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December 26, 2007

Work/Life: The New Gift-Giving

Looking back at the last few days of holiday celebration and gift-giving, it hit me how much things have changed. For instance, my father sent me an e-mail with the code for an Amazon gift certificate. In years past he would mail me a Christmas card with a check inside. And when we were giving out gifts, after a huge holiday dinner on Christmas Eve, my sister-in-law Cindy told my wife and I our gift hadn't arrived yet from Buy.com.

Is the convenience of the Internet making gift-giving less personal? Or is it just stripping away the hollow pretense it had before? I think giving someone a gift card is the easy way out. And a thoughtful and unexpected gift is one of the best things in the world. Yet, this opinion doesn't make me a better giver: at the office party I gave away a gift card for iTunes -- a non-object you can trade for other non-objects.

In what way has modern technology and convenience changed your holiday experience? And is it for the better?

Posted by Kevin Ohannessian at 12:33 PM | 3 Comments

May 22, 2007

Men and Women and Time Off

There's an interesting new survey out from Aquent, the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and Work+Life Fit. It brings some evidence to the question: Can women get away with more than men?

The researchers surveyed 495 men and women professionals, and also 190 executives with responsibility for hiring, recruitment, and retention at their firms. One finding: 68% of women and 58% of men said the would consider leaving the workplace for a period of time. Women ranked parenthood as the top reason they would leave the workforce (70%); for men, "avocation or life outside of work" was the most common reason, at 59%.

Here's the key, though: "While men are almost as interested in taking a break as women (59% versus 70%), they are hesitant because they believe women are more likely to be granted a break from the workplace. 75% of men said that employers are more likely to say “yes” to a woman requesting a leave of absence from work. In addition, 85% of men said that employers are more likely to say “yes” to a person with children requesting a leave of absence from work."

Yet the survey of corporate managers belied that assumption. "While a majority of individuals felt companies were more understanding of women (63%) and people with children (77%) taking career breaks, less than half of hiring managers said they were more understanding of women (41%) and or more understanding of those with children (44%)."

Do those findings jibe with your experience? What's the reality in your workplace? Is it easier for women to get time off--or do men just think so?

Posted by Keith Hammonds at 9:20 AM | 3 Comments

December 6, 2006

Hooked on Work: the Allure of Extreme Jobs

The setting Monday night for the unveiling of the Center for Work-Life Policy’s latest research, titled, “Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek,” couldn’t have been more appropriate: the very epicenter of Extreme Jobism, upstairs in the gilded conference room at the New York Stock Exchange.

Introducing the speakers, NYSE CEO John Thain, appeared a little baffled. What was the problem, he asked, with putting in those kinds of hours? “At Goldman Sachs,” he noted, “70 hours is just the first three days of the week.”

That’s it in a nutshell, said Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the Center’s president and the study’s co-author. For people who love their work – and who get supersized rewards for putting in super-sized hours -- the concept that they’re being harmed by spending so much time at work misses the point. They want to be there. They get a rush from their jobs. They revel in the challenge.

And every year, as there are more and more of them, they seem less and less aberrant. (Fast Company wrote about this phenomenon in April 2005)

To qualify as an extreme jobber, a worker must meet the following standards: first, work 60 hours a week or more, then, meet at least five of the following conditions: have work whose flow is unpredictable, work under tight deadlines, have work events outside of regular work hours, be available to clients 24/7, have P&L responsibility, have a large amount of travel, or a large number of direct reports, have a scope of responsibility that amounts to more than one job.

According to Hewlett, the pool of workers who meet the standard for extreme is growing. More than 20% of U.S. workers qualify, she says, and 45% of professionals in global companies. Measured by sheer work hours alone, 48% say they’re working an average of 16.6 hours more per week than they did five hours ago.

The reasons? Among the external drivers: the current global economic environment which often requires enormous travel and the necessity of being available at odd hours for conference calls and communication with the other side of the world; competitive pressures; vastly improved communication technology; and cultural shifts. Among the internal motivators: stimulating work, high quality colleagues, high compensation, power, and status.

