Plenty of employers are promoting parental leave, flexible hours and work-at-home plans.
But such claims often amount to a family-friendly facade, The Wall Street Journal reports. Broad changes in the way people work are making it more difficult for employees and their managers to set boundaries on work. People who need time for family care must look beyond corporate image-building for subtler markers of support.
Many employees now spend 85% of their working hours collaborating with multiple teams of co-workers across time zones via meetings, email, conference calls or instant messaging, says Rob Cross, a professor of global leadership at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.
This makes employees’ time at the office and 24/7 availability online more valuable to employers.
Collaboration can easily consume typical working hours, forcing people to do the individual work required by their jobs after hours, Dr. Cross says. “That leads to a tremendous bleeding of work into home.”
It also leaves those who spend fewer hours working on the losing side of a pay gap. People who work 50-plus hours a week are paid about 4.5% an hour more than similarly qualified employees who work 35 to 49 hours, says Kim Weeden, a sociology professor and director of the Center for the Study of Inequality at Cornell University.
Read the full story here, and a Business Report cover package on how Baton Rouge area families are juggling work and home here.
