Web-conferences:

August 3: Leading from a Distance: A Practical Guide for High-Impact Virtual Leadership, featuring Darleen DeRosa, Ph.D, Managing Partner, OnPoint Consulting, 9:00 - 10:00 AM EST, Time Zone Converter

September 20: Engagement without Borders: How Global Organizations Build Employee Engagement, featuring Fraser Marlow and Mary Ann Masarech, Blessing White, 9-10:30am EST, Time Zone Converter

Additional web-conferences (dates and times forthcoming):

• Implicit Bias: Increasing Awareness for Improving Organizational Strategies
• Global Financial Wellness
• Work-Life in Germany

Global Summit 2012

Johnson & Johnson has offered to host our next Global Workforce Roundtable Summit in Sao Paulo, Brazil! Global members are asked to respond by July 29 with feedback on tentative dates (March 7-8, 2012) and topic ideas such as:  

a.         Supporting Employees with Disabilities around the world

b.         Embedding Flexibility Globally

c.          Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action cross-nationally

d.         Linking Talent Management with Work-Life/Flexibility

We would greatly appreciate it if you could send any feedback on dates and topics to cwf@bc.edu

GLOBAL RESOURCES

2011 Global Survey of Health Care Consumers

The rising health care cost coupled with the current state of the economy have prompted many consumers across the globe to delay care, alter household spending, and worry about their ability to pay for future health care costs. Regardless of the type of health care system, consumers around the world are feeling the pinch of health care spending as a household expense. See also Full Report

Global Diversity and Inclusion: Fostering Innovation Through a Diverse Workforce

As innovation becomes more of a key differentiator for the world's largest companies, these organizations increasingly see having a diverse and inclusive workforce as critical to driving the creation and execution of new products, services, and business processes. For global companies, diversity is no longer simply a matter of creating a heterogeneous workforce, but using that workforce to innovate and give it a competitive advantage in the marketplace. And as companies compete on a global scale, diversity and inclusion frequently have to shift, as different markets and different cultures have varied definitions of what diversity means.

Indra K. Nooyi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PepsiCo: New Leaders for New Realities

At the Chief Executives' Club of Boston, Indra K. Nooyi, chairman and chief executive officer of PepsiCo and "the most powerful woman in business" according to Fortune magazine, spoke about talent strategy and management, saying they are "as important as business strategy and management." See an excerpt from her talk on why good talent management is shifting from a very Western-centric perspective to a bit more distributed perspective. See full report.

Generations and Geography: Understanding the Diversity of Generations around the Globe

Today leaders are challenged to consistently harness the diversity of the workforce in ways that are creative and productive-to bring multiple ideas and approaches together in a constructive quest for a better way. As global business becomes the norm, companies that succeed at building and engaging a multigenerational, multigeographical workforce will benefit enormously, in innovation and on the bottom line. With the increasing importance of talent as a competitive factor, the ability to recognize and capitalize on the significant differences in workforces around the world and across the generations is one of the most important strategic opportunities for decades to come.

The Economist-Women in Business

Several governments, especially in Europe, have decided that radical action is required to increase the number of women in the executive suite. On July 6th the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for EU-wide legislation stipulating that at least 40% of seats on listed companies' supervisory boards will be reserved for women by 2020. Are quotas the answer? Can work-life play a more prominent role?

Have a question about what's happening at the Center for Work & Family?   Please contact us - we always love to hear from you!

Listserv Responses

• Responses to inquiries on Child Care and Educational Services,  Smoke Free Campus and Part-Time Work are now posted on the Members-only website 

• If your organization is looking for some benchmarking information, feel free to send an e-mail to newfa@listserv.bc.edu    

Global and National Roundtable Members receive complimentary membership in NEWFA! If your organization has representatives in New England, we would love to get them involved! For more information about NEWFA, please contact Jennifer Fraone at 617-552-2862 or sabatinj@bc.edu. 

Please join us on the member-only CWF Virtual Roundtable -an online community that allows members to share best practices and resources, as well as connect on multiples levels in a secure online outlet. The Virtual Roundtable consists of interactive features such as forums, live chat, groups, a CWF blog, and up-to-date resources and events, as well as other aspects of the community.