But this steroid-infused idea of the workplace does not come without costs. Three quarters of the women surveyed said their work interfered with their ability to maintain their homes (66% of men said the same thing), two thirds said they don’t get enough sleep; half didn’t get enough exercise, and a significant number use alcohol, drugs, or food to alleviate their stress.

More than half say their sex lives have suffered; and nearly half say their work has interfered with their ability to have a strong relationship. Perhaps most disturbingly, a significant number of both men and women say their work life has affected their children. Among the behaviors noted: watching too much TV, discipline issues related to lack of attention; eating too much junk food; and underachieving at school.

Not surprisingly, there’s a gender issue here. Among the extreme jobbers in the U.S., less than a fifth are women. While women are well represented in jobs that require high performance (fast pace with tight deadlines, 24/7 client demands, etc.), once those jobs require more than 60 hours a week, there’s a huge fall off in women’s participation. Women, it seems, are more sensitive to the “opportunity costs” of long hour jobs, particularly as they relate to the well-being of their children.

“We’ve moved the goal posts to a place women can’t go,” says Hewlett. The inevitable result? Fewer women in the pool from which an organization’s top leaders are recruited.

Right now, the cost of these jobs has been mostly borne by individual workers. However, as the labor shortage projected in the next few years materializes, companies may find themselves having to rethink the demands of these jobs or watch their most valuable talent walk out the door. A majority of women (57%) said they don’t’ want to work at this pace for more than another year; 48% of men agreed.

As with most major workplace policy initiatives, the real change will come when it’s in a company’s own business interest to find a way to accommodate workers’ needs, not because it’s the nice thing to do. Some companies – particularly service firms – are already experimenting with new models.

Has your company done anything innovative to retain talent and/or eliminate the need for such extreme behavior?

Posted by Linda Tischler at 1:04 PM | 25 Comments

November 3, 2006

How Working Mothers Find Work/Life Balance

How do women balance careers with their responsibilities as mothers and wives? It takes energy, patience, hard work and (I can only imagine) tons of creativity.

A friend who’s married with two children and who works full-time recently told me, “You have no idea how profoundly your life changes once you have kids. By the time, I’ve taken care of my kids and of my husband, I have no energy or time left for myself.” To the ears of a single woman, these words sounded ominous. Millions of women, however, somehow manage to do it all, often at the cost of their “me-time.”

An intriguing article in The New York Times on Wednesday, called “Working Mothers Find Some Peace on the Road” explored how women are reveling in the precious time they have for themselves during business trips:

“But the allure of business trips for women is all the greater precisely because women tend to be the primary managers of the nitty-gritty of home life, segueing from the corporate world to the domestic realm.”

On top of all the responsibilities, women often have to deal with the judgment of others. One woman who has three children told the Times: “You meet all these investors, and they’re all men. They all look at me, and they always ask, ‘Oh, and how often do you travel?’ It’s such a loaded question. I’m now going to look like a bad mom or a bad portfolio manager.”

Therein lies the dilemma: can a woman work hard enough to succeed in her career without coming across as a negligent mother? And why doesn’t anyone look at working dads askance and say, “Oh, and how often do you travel?”

Posted by Polya Lesova at 5:40 PM | 11 Comments

August 24, 2006

Laptops Could Ruin Your Love Life

In The New York Times today, there's an interesting read about laptops and handheld devices coming into the bedroom. Some experts believe it can foster intimacy between couples, while others think that's malarkey.

Is having an electronic device in the bedroom any different from having a TV there? As long as the couple spends time together, how could it be a problem? I know that wireless connectivity and handhelds have caused some to become workaholics, but I find that I'm actually more productive in the bedroom--and you can take that any way you want to.

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 1:34 PM | 4 Comments

April 28, 2006

The Great Escape

Pardon me for being so late to weigh in; not sure where I was when Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott announced he'd be taking a four-week vacation.

Oh, right: I was working.

Let's ignore for a moment the ensuing flap over whether the CEO of the world's largest retailer should be leaving the store for so long--though to my mind, it's a sign that he's doing something right.

