Open, Flexible Work is the term we use in the MOTHERS agenda to refer to workplace practices that accommodate both work and family needs. *Click here to skip to tips & tools you can use in your workplace.
Flexible work arrangements give parents the ability to work more flexibly, regardless of the person's level in the organization. Factory workers, middle managers, and executive level employees all need to be able to structure their work lives in a way that allows them to meet both business and family needs. The fact is that flexible work is good for all workers--parents and non-parents. Good work/life fit is of value to everyone and as a consequence it is good for business.
Offering flexible work options helps the corporate bottom line by increasing employee satisfaction, productivity and retention. It also can foster significant customer good will and certain kinds of flexibility reduce physical overhead. All this ends up benefiting business. It's a win-win--for both families and businesses.
MomsRising is working to help make America more family-friendly--and parents less crazy busy--by encouraging employers of all types to adopt flexible work arrangements, including:
People want options to work flexible schedules and remotely from home. Other ways to make the workplace more compatible with today’s workers’ lives include results-only work environments, taking infants to work, redesigning career, tracks, and opting for contract work.
Becoming a parent means there are new demands on our time and for many of us, we feel strangely disloyal to our jobs after we have kids. And yet, many of us become better employees. So why do mothers make only 68% of what men earn? And forgetting about the disgraceful pay inequity for a moment, why is it that we feel so horribly guilty when we skulk out of the office at 4:30 to pick up our kids from daycare? Could these two things (guilt and pay inequity) be related?
…At some point, of course, I realized I wasn’t happy. I was trapped. I had money, but not time. It was like being surrounded by food, and dying of thirst.
It turns out that there is a way out of this mess. There are people all over this country–both women and men–who have made a conscious decision to value their time more than their money. Against the formidable current of popular culture, they have decided that this may be the only life they will ever have, and they’re going to live it fully.
