It’s the 21st Century and the workforce and the workplace are changing.
And Herbert Schaffner is on top of those changes: Schaffner is communications, marketing and publications director for the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, a research and policy organization at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. The center also is a think tank and consulting firm.
“Today, work/life balance is more broadly based,” said Schaffner, who has been at the center since 1999. “It’s no longer just about women, not just professional women and not just mothers.
“Instead, all workers in this country recognize it’s an issue that touches everything in their lives.”
Schaffner is co-author and co-editor with Carl E. Van Horn, director of the Heldrich Center and professor of public policy at Rutgers, of “A Nation at Work: The Heldrich Guide to the American Workforce” (Rutgers University Press, $29.95).
“Balancing work and family has grown into a national social and policy concern that involves every worker and decision-maker,” the authors assert. “The work/life balance is no longer seen as solely a human resources issues, but as the human resources issue–and a paramount concern for corporate leaders, academics and policy-makers.”
Schaffner, for one, knows that having a life matters: He’s married to Laura Schenone, a writer, and has two children, ages 7 and 2. Though he works full time, mostly at the office, Schaffner says he has “flexible hours, which means I can come in early and leave early or come in late and leave late, which gives me time with my children. I also telework from home once or twice a month. And, since exercise is the fountain of youth, I go to the gym a couple of times a week, play tennis and I’m a fly fisherman.”
Based on the center’s surveys of 14,000 U.S. workers from 1998 to 2003, Schaffner reports that the factors driving the current changes–and need for change that concerns all workers, no matter what their jobs are– include “post 9/11 reevaluations, the collapse of capital markets, the lingering economic insecurity, the eroded trust between workers and employers because of a chain of corporate scandals and the volatility of employment in which jobs can disappear in a minute.”
That’s a heavy load for workers to carry, but despite the slow and perilous job market, the desire for work/life balance also is being championed “not only by professionals with graduate degrees and other white-collar workers, but particularly by low-to-moderate-income workers who are struggling to find ways to sustain economic opportunity at work and … take care of business at home,” Schaffner said.
He gives a telling statistic to show what many nonprofessionals are up against in dealing with their personal responsibilities: “The Family and Medical Leave Act has made a real difference in many workers’ lives, but studies show that 46 percent of low-income workers are employed by companies with fewer than 50 workers–and therefore don’t have access to FMLA.”
What are employers doing to meet these challenges? “The larger employers are paying more attention to the needs of second- and third-shift workers, particularly when it comes to child care,” Schaffner said. “And they’re taking a closer look at telecommuting, to see how they can allow more of it when it’s what workers want to do.”
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Smart employers also are “encouraging life-long learning and providing tuition reimbursement and on-site education,” he said. “They’re creating more innovative long-term partnerships for professional development for everyone.”
Employees “need to get a better understanding of what’s available when it comes to work/life benefits,” Schaffner said. “And when you ask for something new in this area, frame it in terms of how you can be more productive to the company.”
To me, that’s what “balance” is all about.
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Carol Kleiman’s columns also appear in Sunday’s Business and Wednesday’s Working sections. Hear her on WBBM Newsradio 780 at 6:21 p.m. and 10:22 p.m. Mondays. E-mail [email protected].