My question is this: What would it take for you to take a four-week vacation?

Here at Fast Company world headquarters, it's become increasingly rare for anyone to take even two weeks off at a time, despite company policy that, on paper, let's us take as much as we want. With regular deadlines and a lean staff, it just seems hard to abandon work and colleagues for that long. One of our staffers just shoehorned a vacation to Vietnam into a one-week window, when just getting there takes nearly a day.

Yet we all understand that a one-week break doesn't really cut it. It takes that long just to unwind, to really relax. Two weeks, three weeks--that's when the restorative powers of vacations really start to kick in.

We haven't read much about how Lee Scott is managing his break--except that he's taking his Blackberry along when he goes fishing. It may just be that a CEO, whose job should be to focus on the long-term, is just better placed to take a longer vacation than the rest of us.

Posted by Keith Hammonds at 3:26 PM | 9 Comments

April 20, 2006

Stop Multitasking

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 11:30, my calendar had an unmovable meeting. It lasted only half an hour but my assistant knew that on no account could it be changed or cancelled. And so, three days a week, at 11:30, I’d walk out the door; I’d be back at noon.

No, it wasn’t face time with the boss. I didn’t visit a therapist and I wasn’t at the gym. I held this all-important appointment for myself. It was my thinking time. I had finally reached the conclusion that, if I didn’t book time to think, I’d never do it. I couldn’t do it at my desk – phones, email, and In trays were too distracting. I couldn’t do it at home – kids, husband, garden, house, and the permanent pile of laundry were too demanding. If I wanted to think then I had to make time for it – and get that time protected.

Continue reading "Stop Multitasking"

Posted by at 5:53 PM | 14 Comments

April 17, 2006

France and Sanity

So, the French government caved. After months of protests by hundreds of thousands of university students, President Jacques Chirac agreed last week to kill off a proposed law that would have allowed private employers to fire workers under age 26 with less than two years on the job, without cause.

In many of the English-language news reports on the protests and their denouement, the implicit question was more or less: Are they nuts? France's economy is among the weaker in Western Europe, which itself is falling further behind the U.S.--which in turn is threatened by China, India, and the rest. The liberalization of France's rigid labor laws could, aguably, have helped ease the nation's 10% unemployment rate.

But I think there was something else going on here. The protests were really about preserving a certain, relatively sane, lifestyle in the face of global capitalism.

Continue reading "France and Sanity"

Posted by Keith Hammonds at 4:56 PM | 9 Comments

Work Your Proper Hours!

Last year I happened to be in London on Work Your Proper Hours Day, another thing we should think about borrowing from the Brits. Seeing Keith's Friday posting, I was curious to see what has happened since. Seems they're still toiling like Bob Crachit over there, despite having the unions on their side.

The thing that was especially cunning about their holiday was its timing. Feb. 24, 2006 was the day most Britons who do unpaid overtime finish the "free" days they give their company, and finally start earning for themselves. Now that's a stunning way to make the point.

The site even provides a handy online unpaid overtime calculator to help you figure out when you can celebrate paying off your own long hours debt.

In America these days, that's likely to fall somewhere near St. Patrick's Day. Wonder when that holiday might fall in France...

Posted by Linda Tischler at 4:18 PM | 1 Comment

April 14, 2006

Leave Early!

Are you still in the office? In New York, it's nearly 6 pm on the eve of a holiday weekend. What are you doing there? (What am I?)

What's keeping you from going home? Right now? Do you really have so much work that has to get done, or did you spend too much time in useless meetings, or responding to needless emails? Or, you know, checking the stats for your Roto league?

I got a note from the PR rep for someone named Laura Stack, who calls herself "The Productivity Pro." Stack apparently "has declared June 2nd as National Leave the Office Earlier Day. This national holiday encourages workers to eliminate time wasting behaviors and improve productivity habits. With better behaviors, workers can leave the office earlier and get home to their family and friends."

So, ok, this is an unusually shameless publicity ploy. And it worked--whatever.

