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| William L. Boyan President and Chief Operations Officer John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company |
Today, managing work and family obligations more often than not becomes a balancing act for employees. Given economic necessities, it has become increasingly difficult for families to participate in their children's education. In spite of an era of downsizing and scarcer resources, some employers have begun to establish internal and external policies and practices that help employees integrate their work and family lives and their subsequent involvement in children's education.
The kind of change required to meet new economic challenges is further confirmed by "The New Economic Equation Project." Sponsored by Radcliffe Public Policy Institute, the project "recognizes that the economic well-being of our nation will rest on a new, integrated relationship among work, family and community. Issues of economic change, workplace organization, family health and community vitality are highly interconnected. Work and family life should not be in opposition, but should enrich each other" (Joshi 1996).
Researchers at the Families and Work Institute have observed that employers respond in a variety of ways to the family and personal life concerns of their employees, often evolving from one approach to another in stages. Frequently, this evolution is from narrower to broader approaches; for example, moving from focusing on employed mothers in the beginning, to targeting other employee groups, but these stages are not always followed sequentially. Many employers also work on issues of two or more stages at the same time. The five stages of family friendliness are described below.
THE FIVE STAGES OF FAMILY FRIENDLY COMPANIESSTAGE I: Employers focus on addressing women employees' child care needs. Overcoming an initial resistance to address these issues, the company might offer a child care resource and referral service to help employees find child care, or provide assistance in paying for child care.STAGE II: Employers broaden their scope to include men, as well as women, to address a wider, more coordinated, comprehensive effort relative to family and personal life issues, and thereby expanding the definition of "family." For example, companies might add elder care resource and referral services, parental leave for mothers AND fathers, and beginning and end of day flextime. In communications to employees, they would position this expanded list of policies and programs as an integrated work-family agenda. STAGE III: The focus shifts from work-family to work-life in recognition of the fact that companies are trying to address the needs of all workers throughout the life cycle. Employers realize that their programs and policies will achieve their intended effects only if they exist at the organizational core within a supportive culture. There is an expanded focus on communications: publicizing managers' commitment to work-life issues; finding managers to serve as role models; removing mixed messages within the organization; and trying to align policy with practice. Employers also focus on improving the way front-line supervisors handle employees' work-life experiences and on making the organizational culture more family-friendly, linking work-family issues to business strategies and other human resource issues, such as managing diversity, developing human capital, or improving quality. STAGE IV: Using a work-life lens to focus on work and work processes, employers question how the organization of work affects both business productivity and personal tasks and/or family well-being. The answers become a catalyst for change as companies recognize that they can profit by looking at the whole person. Now companies characteristically look away from the notion of work-life conflict toward work-life synergy—looking for ways that work life and family/personal life can enhance, not detract from, each other. STAGE V: Employers' efforts at family friendliness link community with company. Employers build a sense of community in the workplace and align efforts at work with efforts in the community, for example, supporting efforts to increase family involvement in children's education by providing more workplace flexibility and by participating in community efforts to do the same. Now companies also promote and provide training for skills (such as conflict resolution) needed at work, at home, and in community participation. |
For employees spending a high proportion of their working hours on the job, the workplace becomes an excellent forum for family support and education. However, employees cannot do it alone; coordinated and cooperative efforts—whether internal to the company or in partnership with other community stakeholders—must be planned and developed to address this important work-life issue.
Successful implementation of internal company policies and practices that support family and employee involvement in education depends on selling top management, gaining widespread organizational support and ownership, and articulating and sharing benefits to the bottom line with managers and employees. Internal policies and practices related to family involvement in education could include flexible time and leave arrangements, job sharing, part-time work arrangements, employer-sponsored seminars and parenting programs, dependent care assistance, resource and referral services (including "hotlines"), on-site day care centers, education assistance benefits, and literacy training for adults.
ACT, Incorporated, Iowa City, Iowa As a non-profit organization serving the educational community, American College Testing (ACT) has long recognized the necessity of parental and other adult involvement in educational institutions. ACT provides family-friendly personnel policies and benefits such as flexible schedules and a 37.5 hour work week to its employees. It provides funding and technology to help involve parents in their teenagers' educational and career planning processes. It supports the education of most of its employees' children by contributing towards the costs of four years of a college or university education. In addition to encouraging parental/employee involvement in local school activities, ACT has provided significant funding for technology in local schools. As a non-profit, ACT reinvests any earnings received from its programs back into educational services. |
"I'm a single parent...the thing I appreciate because it helps me to be involved with my children...is the flexibility...my supervisor lets me work late or come in early in order to go to a program or a teacher conference at school...I use those two floating holidays to go on field trips or help in classroom or science projects or go to programs my kids are in..."
