Prompt
Do you believe family-friendly benefits, flexible schedules, and child care services creates conditions under which employees without children are treated less generously than those who are eligible because they have children? If so, why? If not, why?
Original Poster (Neil Huss)
Issues of workplace flexibility take different forms in different industries, but the roots of the problems are the same: our modern labor standards make it unnecessarily difficult for workers to be both good workers and good family caregivers. Workers’ rights and the dignity of work have been core principles embedded in progressive faith movements, which have fought for just social and economic policies throughout our nation’s history. Policies that allow employees to perform well while also meeting their families’ needs are an important component of workers’ rights.
While the Fair Labor Standards Act protects at least some individuals from overwork, it does not address concerns such as the prevalence of involuntary part-time work when full-time work would be preferable, or issues of scheduling flexibility or predictability. Furthermore, parental leave was introduced to give parents the right to take time off work to look after their child. Parents can use it to spend more time with children and strike a better balance between their work and family commitments. Parental leave is a form of statutory family leave, like maternity leave or shared parental leave – but it can be taken any time before your child turns 18. The leave is unpaid, unless that is a perk in your employment.
Investing in family friendly policies is good for families, businesses and economies. But for too many parents around the world, policies, such as paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks, childcare and child grants, are not a reality. The lack of such policies compromises parents’ ability to securely bond with their babies in the first critical years of life – a time, evidence tells us, when the combination of the right nourishment, a loving environment and stimulating care can strengthen a baby’s developing brain and give her the best start in life. Not only do family-friendly policies pay off in healthier, better-educated children, greater gender equality and sustainable growth, they are linked to better workforce productivity and the ability to attract, motivate and retain employees.
In addition to daily love and affection, families need to know that they can care for their children, sick family members, and elderly relatives. Only a generation ago, most families used to have a full-time stay-at-home caregiver, usually the mother. But today, the majority of parents work and most families require this income in order to make ends meet. But all too often the ways in which workplaces are structured create needless conflict between home and work. When parents face stigma and reduced career options after working part time in order to care for their children or elderly parents, it goes against our values of equality of opportunity, commitment to work, and caring for those we love.
Many experts note that many people—parents or not—fear that asking for a flexible schedule will hurt their careers, and that fear is justified. When parents leave work to coach their child’s soccer team or choose a position that makes it easier to pick up the kids from school on time, they can easily pay a price. “Some childless colleagues worry that they’ll face backlash if they ask for flexibility to pursue something outside of work, such as a part-time schedule to train for a marathon or flexible days off so they can volunteer at a pet shelter” (Linn, 2013). Men, especially, get a lot of flak for mixing work and family, and women often get a lot of flak for pursuing work to the exclusion of family.
Nevertheless, in many workplaces experts say there is the risk that managers will naturally show a bias to the parents when divvying up who is going to work a holiday or take a night shift. That, in turn, leaves the childless co-workers feeling annoyed with the parents, adding to the potential stigma working parents can face. Flexible work arrangements and practices speak to our deeply held values of fairness and justice, as well as a long tradition of progress in workers’ rights. Flexible work arrangements accomplish this through a number of simple methods, including modifying daily start and end times, working part time, working a compressed work week, telecommuting, and even job sharing (Sawhill & Haskins, 2017). These arrangements make it possible for parents to care for children after school and give them more time to care for family members generally.
By promoting flexible work arrangements without stigma and creating opportunities for workers to be more flexible within all levels of organizations, we promote greater equality within the workforce and the family. We strengthen the workforce and begin to clarify an understanding of it that represents the realities and challenges today’s families face—one that does not idealize decades-old family work structures.
References
Linn, A. (2013, November 6). Office smackdown: Parents vs. Childless Workers. CNBC. Retrieved September 19, 2022, from https://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/06/s.html
Nigro, Lloyd, G. et al. 2013. The New Public Personnel Administration. Available from: MBS Direct, (7th Edition). Cengage Learning US.
Sawhill, I., & Haskins, R. (2017, May 10). Welfare reform and the work support system. Brookings. Retrieved September 19, 2022, from https://www.brookings.edu/research/welfare-reform-and-the-work-support-system/