• Beyond Horrible Bosses: How Workplace Bullying is Affecting Your Bottom Line
  • Workplace Bullying Poll
• What Makes a Creative Day? Leveraging Work-Life Programs to Promote Innovation

• Please feel free to pose a discussion question in the forums section, and comment on or continue any open discussions!

Please contact Catie Maillard at maillarc@bc.edu if you would like a tutorial of the CWF Virtual Roundtable or would like more information about joining and participating.

Mission

The Boston College Center for Work & Family is committed to enhancing the quality of life of today's workforce by providing leadership for the integration of work and life, an essential for individual, organizational, and community success. Our vision is that employers and communities will work together to ensure their mutual prosperity and the well being of employees and their families.

Values

Bridging Research and Practice

We seek to advance the depth and quality of knowledge in the work-life field and serve as a bridge between academic research and organizational practice.

Transforming Organizations

We believe any work-life initiative is also an organizational change initiative. We help identify and develop organizational models to meet the needs of a contemporary workforce and provide expertise to assist in implementing these changes successfully.

Strengthening Society

We believe employers who recognize and manage the interdependence of work, family, and community build stronger organizations and a more vibrant society.

This week our research received significant international attention thanks to the cover story of Time Magazine titled Chore Wars. The subtitle makes the article's main point: Let it go. Make peace. Men and women, it turns out, work the same amount. The author, Ruth David Konigsberg did her homework. In addition to reviewing our most recent fatherhood study in great detail, she also reviewed the work of and interviewed many leading experts in the field including UCLA sociologist Suzanne Bianchi (the only two-time winner of the Kanter award which we present each year with the Center for Families at Purdue), Ellen Galinsky of the Families and Work Institute, Arlie Hothschild, whose book The Second Shift (1989) solidified the notion that working women do much more than their male spouses, and Joe Pleck, one of the original gender experts who explored men's issues.

The conclusion that Konigsberg comes to is its time to let go of the outmoded notion that men are slackers at home and do less than their spouse in terms of contribution to the family. She looked at the combination of paid and unpaid work that individuals do and concluded that while women with children who work full-time do carry the heaviest load, 73 hours of paid work and family work each week, men who work full-time were a not-too-distant second averaging 68 hours a week regardless of whether their wife worked outside of the home full-time, part-time, or not at all. Women working part-time were doing slightly less at 66 hours and "non-employed mothers" were contributing 58 hours a week to the family. Her contention was that Hothschild's findings were based on data collected nearly four decades ago. That was a time of transition when "white collar" women were beginning to work full-time in large numbers and men had not yet picked up the slack. While men have made dramatic changes in the last 40 years in terms of care giving and household chores, there remains an inequity on the home front for women. But at the same time, men on average are doing 18 more hours of paid work per week.

Most of the main point of the article seemed sound to me. First, the divide between what mothers and fathers are doing to support their families is not very great - you have to look at the big picture (or at least the combined picture of paid and unpaid work) to fully understand the pressures and strains that both members of the couple are feeling. Second that the myth of the "slacker dad" needs to be re-examined. In my mind it isn't that the fathers are slackers. It's that way too often, as our study The New Dad: Caring, Committed and Conflicted clearly demonstrated, from the day a baby is born men and women are channeled into roles based on outdated gender stereotypes. And finally, perhaps in large measure because of these gendered roles, women have far less "uncontaminated" leisure time than their spouse. Women tend to be the first port of call for every issue that arises in their family and as a result, their leisure time is filled with "just one quick question" or one small interrupt that doesn't make leisure time feel all that leisurely.

Chore Wars is a catchy title and the Konigsberg's research seems quite extensive for her piece. But moving beyond the old paradigm will require that we stop seeing all this as a gender war and start seeing the challenges of work and parenting as a true partnership where men and women don't view one another as adversaries or fall into the expected, pre-determined roles based on outdated mental models of who does what. Wars typically end with conversations that lead to negotiated treaties. It's time we jumped directly to thoughtful conversations among partners to determine how the family can operate best keeping each partners work, family and life goals paramount as they seek to maximize their contributions to the family while maintaining some semblance of a life for themselves.