What's the reality? If you were a lot better about organizing your work and your time, could you reduce a 10-hour workday to 8 hours? How would you start doing that? (We've written about one guy, David Allen, who might help you think that through.)

Or is there simply more work than a so-called standard workday can contain?

Now, go home. Seriously.

Posted by Keith Hammonds at 5:38 PM | 39 Comments

April 13, 2006

She Does It. Can We?

A couple of years ago, I wrote a cover story for Fast Company called Balance is Bunk. To summarize, I said that work-life balance was "an unattainable pipe dream, a vain artifice that offers mostly rhetorical solutions to problems of logistics and economics." You can't, I wrote, have everything--even if you work really, really hard.

So, what do we make of Sophie Vandebroek, who's profiled in our April issue? Ten years ago, Vandebroek's husband died suddenly, leaving her alone with three small children and no other relatives in the U.S. She responded not just by sticking to her career, but by taking on a string of increasingly challenging, high-profile roles. Her latest is chief technology officer at Xerox, a job she won in January.

Continue reading "She Does It. Can We?"

Posted by Keith Hammonds at 4:58 PM | 16 Comments

March 6, 2006

Supporting Actors

In the workplace, there are few bigger insults than being called a ‘part-timer’. Here in the UK we’ve just learned that there’s a hefty financial penalty to choosing part-time work. A report by the government-funded Women and Work Commission shows that British women who work part-time earn 32% less than the hourly earnings of women who work full-time and 41% less per hour than men who work full-time.

Twenty years since the term ‘glass ceiling’ was coined by the Wall Street Journal, similar pay gaps remain in most developed economies. In the United States, professional women, who for family or other reasons return to work in part-time jobs or roles with less responsibility, see their earnings drop by an average of 28% according to the New York-based Centre for Work-Life Policy.

But I suspect that, as much as women resent the pay gap, many are hurt more by the oft-heard slur that, by choosing to work part-time, they are less committed to their jobs.

There may be sexism at work here, but by and large the evidence points to prejudice against part-timers, regardless of their sex. In other words, many bosses still make a judgment about our motivation and commitment to a job by the number of hours we spend doing it. Talent, skill and enthusiasm are considered irrelevant. In offices plagued by this most virulent strain of ‘presenteeism’, even the most brilliant part-time worker is confined to a supporting or cameo role.

Problem is, a growing number of us no longer wish to work the traditional 40-, 50- or 60-hour week. In the U.S., nearly a quarter of the workforce are already freelance, work on a contract or temporary basis, act as independent consultants or run their own business. Maybe it’s time employers flicked to widescreen and saw the bigger picture.

Posted by Ian Wylie at 8:49 AM | 2 Comments

February 14, 2006

Grow Your Company Without Short-Changing Your Kids

I received this letter recently:

Dear Mark,

We met at the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year event in Palm Springs a couple months ago where I was one of the regional winners in technology. You remarked that it was too bad that my children didn't get the same kind of undivided attention that I gave to my company, which was my real "firstborn" child. We laughed at the time. After I returned home I realized it wasn't so funny and I didn't want to be a remiss dad.

My business does need me there to survive and succeed right now, whereas my kids have my wife to pinch hit for me. Actually that's being too generous to myself; she doesn't pinch hit, she plays mom and dad to them and I'm just making excuses. I wasn't that close to my workaholic father and I don't want to repeat the pattern with my kids. Any suggestions for how to give my kids quality time when I'm always rushed?

-In a Rush (used with permission)
Portland, Oregon

Continue reading "Grow Your Company Without Short-Changing Your Kids"

Posted by at 2:01 PM | 8 Comments

December 1, 2005

Killer Offices?

Bosses can be bad for your health, but is your office a potential killer, too? Researchers in Europe recently found a link between workplace noise and heart attacks, identifying a threshold of some 60 decibels -- about the volume of a typical busy office. A loud workplace can raise the risk of heart attack for men by nearly a third, the study found. There was no increased risk for women.

Worse still, ambient city noises alone, like commuter traffic or air conditioners, may also boost the risk for both sexes -- three-fold for women and up to 50% for men, according to the study.

