Are Family-Friend Workplaces Positive or Negative for Business?

As a child, I’ve seen my parents focused the majority of their time and energy at their work to provide for our family. In 2000, the U.S Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics had recorded that working couples with children under 18 years of age worked an average of 66 hours a week compared to couples without children, who worked an

These figures demonstrate significant trends in the changing profile of today’s labour pool. Not only are companies forced to recruit and hire from an increasingly diverse workforce, but companies intent on succeeding also will have to retain, motivate and engage the most talented women. Flexible work arrangements are options for helping working mothers integrate work and family responsibilities, so that women can function better both at home and in the workplace.

As the American workplace has adapted its structure and culture to outside forces, the adaptations (such as location of jobs, changes in needed job skills, and organizational restructuring) have had an impact on employees and their families. Describe the way these adaptations have affected workers and families and analyze the responses of workers and families.

Roughly four-in-ten mothers say they have taken a significant amount of time off from work (39%) or reduced their work hours (42%) to care for a child or other family member. Roughly a quarter (27%) say they have quit work altogether to take care of these familial responsibilities...(Patten, 2015 [see figure 3]).

As stated in advantages, assignments would be met and production would increase. However, on the recourse parents may miss deadlines, because they keep checking on their children throughout the day. In addition, it may cause them to miss important meetings, because they are not readily available (Offering childcare as a benefit: pros and cons). Employers should set up parameters in regards to their employee’s children and what will be deemed as excessive from them completing their job related duties. Moreover, they should not demean them, but state what will be accepted and requirements expected of

According to Statistics Canada, the amount of two parented full time working families has gone up 17% since the 1980’s. As a result of such an outcome, more employees in larger and smaller based companies are finding it harder to keep up with both risen work loads and home life necessities, which in turn have caused more absentees in the work place. The reason being for this is due to

“A seminal study of 527 U.S. companies, published in the Academy of Management Journal in 2000, suggests that “organizations with more extensive work-family policies have higher perceived firm-level performance” among their industry peers. These findings accorded with a 2003 study conducted by Michelle Arthur at the University of New Mexico. Examining 130 announcements of family-friendly policies in The Wall Street Journal, Arthur found thst the announcements along significantly improved share prices. In 2011, a study on flexibility in the workplace by Ellen Galinsky, Kelly Sakai, and Tyler Wigton of the Families

Americans that work too many long shifts affect the lives of the people around them too. For instance, one statistic from a Family Matters Survey done by The National Partnership for Women & Families in 1998 found that, “70% of working fathers and working mothers report they don’t have enough time for their children”.Another statistic from this survey reported that over 80% of Americans found it diffcult to balance their work life and their personal life. In fact, it is estimated that around 11 million children age 5 and under spend time in a form child care facility every week(Child Care Aware of America). It is also estimated that children whose

The labor force of the United States has changed drastically over the last forty years. According to the Department of Labor, in 2012, 64% of woman with children under the age of six are in the labor force. While only 34% of mothers were working in 1970 (Gullekson, Griffeth, Vancouver, Kovner, & Cohen, 2014). Furthermore, in 1974, 80% of kids under the age 17 were cared for by a parent (Morrissey & Warne, 2011). Given this dramatic increase of mothers in the workforce, there is a considerable amount of time missed by the working parent. On average, American working parents miss nine days of work per year and that number increases to thirteen as the child moves through daycare and into elementary school. Breakdowns in childcare cost businesses three billion dollars annually (Shellenback, 2004). Given these staggering numbers the demand for reliable and affordable childcare has never been bigger.

The family-friendly policies includes benefits, child care, parental leave and many more.(84) These policies were created to try to eliminate the tension between the work place and family; also to help balance the responsibilities between home and work (84). Gilbert writes in the article, that the parental leave is about 12 weeks, but not all twelve weeks are paid leave; consequently the lower income are not able to benefit from this policy(84). Where the low income lack, the upper income do not. The child care policy benefits the low-income. In 2002, Douglas Besharov "estimated that between 1994 and 1999 federal and state expenditures on child care climbed by almost 60 percent."(84) Most of this helped the low income families (85). The United States are growing into a family-friendly place to live. United States has set up welfare programs, where unmarried mother can stay at home with their children; consequently, allowing married women with children expansion of the work force. Some can argue that welfare program should allow the mothers to work for their benefits instead of just handing it out to them (85).

As family and work patterns shift over the years, the demand for time off for family and medical needs has subsequently increased as well. Given the growing number of dual-earner families in the United States, employees often find themselves caught between the pressures of work and family responsibilities, especially during the birth of a baby, or the illness of a family member. The balance between work and family has become an urgent priority for millions of working-class employees because of the high labor force participation and the caregiving needs of the growing population; yet, the U.S. is the only high-income country in the world that lacks paid leave policies. Though some private businesses and individual states have implemented

* In Australia 70% of employed mothers used flexible work arrangement to help care for children

While Veragon corporation 's benefit package is somewhat lacking, it does leave for an opportunity to successfully evolve the organization into a workplace that embraces and manages a multi-faceted work-life portfolio aimed at reducing the work life conflict of their employees. Movement in this direction will be a great step in building their company towards a family friendly workplace. There are numerous initiatives that could be considered such as non standard work schedules, flexible work plans and work hours, subsidies for child care, work-school facilitation, part-time work or reduced-workloads, compressed work weeks, work schedules that revolve around family care or conflict, caregiver leave, creative pay for non standard work

In most modern industrialized countries, the proportion of working mothers with children under 18 greatly increased in the last few decades of the 20th century, to the point that one-half of all mothers with children under 5 are in the workforce.

·     Balance - "Management's recognition of the importance of personal and family life remains the top driver of employee loyalty. Employees who spend a moderate amount of time each week attending to personal matters while at work have a higher level of commitment to their employer than those who spend no time." (America @ Work 1999," Aon Consulting, Chicago, Illinois; 312.701.4844) Employers who provide a work/life/family balance