Unless you were conceived in a test tube and raised by wolves, you probably have parents. Chances are also good that after bringing you into this world, someone out there was kind enough to hold your wobbly head, wipe your rear and feed you every two hours all through the day and night for months at a time – at the expense of their own sleep and sanity.
Regardless of how good a job you feel your parents did, the fact that you are reading this means they made some significant physical, material, and emotional sacrifices. They did all this, from an evolutionary perspective, to get you to point where you, too, could try your hand at propagating the species.
Obviously this has nothing to do with work. Or does it? Prior to becoming a parent I never gave the matter of parenting and work much thought. Now that I am a mom and a single parent to boot? Well, let’s just say that it’s a lot easier to feel compassion for other human beings when you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.
The Family Friendly Workplace Debate
There are two very legitimate viewpoints in the family friendly workplace debate and I, personally, have been on both sides. I remember working for a consulting firm where I was completely incapable of maintaining friendships and relationships because I was on the road 40 (count ‘em…forty!) weeks a year.
I felt I was doing the work that enabled the family guys with desk jobs to go home to their children and spouses at the end of each day. I’d be home just long enough on the weekend to change my cats’ litterbox and vacuum the carpet. Dating? Hanging out with friends? Only if they were willing to hop on a plane and meet me at the Marriot Residence Inn in Huntington, West Virginia.
Until Sh!t Hit the Fan
Yet in my life as a mom, I have front row seats to the spectacle that trying to raise a child and engage in business can be in America. Just this morning I’d been patting myself on the back for what a good job I’d done prepping for the day. Lunches packed, clothes donned, bags waiting. I’d be in the office early and caffeinated to boot. I opened the door and scooped my daughter into my arms.
Squish.
No, really? Every parent reading this right now knows what is coming. The poop was down the leg of her outfit, in her socks, on the rug. Buttons and snaps went flying as I undressed her and threw her in the tub. I ran to grab a diaper, an outfit, socks, a clean coat for her. I noticed that some of the goods had smeared my jeans. In my distraction I stepped on something squishy and warm on the area rug. Oh, God. C’mon!
This was not the first, and I am sure will not be the last, time that I watched my best laid and carefully sequenced plans unravel in a hurlyburly of projectile bodily fluids. We all have unexpected moments in our lives – to be sure – but there is nothing like a child, not yet hip to the concept of time and a world that revolves around anything other than their own rhythms, to bring your life into utter conflict with the rigidity of an adult world that values: timeliness, plans and structure.
After sharing one such war story with a colleague of mine he replied:
I remember when I was just starting out working at [a humungo telecom company] in a corp finance role, the kind of job that always required insane hours and weekends that the younger, single guys like me had such a huge advantage over the parents in the group. When the CFO needed me to stay and work, I did. I had no life to speak of anyway (save hitting up the pub). And after we stayed to 10 or 11pm, we all ended up in the pub anyway. And the boss usually expensed the whole deal. We had a woman on the team, smart, hard working etc. but she was married, had a couple of kids, so she was never part of the inside club of us dudes that worked late, got loads of face time with the big shots, then went out for drinks later. It was totally unfair, and she was never seen as important as the rest of us knuckleheads. That was a long time ago, but I am not sure how much has really changed. And it isn’t only a female issue. I have lots of the same problems today with my kid and my responsibilities. I think smarter organizations and managers are the ones that quit imposing ‘one size fits all’ rules and expectations on a workforce of individuals, with different needs, hopes, and responsibilities.
Each viewpoint could merit an entire post all its own, but I think my colleague got it totally right. My point here isn’t to say that one is right and the other wrong, but to highlight that consciously or not every workplace is probably more accommodating to one type of worker than the other. Those who feel that their life situation is valued less are probably likely to be less invested in the company as a whole.
Do You Know What Kind of Employer You Are in This Debate?