Teri Herfert |
In a national survey, many employers reported a "dramatic reduction in both absenteeism and tardiness" when employees were given the option of working flexible hours. The survey also found that after three years of the flextime option, 64 percent of the firms reported turnover reductions (Friedman 1991).
Some employers offer flextime at the beginning and end of the day. Employees can choose to come in and leave earlier or later than the standard work hours. The band of flexible time at the beginning and end of the day varies from company to company; the wider the window of choice the more employees will be able to take advantage of flextime to be more involved in school activities. Overall, 29 percent of employees have access to flextime (Galinsky 1993). At GT Water Products, a small manufacturing company, almost half of the 23 employees work a flexible schedule.
Another version of flextime is sometimes called "lunchtime flex." Employees who work for companies like IBM (which has a formal lunchtime flex policy), work longer days from start to finish, but can take 1 to 2 hours off at lunchtime— enabling them to visit a neighborhood school or eat lunch at their child's day care center.
Employers can offer flexibility by allowing part-time work or job sharing. Overall, 57 percent of employees work for organizations in which part-time work is available (Galinsky 1993). According to a study by the Families and Work Institute, many employees, including 19 percent of those with young children, say they would willingly trade a full-time income for a part-time one in order to spend more time with their children (Galinsky 1993).
Job sharing is another way to create part-time work. One example can be found in the Jefferson County Public School System in Kentucky where teachers are permitted to job-share; currently, at least 10 elementary and high school classrooms are shared between two teachers.
Recently there has been much talk of work-at-home, or telecommuting. Allowing employees to work at home on a regular basis (when appropriate to the job) gives them extra flexibility in arranging how and when they get work done, and saves them commuting time. Employers who offer telecommuting opportunities have generally reported that employees continue to perform as well or even better than they had when they worked on-site. Such an arrangement, although no substitute for child care, allows parents to be at home after school, have lunch with their children, or be available to meet with school staff. According to Families and Work Institute, 24 percent of employees have access to work-at-home, including many employees of US West, The Traveler's Companies, and the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education (Galinsky 1993).
Many employers have taken flextime a step further. Organizations that wish to actively promote family involvement in education have established educational time-off policies which they make available to all employees, whether or not they have dependent children. This encourages all employees—grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbors and concerned citizens—to become involved in the lives of children in the community.
Some employers allow parents to be absent or late on the first day of school so that they can accompany their children to school, meet classmates, teachers, and other staff, and, in schools that permit it, spend some time with young children to acclimate them to the new setting. RJR Nabisco and NationsBank, among others, have such a policy.
Other employers allow a certain number of hours or days off to participate in school activities. School Specialty, a school supply company, allows each associate 24 hours each year of paid time on educational activities. Those employees who do not have children in school are able to participate in programs with one of the company's local partner schools. On a regular basis, School Specialty associates participate in reading groups, art projects, and special events at the Badger School in the Appleton School District, Wisconsin.
Our nation will be unable to meet point four of President Clinton's Call to Action, "expand Head Start and challenge parents to get involved early in their children's learning," unless the quantity and quality of child care is improved. This is of crucial importance, because child care is often children's first learning experience outside the home, and studies reveal that the current quality of early care and education is uneven. Employers' growing awareness of the importance of quality child care and good schools as a matter of public concern has reinforced their own efforts to support working parents who are in their employ relative to child care needs and school improvement. Across three national surveys, employers reported that recruitment and reduced absenteeism were the two most strongly perceived benefits of company child care initiatives.
Consequently, business involvement and efforts have increased. Responding to the need for available, affordable, and quality child care, many businesses are now providing child care for their employees. They are sponsoring child care resource and referral services, collaborating in the training of child care providers and in promoting accreditation, and subsidizing the high costs of child care.
Thirteen percent of large employers provide child care for their employees through on- or near-site centers; such companies include Merck & Company, Inc., SAS Institute, Inc., and Campbell Soup Company. Several organizations that cannot afford to support a center on their own have joined with other employers to form a consortium child care center. One such center, in Randolph, Massachusetts, is co-sponsored by Codman & Schurtleff (a division of Johnson & Johnson), Dunkin' Donuts, and New England Telephone.