Lead researcher Dr. Stefan Willich said noise combined with "smoking or pressure from meeting deadlines" deepen stress and anger, leading to physiological changes in the body. Current allowable levels of workplace noise, about 85 decibels, is equivalent to a construction site, Willich said.

Posted by Angus Loten at 6:32 PM | 7 Comments

November 7, 2005

Work Life Meets Night Life

As the current issue's cover story makes clear, creative and productive cities need to offer creative cultural outlets and options for the people who live and work in the area in order to succeed. So it's slightly interesting to see that Bangalore, one of the emergent outsourcing epicenters in India, has banned dancing in night clubs. (Subscription required to access the Wall Street Journal online.)

Bangalore has attracted a number of call center companies, technology businesses, and even schools dedicated to a new breed of worker -- which have in turn attracted a host of younger, creative business thinkers and professionals. This move -- arguably made on moral grounds -- could have intriguing impact on the continued growth of offshoring.

After all, regardless of where your business is based, if I can't dance, I don't want to be a part of your workplace revolution.

Posted by Heath Row at 4:12 PM | 10 Comments

October 19, 2005

From to Do, to Done

In line with the downloadable storyboard tools I pointed to last week, I just came across another PDF tool that may be of use. A colleague of mine says that at the beginning of every day, you should identify the One Thing you need to get done. Not started, not in process, but done -- closed, finished.

American Digest expands that somewhat with their Not Insane To-Do List. The downloadable 3-by-5 card-sized tool is simple: You get three to-do's a day. That's it. Three. If there are more, they roll over into the next day's three slots.

While this might seem lazy, I don't think it is. How many things on your to-do list are actually Things to Do? And how many are steps you need to take to get there? (A la, "Call Laura" is not a valid to-do list item... Surely there's something bigger that calling her leads toward.)

[via Focused Performance]

Posted by Heath Row at 11:28 AM | 2 Comments

August 17, 2005

Balance Isn't Getting Better

According to a survey conducted by Ajilon Office earlier this year, 55% of men polled say balancing work and home life is more difficult than it was five years ago. And women? 63% say the challenge has increased.

Interestingly enough, however, 77% of women surveyed indicate that being a parent helps develop leadership and management skills. 68% of men say the same: Despite the added stress parenthood brings, it can help improve your office skills.

What think you? Do parents make better leaders or managers? Take the Fast Company poll.

Posted by Heath Row at 10:13 AM | 1 Comment

August 8, 2005

Airport Security... Where?

Flashback (1 year ago this week): Donna William's wrote an excellent article Department of Airport Security on navigating through airport security. Now, in almost 30 years coaching leaders to eliminate negativity in their professional and personal situations, this case study takes the cake! Summary: Continue reading "Airport Security... Where?"

Posted by CoachPaul at 1:29 PM

Get Smart about Managing Marketing Burnout

According to the UK Recruitment firm, the Hudson Group, 44% of all marketers are facing burnout. I haven't seen any US figures on this yet, but last week's article in Brand Republic reinforces one of my hypotheses that today's marketers are being stretched beyond their limits.

The UK is feeling the backlash in the form of increasing absenteeism, turnover, poor morale and declines in productivity and quality of output. Conduct an informal quick poll of the marketers around you. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that this phenomenon is present in the US, as well.

Wanted: Marketer.

Continue reading "Get Smart about Managing Marketing Burnout"

Posted by Leigh from LivePath.net at 10:40 AM | 3 Comments

June 29, 2005

How to Be Idle? II

Following on John's post, it seems laziness has become the new management fad in France. (Of course some might argue that in the land of mandated 35-hour work weeks French sloth is hardly a new concept.)

Corinne Maier, an economist for France's state-run electric utility, has penned a new treatise called Bonjour Paresse (Hello Laziness) on the virtues of laziness (we call it relaxation here in the States) that has swept the country faster than you can say, "French women don't get fat." Among her "10 commandments for the idle" comes this bon conseil: "It's pointless to try to change the system. Opposing it simply makes it stronger." Mais oui!