As an employer or recruiter? I know that it is tempting to want to please everyone, but the imperative falls on the employer to truly understand what kind of employer you are at the outset and to clearly articulate it to any would-be hires. Things to ask yourself –
- Are all of the managers and upwardly mobile members of your company childless, working long hours and weekends and likely to allow work to double as a social club? Perhaps then it is not best to tout opportunities for advancement to parents who have expressed an interest in work life balance or in being heavily involved in their children’s lives.
- Do your executives pride themselves on helping young families through on-site daycare, flex time, cafeteria plans and spouse/dependant benefits? Perhaps it’s best not to leave a young, hungry workaholic wondering why she can’t get a raise when people who choose to have families are eating up all of the company’s dough through additional use of health benefits.
- If your parents were ill or elderly and you needed to take time off to care for them do you feel this would hurt your chances to advance?
Take an honest assessment of the kind of work your company does or will do, what is required to succeed in your company and your industry and who is likely to have the best chances at success. What kinds of people get ahead and run your company? Regardless of what your policies say on paper, this is your cultural reality.
Articulate clearly and unapologetically which style best embodies your culture. From there, the candidate can take stock of the whole of his life and professional aspirations. If he is honest with himself, he’ll be best at determining whether or not the relationship is a good fit.
Good luck and happy diapering.
Loved the piece Tanya – I think you are right, not all environments are going to value, reward, and penalize in the same manner. I bet 99% of companies tout their ‘family friendly’ policies, but the reality is often quite different. It can be tough when the employee feels like months of good, solid contributions seem to be diminished because of the one time they could not drop everything to pull an all-nighter due to family obligations.
tanya, i agree that companies need to examine their reality. but are you saying that after that companies can (should?) comfortably stick with their reality without first considering the fall-out from *not* being work+life flexible?
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Tanya,
So much to say…First, as a mother of two children…oh, I have been there!
But there are a few things I would point out that are especially relevant to the audience that reads Fist Full of Talent. While we could ask companies to just come clean about what’s expected and let the chips fall where they may, for some reason that seems like throwing in the towel on driving the change that is needed both inside of companies and within each of us as individuals.
Instead I offer these observations based on 15 years of experience helping companies develop and implement flexibility strategies.
First, there is a big difference between “family-friendly benefits and programs” and real, meaningful work+life flexibility. Flexibility that’s a strategic part of an organization’s day-to-day operating model and applies to everyone…because everyone (even the most workaholic, single male employee) either has or will have some kind of a life outside of work.
One is nothing more than feel-good window-dressing. The other is a business strategy that uses flexibility in how, when and where work is done to achieve a broad range of objectives: individual work+life fit across all life stages (because there is no balance), global client coverage without burnout, business continuity, increased productivity and innovation, cost control (labor, health care, real estate), improved recruitment and retention…the list goes on.
The challenge is for all of us, including the HR community, to stop thinking of work+life issues and flexibility solely from the perspective of “family-friendly” and parenting. But to ask how we can help employers and employee work (and live) better and smarter so we can accomplish all that we want and need to do.
It can be done, but it requires a radical reset of how we thinking about and talk about these issues at all levels.
Thank you for your honest, insightful experience. I hope it prompts a much needed conversation.
Speaking as someone who recently spent an enormous amount of time trying to find a company that respected my family-first focus (after taking five years off to be with my kids), the majority of employers out there still look at you like you have four heads when you mention family in an interview. And the more senior you are (I was VP at a multinational) the harder it is to find the fit.
Having a policy on paper is not enough, it has to be part of the DNA of the organization. And I agree with Cali, even those without family need (even if they themselves don’t realize it) a life outside of work, so policies and programs need to be for all, and offered at three levels within the organization: individual, team/department and company/corporate.
So many companies say one thing but their actions contradict everything they claim to be about. Knowing your culture is so important. Being brutally honest about it will help to recruit the candidates that are truly the right fit.
Oh- and as a mom, we have all been there. Cherish those moments- as gross as they are. They will be gone in the blink of an eye.