Marriott International, Atlanta, Georgia As part of an industry that relies heavily on hourly service workers, Marriott has always been interested in understanding and responding to the needs of lower income employees. So it was natural for the human resources department at the Atlanta Marriott Midtown Suites to play a lead role in collaborating with local hotels to create a family center for their employees. In 1997 the hotels, which include the Omni Hotel at CNN Center, the Hyatt Regency Atlanta Hotel, the Marriott Midtown Suites and the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, will open the doors to a state of the art child care and family resource center in downtown Atlanta. Because many service employees work non-traditional hours, Atlanta's Children's Inn will provide subsidized child care 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. It will accommodate 250 children, and in addition to child care it will provide a variety of family services including nutrition counseling, parenting education workshops, a community resource center, and a "Get Well" child care program for children with minor illnesses. Tuition is set on a sliding fee scale based on family income and size, with low-income families paying no more than $60 to $85 weekly for child care. |
Child care resource and referral services, available to 20 percent of employees nationwide, give employees access to trained specialists who can refer them to available child care openings in their communities, and provide educational materials to help them choose quality care (Galinsky 1993). Employers either provide an in-house referral service or contract with an outside service; multisite organizations can contract with one of a number of services that operate nationwide.
Providing quality child care is costly. In turn, it is expensive for parents. To ease this burden, employers such as Levi Strauss & Company have adopted programs that help employees pay for child care, sometimes on a sliding fee scale based on the employee's salary. Other employers arrange discounts for their employees at specific child care centers in the community. Fifty-five percent of large companies take advantage of federal tax law by offering Dependent Care Assistance Plans (DCAP), which allow employees to set aside up to $5,000 of their pretax salaries for child care expenses.
Employers can also work to improve child care in the larger community. For example, the American Business Collaboration for Quality Dependent Care (ABC) consists of over 100 companies and public/private organizations that have committed more than $127 million to improve the quality and increase the quantity of child and elder care in more than 4 dozen communities around the country. Projects vary widely, because they grow out of regional needs, but some examples are science and technology summer camps (in which school-age children work with professional scientists and engineers); a training program for teachers of infants in child care; and a toy lending library and resource room that provides equipment, materials, toys, and technical assistance to area child care homes and centers.
Designed and initiated by the BankAmerica Foundation and the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network, the "California Child Care Initiative Project" includes 500 corporations, local businesses, and public sector funders that have contributed $7.8 million since its inception in 1985. They have recruited more than 4,400 home-based providers and trained nearly 30,000 new and experienced providers. This project was replicated in Michigan and in Oregon with funding from the states and the Ford Foundation.
Employer-sponsored seminars can cover a wide range of topics. Seminars at the workplace are typically run by local parenting experts or through contracts with national or local child care resource and referral services. DuPont has developed lunchtime seminars whose topics range from "What to Expect in Kindergarten" to "How to Connect With Your Teenager."
"Parenting for Education" is a parenting seminar series developed by U.S. West Education Foundation to promote school success. Employers and community groups purchase the 8-hour program, which includes a kit for trainers and materials for parent participants. Interactive exercises and structured discussion groups aim to give parents the understanding, confidence, and skills they need to become positively involved in their children's education.
GTE Corporation Each year, GTE sponsors a one-day seminar on the ABC's of college planning. Since the centerpiece of the seminar is a broadcast teleconference, GTE employees all over the country and their families can participate. The teleconference brings together experts in the field of college planning, who proffer advice on everything from choosing a school to getting accepted and navigating the maze of financial aid. They are followed by a panel of other "experts"—a diverse group of recent college graduates and current students, who participate in a moderated discussion of college life. Before and after the teleconference, local sites are encouraged to build on the program. GTE arranges for most locations to offer an SAT workshop. In addition, many of the sites arrange college fairs in conjunction with the telecast, bring in local school superintendents or other education experts, and invite local high school students and their families to participate as well. The seminars have been a huge success: in the past 2 years, thousands of people participated in over 30 GTE sites around the country. |
Parenting and training programs for parents are managed both on and off business work sites. A few of these programs are described in the following paragraphs.
Parents as Teachers (PAT) is a home-school-community partnership program designed to support parents of children from birth to age 5 through home visits by parent educators, parent support groups and a referral network. Established originally by four school districts in Missouri, PAT is now mandated as a service in that state, and has been replicated in hundreds of other school districts around the country. Honeywell and Motorola have each adapted the program for their employees.
Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) is an early intervention program designed to support parents as a child's first and most influential teacher. The program is delivered by paraprofessionals, themselves former participant teachers in the program. During home visits and group meetings, they role play the educational materials with the parents. This sets up successful learning experiences for the parent and child, who work together with the materials 15-20 minutes each day. Hasbro, Bank of Boston (in Chicago), Primerica (in New York City), and Baltimore Gas and Electric have all contributed substantial funding and in-kind donations to HIPPY.
