UPCOMING Web-conferences

April 11, 12-1pm ET: Too Engaged? The relationship between work engagement and family interference, featuring Jonathon Halbesleben, Associate Professor, Management & Marketing, Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, University of Alabama.  Register now (members-only link) 

 

April 26, 2-3 pm ET: Work-life in Germany, featuring Martin L. Stolz, Ph.D. Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt, Ingolstadt School of Management.  This web-conference is a companion piece to the forthcoming Executive Briefing on Work-Life in Germany.  Register now (members-only)  

 

June 5, 10-11am ET:  Is managing the work-family interface worthwhile? Benefits for employee health and performance, featuring Elianne van Steenbergen, Assistant Professor Work and Organizational Psychology, Utrecht University.   

 

October 19, 12-1pm ET:  Bosses' perceptions of family-work conflict and women's promotability, featuring Jenny Hoobler, Associate Professor; Grace Lemmon, PhD Candidate in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management and Sandy Wayne, Professor of Managerial Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago. 

 

Recent Member Events/Resources:

 

Brazil 2012: Contextualizing Work-Life In Brazil:  Sao Paulo, Brazil, March 6-8, 2012

Thank you to Deere & Company and Johnson & Johnson for your support! 

At the meeting, members of the Global Workforce Roundtable, along with academic thought leaders, and government officials from the Brazilian Ministry of Labor and Employment came together to:

 

• Understand the legal, cultural, social, and economic dynamics that influence work-life in Brazil
• Expand global mindsets by celebrating differences, addressing unconscious biases, and explore strategies that will help employees in global organizations to thrive.
• Strengthen the Global Workforce Roundtable community through continued collaboration and networking.

Meeting Takeaways, a document designed to summarize some of the key learnings from the meeting and translate them into potential actions for organizations, is now available.  Through our Members Only site, you can also access all of the meeting presentations and meeting materials. 

 

Information Requests:

NEW!  Recent Information Requests compiled for Global Workforce Roundtable members are now available online:  

• Multi-generational Global Workforce (statistics and 2020 projections)
• Flexibility in the Asia Pacific 
• Global Diversity Benchmarking 

 

GLOBAL RESOURCES

Diversity Initiatives and Women's ERGs in Europe

In Europe, an aging workforce, large population migrations, and persistent gender imbalance suggest that need for diversity initiatives are critical to the sustainability and advancement of the workforce.   This report, published by Diversity Best Practices, includes snapshots of several successful diversity and inclusion efforts in Europe.

 

Gender Discrimination In Taiwanese Workplace

Although the income gender gap in Taiwan has tightened in the last decade, Taiwanese women still face gender discrimination in the workplace with regards to raises, salary, and promotions. 

 

Singapore: Flexible Work Arrangements In Workplace

Singapore's Ministry of Manpower calls for companies to provide flexible work arrangements to access a bigger labor pool.  These flexible work arrangements-for example, part-time work and/or home-based work-are expected to allow employers to realize cost savings and improved productivity.

 

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

Please contact Jennifer Fraone with suggestions or ideas! Register now!

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. 

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.

 

For more information about the Center for Work & Family visit our website at www.bc.edu/cwf  or review our CWF brochure.
To contact us please e-mail cwf@bc.edu or call 617-552-2844.

We are appreciative of your support and proud to have your organization as our corporate partner.  Any feedback on this newsletter or about the Center for Work & Family is always welcome!

 

Sincerely,

 

For me, the month of March has included more than the run-of-the-mill work and family experiences. Two in particular stand out and speak to the complexities of the global challenges we face in these two related spheres, work and family, which dominate much, if not most, of our daily lives.  

   

On the work front, I had my first opportunity to visit Brazil where we hosted our annual Global Workforce Roundtable Summit with 40 representatives from 14 multi-national companies in attendance. Danielle Hartmann, our Director of Corporate Partnerships, did a wonderful job constructing the agenda and selecting speakers that gave us an in-depth understanding of the laws, cultural norms, and workplace practices that must be understood when working in this vibrant country. The gathering was a great success.  

 

Upon returning to the US and on the family front, my mother, who is now 90, had a series of minor strokes which impacted her significantly. These episodes left my family, and specifically my sister who was her primary caregiver, with the unwelcome decision that our Mom needed around the clock care. Her move to a nursing facility was traumatic and emotional as many of you can personally attest to from your own experience. Ironically, one of my colleagues at the Center was also transitioning her mother to a similar care facility at nearly the same time (that is two people in a Center with a staff of 7). In my case, a sister and her husband who had retired early and had my mother live with them for the past year made the logistics of the move less difficult for the rest of the family - but certainly not for them. I'm not sure what we would have done had my sister and brother-in-law not been able to manage this difficult and complex situation. Their efforts minimized the time impact for the rest of the family, but not the emotional one. In my colleague's case, the children of her elderly parent were still working so the move was emotionally traumatic and enormously time consuming for all.  

 

Both Brazil and the United States are large countries (populations of 200 million and 300 million respectively). They are both rich in natural resources and have diverse and high impact economies (the 1^st and 2^nd largest economies in the Western Hemisphere). Brazil is a country that has had many challenges in the past especially on the economic front where they experienced periods of prolonged economic stagnation followed by times of hyper-inflation.

 

The US has also experienced its own booms and bursting bubbles. In the late 1990's it was the dotcom meltdown and in the 2000's the real estate industry. But our swings have not been as dramatic as those of our friends to the South.

 

But to move away from the macro-issues in both countries for a moment, I'd like to go back to the more personal perspective.  

 

My impressions of Brazil were formed in Sao Paulo which makes any generalizations dangerous at best. It's like judging the United States from a visit to New York which of course no self-respecting Bostonian would ever do. Brazil is clearly a country on the move with a vibrant, growing economy and a young population (average age is 29), but it faces challenges in terms of sustainability that come with that growth. The three lasting impressions I had of Brazil were its wonderful people, economic growth, and massive traffic jams that seemed just a few cars short of complete gridlock. And this as the city of Sao Paulo continued on a very aggressive business development path. I wondered what could be done to continue to foster the country's economy while somehow maintaining or improving the quality of life for its citizens.  

 

By contrast, the US is not in a high-growth period. Our economy remains sluggish and our unemployment rate, while hardly the worst of world's major economies, remains too high. We also have an older population with 13% of our citizens over age 65. With the oldest baby boomers now reaching that age in large numbers that percentage is on the verge of a dramatic increase.  As we debate the merits of guaranteed healthcare for all citizens in the nation's highest court this week (which by contrast is a universal right in Brazil) we face an even larger problem called elder care that we have not begun to fully grasp. With MetLife reporting that the average price for a person to be cared for in a private room in a US nursing home exceeds $70,000 per year, our spending on elder care may make the price of your child's college education seem affordable. And the emotional toll, time investment, and lost work productivity resulting from this this issue may make the economic costs seem like the least of the problem.  

 

March was an excellent reminder for me - both professionally and personally - of the tremendous challenges that confront two great countries as they each search for ways to improve their quality of life. And an equally great reminder of the importance of the work we engage in  on a daily basis. 

 

                     Brad