Posted by Ryan Underwood at 2:41 PM

June 28, 2005

How to Be Idle?

There's a new and curious book on work--or more specifically non-work--that was reviewed in The New York Times Book Review this past Sunday: "How to be Idle" by Tom Hodgkinson, founder of a British magazine called The Idler. Hodgkinson's view is that the chief problem with modern life is not work itself. It is jobs.

Now that's a counter-intuitive idea for us at Fast Company. We think work gives meaning to life and is a reflection of one's true self. Or at least that's the promise and expectation of what a meaningful job and a career provides a person. Hodgkinson puts it very differently:

Continue reading "How to Be Idle?"

Posted by Editor in Chief at 10:58 PM | 6 Comments

June 10, 2005

Vacation Situation

The Spring 2005 edition of Fidelity Investments Stages newsletter highlights an interesting survey conducted by OfficeTeam, a temp staff service. The poll, which explored mistakes people make when taking a vacation from work, bubbled up some common challenges:

• 43% felt they didn't take enough time off
• 17% expressed that they couldn't relax or get their mind off work
• 8% said they checked in with the office too much
• 7% didn't prepare or organize their work before leaving

Diane Domeyer, the company's executive director, offers the following advice:

Continue reading "Vacation Situation"

Posted by Heath Row at 12:57 PM | 2 Comments

May 11, 2005

Leaders Listen

Fast Company deputy editor Keith Hammonds recently participated in a podcast with Landed.fm focusing on his Balance Is Bunk! feature story and our recent 25 Top Women Business Builders piece.

The segment addresses the stereotypical perception of women leaders, how work-life balance may be a myth, and related topics. Fire up your MP3 player and listen while you work!

Posted by Heath Row at 2:55 PM

April 22, 2005

Golden Anniversary

Today's Philadelphia Inquirer has a story about Bill Brown, 68, who is retiring after working for 50 years at Unisys. His longevity at the Blue Bell, Pennsylvania corporation is a testament to his ability to adapt to changing management and technology, and beating out dozens of layoffs. (Full disclosure: About half of my relatives, including my parents, worked at Unisys--then called Univac--about 35 years ago.)

Of course, as Unisys downsized by nearly 90,000 workers over the past 20 years, Brown admits in the article that "the last 15 years, you had to work at protecting yourself," which, by itself, doesn't sound fun. But he goes on: "The major part of it is just having a good attitude and recognizing that change is the only thing that we can really count on. Be there with the change. Don't resent it. Go forward with it. So I always had a contribution to make."

The article also goes on to note that, even in the 80s, less than a quarter of all men between 60 and 64 had been with the same company for at least 25 years. Nowadays, the average retiree has been with their company for about 10 years.
After a certain point, Brown's desire to stay at Unisys seemed as much about obstinacy as legacy. If you were offered a $100,000 severance package four months shy of your 50th anniversary at the company, would you take it, or gut it out? How long have you been at your current job? What was the longest you've ever been at one company?

Posted by Michael Prospero at 12:19 PM

January 10, 2005

Payday or Holiday?

If your holiday vacation already feels like history, you're not alone. A new Salary.com online survey found that an increasing number of employees would forego cash for extra time in the sun. If given the choice between a $5,000 raise and the equivalent in time off, 39 percent of online survey respondents chose leisure time, up from just 33 percent three years ago.

The folks at Salary.com want to point to the results as further evidence that we're all trying to seek balance in our lives and change our priorities. Perhaps. But as finding balance continues to be nearly impossible and the employment pictures stays fuzzy at best, maybe we've all just adjusted to a new reality, and are happy to take what we can get. What would you pick, if given the choice?

Posted by Jena McGregor at 7:47 PM | 14 Comments

October 6, 2004

Work-Life Imbalance

Keith Hammonds' October feature story, Balance Is Bunk! reassesses the state of work-life balance. Can we ever truly design a balanced life that works? Or is the journey a neverending series of tradeoffs and accomodations?

