Research highlights from Working Mother Congress 2009

On December 15th, FWI hosted an “encore” of the research panel “New Results/Next Steps” convened for the 2009 Working Mother WorkLife Congress. The panel gives an excellent perspective on why flexible work options are so important to companies and employees. You can download the presentation here, or listen to a podcast of the call.

We were grateful to Sandy Burud (FlexPaths LLP), Brad Harrington (Boston College Center for Work and Family) and Ellen Galinsky (FWI) for reviewing their presentations from the October 29th session and for Carol Evans (Working Mother Media) for moderating. Sandy presented research funded by Proctor & Gamble on the Working Mother 100 Best Companies application data. Brad Harrington reviewed the key findings from Maria Shriver’s report “A Woman’s Nation” and a chapter he had prepared for it.  And Ellen reviewed findings from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce on the demographics and health of the American workforce.

Here is a summary of the key findings:

Sandy Burud:

• Flexible work is the “new normal” with 95% of WM 100 Best applicants saying it is their standard way of doing business and 94% saying it is essential to business strategy.
• Of the remainder of the applying companies, only 56% say flex is their standard way of operating.
• Key leverage points for furthering uptake of flexible work arrangements are sustainability/environmental strategies, facilities planning and disaster planning.
• Companies need to think about how they will present themselves to future hires who value work life.
• Among the Best 100 applicants, 23% say that manager’s compensation is tied to their promotion of flex and 48% say manager’s performance evaluation is.

Read the Working Mother Report or the Summary here.

Brad Harrington:

• Working women face “maternal walls,” woman are still operating in a male business world, it is time to take a multi-faceted approach to resolving persistent problems around women’s employment and it costs very little to do so.
• Women are now the majority in the workplace for the first time.
• In 2008, 39.3% of mothers were the primary breadwinners in their families.
• Of the 15 jobs with the highest growth potential in the next decade all but custodian, post-secondary teacher and engineer are dominated by women.
• Women earn 62% of associate, 57 % of undergraduate and 50-60% of graduate degrees (only for MBAs and science and engineering graduate degrees is this not true).
• Yet only 3% of CEOs in Fortune 1000 companies and 15% of Directors are women.
• Greater flexibility is the key.
• Government, HR, line managers and individual employees all have a role to play in creating needed change.
• “Women are not the problem, they are the solution.”
• Examples of good practices are Pepsi’s “Power Pairs,” taking a structured career approach and creating slates of equal number of male and female applicants.

Read Brad’s chapter here.

Ellen Galinsky:

• Young women and men have the same level of desire for jobs with greater responsibility.
• Men are spending significantly more time with their children and taking greater overall responsibility for them than they have in the past.
• Fathers are experiencing more WL conflict than women and than men have ever shown.
• The health of the American worker has declined in the last 6 years- more experiencing headaches, stomachaches, insomnia.
• 25% of employees smoke, 49% have not exercised regularly in the last 30 days and 41% have experience 3 or more indicators of stress.
• An effective workplace can improve employee outcomes; that is, creating effective workplaces is your “wellness program.”
• An example of a good program is KPMG’s Wellness Scorecard.

From Ellen Galinsky and Families and Work Institute:
The State of Health in the American Workforce: Does Having an Effective Workplace Matter?
Times Are Changing: Gender and Generation at Work and at Home