Today’s workplace is profoundly out of sync with today’s workers. Longs hours, rigid schedules, and lack of parental leave was (sort of) fine, as long as one parent (usually mom) stayed home with the kids.
Now that about 70% of mothers in the U.S. work, let’s agree that this system is officially broken.
Why don’t we change? Because business leaders—still mostly male—are stuck in their old, crusty, stale ways of thinking. They believe that workers who spend more time at the office are more productive. (Not true, sirs! Low morale, long commutes, and stress bring down productivity. Also not so good for turnover costs…)
Business, which of all human endeavors, ought to be run by the numbers, hasn’t caught up to the facts, such as this one: Happy workers = a happy bottom line.
Enter the Custom-Fit Workplace
A new book by Joan Blades and Nanette Fondas is designed to drive this point home.
“The Custom-Fit Workplace: Choose When, Where, and How to Work and Boost Your Bottom Line,” describes how forward-thinking companies are adopting strategies for
- flexible schedules
- remote work
- off- and on-ramping
- contract work
- allowing babies at work
These practices make the workplace more humane and also help companies MAKE MORE MONEY. (Great news, business titans! You can indulge in your lust for profits and still be a mensch.)
The book also shines a light on something called high-commitment workplaces, which seek to replace a culture of fear and blame with one based on respect and responsibility.
The book is packed with case studies from a wide range of industries, proving these ideas are more than utopian theory. They have helped countless companies save money and increase profits, including some you may have heard of:
- Deloitte & Touche saved $41.5 million in turnover costs by redesigning the career track
- Financial services firm USAA increased its net worth and distributed $857 million in dividends in 2008, while its competitors were imploding
- Costco boasts a turnover rate 1/3 the industry average, in part by offering flexibility and part-time options
I had lunch with Joan Blades recently in Berkeley, just before her book came out. Among her goals, she listed making the term “custom-fit work” a household word, getting the book into every MBA program curriculum, and seeing the book front and center in the business section of airport book shops.
I would like to add a goal, which is that everyone buy a copy of “The Custom-Fit Workplace,” and GIVE IT TO YOUR BOSS.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I would buy a copy for my boss but I already have a great boss. (I’m self-employed.)
I totally agree with how out of sync the work place can be – and how this is also a critical time to push for change. ever since i’ve had kids (oldest is now 6 1/2) i’ve worked part-time. I’ve been lucky. i have managed to get and keep interesting and fulfilling jobs that meet my criteria of having late afternoons at home. being a working mom in the US does suck on many levels – i worked for the US Gov’t with NO PAID MATERNITY LEAVE (and how im kicking myself now that im working for an enlightened UK based NGO -just a few years too late!) — but there are some tricks to the trade that i’ve picked up in the last 6+ years with now 2 kids both exclusively breast fed.
A big part of it for me, is that we don’t talk to each other enough, we don’t say how much we are fucking up – at work and then we come home and loose it with the kids and how on bad days it feels like its all unraveling. or on good days, there’s no one who really gets how much it totally rocks that you gave an awesome presentation, dashed home to pick up kids and had a totally fun zoo outing….
when i joined my new job, i spent a good part of the second interview laying down my parameters as a working mom. i went after a very full time position but decided i could do it in 80% time (because honestly its hard for anyone to focus for the entire work day anyway). i tend to work my ass off – and then go. i don’t peak at the blackberry till the kids are in bed, but i do use every minute of my commute (on the train) working… as a colleague said at a meeting today, “its just not a 9-5 world any more”
i think its time, as clearly this book indicates, to create the change we want – to demand that it be more flexible. to tell your boss you can’t because the school play and then give yourself a break that you don’t make (any- yikes!) PTA meetings. pick the wins we want
im starting a working mom’s tea – every few months. late afternoon so we can get home on time but have a space to not network but to vent, to share strategies and get support. my city is full of women who look like they hold it all together, without perhaps enough time to figure out how to stop looking and start really feeling it – and demanding this custom-fit approach for all of us.
@Nomi How great that you’ve had INTERESTING part time work. So often part time options are dead end. Um, if you don’t mind telling us, what do you do?
I love the working mom tea idea. Someone tried to start something like that when I was working full time, but it was always on weekends, and I could never seem to get it together to actually go…Now that I don’t work full time, it’s so much easier to see friends, takes turns cooking dinners for each other’s families or watching each other’s kids, and help out in ways I couldn’t even think about before.
Katrina – thanks for the recommendation. I’ll buy it, read it, then give it to our HR VP. Such great timing, as i’ve been in negotiations myself (looks like it will happen) with the company where i am employed, to go 50% (from 80%) and job share with another mom (also 50%). In the company’s 20+ history, it’s the first job share EVER! I can attest that their willingness to be flexible here has created a real sense that “i’m being taken care of” and as a result i want to deliver & be even more productive/give back to the bottom line. i write this at 3am, b/c i awoke with my mind racing about all the things i’ll get to do with my 20 month old on my new mondays off with her. thanks again for the recommendation…