices. We can either provide subsidies, most likely in the form of tax credits for employers who encourage employees to telecommute, or we can “let the market take its course”–which is to say take no concerted societal action and hope employers will take the long view and make it happen anyhow.

Detractors of the activist approach will probably criticize it as “social engineering.” Detractors of the let-the-market-do-what-it-likes approach will probably criticize it as a failure of leadership.

What do you think?

Excellent 49-minute broadcast featuring several local experts in the work life field

During a recession, many people are working harder for a smaller piece of the pie. So, how do you balance work with the rest of your life?

A recent survey found that work-life balance now ranks as one of the most important factors in employee satisfaction—second only to compensation. But a decreasing percentage of employees nation-wide feel they have a healthy balance between career and home-life. Today we’ll talk about some of the conflicts that arise when workers bring too much of the office home and too much home to the office. What are employers and employees doing to strike a healthy equilibrium? And what can the government do? We’ll also talk with one young professional who insists it’s not a balance he’s looking for, it’s a blend of work with life.

Alongside the below excerpts, this article also offers a close-up look at one company cutting hours and pay for its employes and also lays out several legal considerations.

About 1 in 4 companies have cut workers’ hours by some degree, 7% have gone to a four-day workweek, and 6.7% have furloughed employees to cut costs without permanent layoffs, according to a January survey of 100 businesses by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Studies show that companies that choose alternatives outperform their competitors that resort to layoffs, said Amy Robinson, principal at workforce consulting firm Interchange Group in Los Angeles.

Small-business owners are looking to cut costs without inflicting mortal wounds on their companies. Some are cutting hours and pay to forestall layoffs. Others have already had layoffs and believe that they can’t lose more workers without cutting into muscle. So they trim paid work time for some or all of their employees.

Businesses are trying to keep their companies alive, and their workforces intact, so they are ready to grow when the economy recovers.

For small businesses that want to avoid layoffs, it’s important to understand that cutting employee hours or pay carries risks. Resentment, anger, damaged morale and lost productivity are real concerns. Some employees probably will leave.

A labor shortage looms in five years as members of the baby boom generation begin leaving the workforce, [Robinson] said. The generation that follows it is half its size. So companies that can hang on to valued workers in whom they’ve invested time and money will have a competitive advantage.