Suppose you want to be able to work hard at a job you like but also have time for your family or for a life outside work. Womenomics, new book just excerpted by BusinessWeek, says no problem, the market’s going to take care of it. Why? Because most of us really want it:
• 63% of us believe we don’t have enough time for our spouses or partners
• 74% of us say we don’t have enough time for our children
• 35% of adults are putting significant time toward caring for an elder relative.Bottom line?
• Half of us want fewer hours
• Half of us would change our schedules
• More than half would trade money for a day off
• Three-quarters of us want flexible work options
And because more women are choosing jobs with worklife balance, and more companies are choosing to create those kinds of jobs:
But the most important component driving the change is that women are finally understood to be good for business…. And what’s remarkable about the process is that the change is coming as individual women everywhere negotiate to work the way it works best for them. And it’s coming in major waves, as companies start to open up their minds and company policies.
Oh, to live in the fantasy world of business gurus. Can I move there? And can I bring my friends — the ones who, forget about worklife balance, would be grateful just to work less than 50 hours a week? The world we seem to be stuck in is more like one Fortune Magazine described a few years ago, before the recession:
[Today,] declaring your interest in a human-sized job is like announcing a disease….
Either you’re a maniacal workaholic who runs the world–or you’re a Dilbert, punching a clock with little power and authority. Too many businesspeople think that’s just the way of the world. “You can’t have it all,” they say. But let’s be very clear on what “all” is. People want to work at the level they’re capable of and still have time for things outside work that nourish them…. To say this is “wanting it all” is like saying people should have to choose between food and water.
Even at the top of the corporate food chain, Fortune found a desire for work life balance but little room for it. Fortune’s 2005 survey of senior FORTUNE500 male executives found that
84% say they’d like job options that let them realize their professional aspirations while having more time for things outside work; 55% say they’re willing to sacrifice income… In addition, 73% believe it’s possible to restructure senior management jobs in ways that would both increase productivity and make more time available for life outside the office.
Of course there’s a roadblock to reform: fear. FORTUNE’s survey found that even though most senior-level men want better options, nearly half believe that for an executive to take up the matter with his boss will hurt his career.
And that’s the folks who have the best options in the market for individual choices. For the rest of us? Even Womenomics admits that “Almost half of working parents believe their jobs might be in jeopardy if they work flexibly.”
Step 1 of the model asks two questions: “What Are Our Values?” And if we choose to realize these values, “Are These Choices We’ve Got to Choose Together?” If most of us value worklife balance, the answer to the second question is pretty clear — we’re going to have to choose together.