MegaSkills is a parent education program that trains individuals to run workshops for families. Workshops teach parents how to foster skills that build school success, such as confidence, motivation, responsibility, teamwork and problem solving. The Fort Wayne, Indiana Chamber of Commerce and Merck are among the many employers to sponsor MegaSkills programs for employees and the community.
Ambassadors for Education is a program disseminated by the National Association of Partners in Education (NAPE). Delivered in the form of a hands-on workshop, it is designed to get adult community members more involved in the schools. Some employers, such as UNUM Life Insurance, BellSouth, and Shell Oil have sponsored workshops for their employees.
Southern California Edison Realizing that parents are a child's first teachers, Southern California Edison (SCE) actively supports a parent education program called the Parent Institute for Quality Education. Through an eight-week course provided through local schools, the Parent Institute encourages low-income, ethnically diverse parents of elementary and middle school children to take a participatory role in the education of their children. Courses are customized to meet parents' concerns, but always include a focus on how parents can play an active part in their children's education, both at home and by working in partnership with their school. In addition to supplying substantial funding for the Parent Institute, SCE works with leaders of the group to bring in other funds. Because schools offering the training must also put up a portion of the costs, they have a stake in seeing that the training works, and that parents really are offered ways to get more involved. In the past three years, SCE has sponsored classes for more than 8,300 parents. Many graduates have lauded it as a real "eye-opener," and have gone on to recruit other schools into the program. In recognition of the program's effectiveness, SCE provided a $100,000 grant, which was matched by the LA Annenberg Metropolitan Project, to help meet the demand for this parent training. |
MELD is a service that runs family support and information groups for teen mothers and fathers, single parents, parents of children with special needs, deaf parents, immigrant families, and other new parents. Programs are offered in dozens of communities nationwide. Employers can refer parents to local groups as well as make MELD parenting materials available to employees at the workplace. In Utah, the Internal Revenue Service distributed MELD materials to its employees. MELD also welcomes volunteers and both in-kind and financial donations.
Some employers, such as John Hancock and Southern California Edison, have established family resource libraries from which employers can borrow books or videos. Some employers contract with providers of parent resource hotlines. Employees can call an 800 number for advice and information on education-related issues, such as how to motivate their child, how much to help with homework, or how to help a child who is having trouble with math. Ameritech has a "teenline"—a telephone hotline that provides counseling specifically on teen-related issues. Employees of Marriott International call their company's "Associate Resource Line" to consult in one of 17 different languages on issues ranging from child care needs to accessing community services.
Hospital of Saint Raphael, New Haven, Connecticut Knowing that its surrounding neighborhood lacked a public library, the hospital of Saint Raphael, a non-profit employer of about 3,000 employees, decided to create an after-school reading room for local families. The reading room, located in space provided free of charge by the New Haven Police Department, is staffed by volunteers from the hospital staff and the community. Books are donated by hospital employees and the hospital's Auxiliary. Since the reading room is widely used by children after school, it is also stocked with reference materials, maps and computers. Volunteers assist children with their homework and serve as mentors. Organizers report that parents frequently join their children to help with school projects, or check on their children's progress with the reading room volunteers. |
Some employers provide employees with newsletters and other materials or sponsor employee subscriptions to parent newsletters, such as Work & Family Newsletter or Education Today, which is typically customized in some way and distributed free-of-charge to all interested employees. The FamilyEducation CompanyTM, which publishes Education Today, has also developed an information-rich web site, along with a service that helps school districts build their own web sites to connect schools, families and communities. Through these sites, parents have access to minutes from school board meetings, curriculum information, online discussions with their peers, and more.
Discovery Communications, Inc. is dedicated to providing quality educational programming for both children and teachers from pre-school to high school. The Discovery Network's Educator Guide is issued twice a year and contains a wide variety of information on Discovery Network's educational programs and initiatives. In addition, Discovery has launched an online service called Discovery Channel School Online. This service provides teachers from grades K-12 with lesson plans, curriculum-based activities and pre-screened, related websites. A group of Subject Area Managers(SAMs) are online educators who provide peer-to-peer support in curriculum-based areas of study including: science and technology, social studies, natural science, arts and humanities, contemporary issues, library technology, media literacy and general discussion.
Literacy training has become a business necessity; it has a crucial role to play in family education as well. MIT economist Lester Thurow estimates that only 20 percent of adult Americans have the work skills or education to be competitive in the global market. Parents and other adults who can read to children help them develop the love of words that will ease them along the challenging road to full literacy. Adults who demonstrate the value of learning by continuing their own studies, and the value of reading, by reading to children or themselves, are important role models.
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[Community Based Efforts]
Integration of Work, Family and Education