Cuts in family-friendly benefits pressure mothers
| • | Support groups grow for moms at work, at home |
By Stephanie Armour
USA Today
After Melissa Kimball's son was born, she asked her company to let her work part-time on a permanent basis. When they said no, Kimball said goodbye.
"I didn't want to quit. I loved my job," says Kimball, 36, an architect in Washington, D.C., who left her job in April to stay home with Chance, 20 months. "But I felt like, if I'm not valuable enough for them to make family-friendly policies work, then the job isn't for me."
Companies that once touted family-friendly benefits are cutting back in this tight job market, slashing programs that let employees telecommute, work part-time, share jobs or take paid family leave. The reversal is having a profound impact on working mothers now struggling with whether to leave jobs for their families.
The labor force participation rate of mothers age 15-44 with infant children under 1 year old slid from a record 59 percent in 1998 to 55 percent in 2002, part of the first downward slide since the Census Bureau began tracking the figure in 1976.
While those women heading home may represent a return to more traditional family arrangements, some workplace experts suspect they may also be leaving the workforce — at least temporarily — because they can't find the flexibility they seek.
"Some of the reasons women are going to the home is because organizations are not stepping up to the plate. Some organizations are cutting back," says Lisa Levey of Catalyst, a research and advisory group in New York.
The number of employers offering paid family leave dropped from 27 percent in 2001 to 23 percent last year, according to a Society for Human Resource Management survey of nearly 600 members. Those offering flexible work hours tumbled from 64 percent in 2002 to 55 percent in 2003. Job sharing dropped from 26 percent in 2001 to 22 percent last year.
A separate study by tax and business information provider CCH of more than 400 employers also found that family-friendly programs are getting the ax, with job sharing dropping from 37 percent in 2002 to 30 percent in 2003. Telecommuting fell from 47 percent to 45 percent during the same time. And those offering compressed workweeks, which generally let workers put in their hours over four days rather than five, slipped from 49 percent in 2002 to 40 percent last year.
Not all companies are slashing benefits, and some work-family experts say employers won't go too far, because these benefits are so valued by employees. But the cutbacks have left some working mothers feeling squeezed.
Companies, meanwhile, are in a cost-cutting frenzy. Work-life programs are sometimes scratched as part of that effort and because they're seen as benefiting only some employees. But many of these programs don't cost much to implement, so cost-cutting is just one reason for the change.
In this competitive business environment where being accessible to clients is critical, some employers are reducing family-friendly programs because they perceive a greater need to have everyone in the office. Others have tried the programs but think they don't work: More than a quarter of supervisors say telecommuting can impair job performance, according to a 2001 study by Menlo Park, Calif.-based staffing services firm OfficeTeam.
And some employers remain uncomfortable with the benefits. They worry that some workers will abuse arrangements such as telecommuting and that so many employees will want the arrangements that they'll be forced to pick who gets the perk.
"In the 1990s, there was this feeling that these policies were necessary. There's been quite a turnaround," said Steven Friedman, a New York lawyer and chairman of the benefits practice at law firm Littler Mendelson.
While a number of work-family experts believe companies will expand those programs once the economy improves, others say the economy's health is so uncertain that any comeback will take time.
Meanwhile, working mothers say it's frustrating to make life decisions based on benefits that can vanish the next day.
But it's not just an issue for mothers. Childless employees who want to spend less time in the office and working fathers also say they're facing more resistance.
It was a rough lesson for Robert Smith, 30, a father of four children, all younger than 9. His wife also worked for a telemarketing company, and the children were in daycare. In 2002, Smith worked at a public-relations job, but he often missed work when his children got sick. His company allowed 12 days to be missed for personal reasons or illness in a year. On the 13th absence, Smith says, he was fired.
"Companies say they're family friendly, but it's only pro-family if nothing goes wrong," says Smith, of Rockford, Ill., who has started his own public-relations business, Robert Smith & Associates PR.
Cutbacks in family-friendly policies could mean significant recruiting and retention problems once hiring accelerates. Robert Morgan, president of employment solutions at Spherion, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based recruiting and workforce solutions company, says, "There's real pent-up demand for changing jobs, and I'm not seeing companies respond with retention strategies."