In her blog Talking Story, Rosa Say considers a couple of additional layers to the discussion. Reading a recent Margaret Heffernan column in parallel with an FC Now entry about management characteristics, Say challenges Margaret's contention that an emphasis on hours -- time spent at the office -- is about dominance and top-down control. Instead, she offers, our leaders may very well be lonely.

"Many managers are overworked, need help and direction, and want company," Say writes.

What think you? Are our leaders -- is being a leader -- lonely?

Posted by Heath Row at 10:00 AM | 3 Comments

September 30, 2004

Stress Much?

Probably because I'm running late today, my stress level is a little higher than usual. So it was neat to receive a news release from the Hoeffner PR Group offering 10 tips to ward off stress at the office. To whit:

• Organize
• Plan
• Prioritize
• Take mood breaks
• Decide
• Delegate
• Clear your desk
• Get it together
• Divide and conquer
• Eliminate interruptions

When you start to feel stressed, what do you do? Does stress have a positive or negative impact on your work?

Posted by Heath Row at 3:04 PM | 6 Comments

August 18, 2004

Take Your College to Work Day?

The New York Times reported today that many companies are beginning to offer college counseling to children of employees. That was sort of around when I was looking at schools - it was called nepotism and networking - see who your parents know and if they're big enough donors, have them write you a recommendation. Sure, these companies are bringing in outside consultants to run the programs, but come on. This is happening at places like IBM, AIG, and Goldman Sachs - the execs there make enormous contributions to their alma maters on a regular basis.

Despite my concerns with its inevitable bias (will IBM college counselors recommend tech-based schools?), I do think the programs will have their merits. Working parents can't always make it to college counseling appointments and now they get to be more involved in the college process with their children.

Work-life balance is always a big issue for anyone with children, and as kids get ready to move away from home, you'll want to spend more and more time with them. Since work can't be pushed aside just for life, we've come to the point where life has to squeeze itself into the work sphere.

What has your company done to ease school conflicts? When you have school events or meetings to go to, for college or parent conferences, how do you make time? Can you always make time?

Posted by Melissa Korn at 1:27 PM | 3 Comments

August 13, 2004

The Values of Cashmere

Imagine my surprise today when I opened up my copy of Neiman Marcus' The Book, looking for the best fashions for fall, and found a story that could have come right out of Fast Company.

The story, called "Ruling Class" by Harvey Sachs, is about designer Brunello Cucinelli, who is known as the King of Cashmere. The author writes that Cucinelli is " ... convinced that hard work ennobles life, but he emphasizes the difference between 'honest work' and that which causes people to sacrifice basic values or suffer from constant stress." Cucinelli gives every employee keys to his workshop, and there are no time cards. He says he was inspired "'... by the ideas of Theodore Levitt [the American marketing guru who said that the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer]. He believed in quality, marketing with a heart, and putting the clients' interests before profit.'"

Cucinelli has been buying up the town of Solomeo, in the Umbria region of Italy where his company is located and where his employees live. He is building a theater and an arts academy there for the use of locals and visitors, " ... with the hope that they will endure years after he and his factory are gone."

Posted by Katherine Stone at 2:38 PM | 1 Comment

Who Needs Motivation?

Attention procrastinators: help may be on the way. Likewise for managers stuck with an unmotivated workforce, or anyone who has to put up with that lazy coworker who makes your job that much more difficult.

In a study published this week by the National Academy of Sciences, researchers transformed four monkeys from slackers into workaholics by switching off a gene that caused them to adjust their level of effort depending on how soon they expected to receive a reward. In the test, each monkey was taught to press a lever that corresponded to changing colors on a computer screen, and at the end of the color cycle the monkey would receive a cup of juice. The monkeys soon picked up on the color pattern and would only press more urgently when they knew they were about to get the juice.

But when researchers injected a strand of DNA into each monkey's rhinal cortex, suppressing a gene that acts as a receptor for the neurotransmitter dopamine, it blocked the monkeys' ability to learn cues to predict their reward. The monkeys' overall work ethic improved and they no longer withheld their best efforts for right before payday.

So perhaps we can look forward to a day when we as a society are free of the need for motivational speakers, self-help business books, and all those expensive toys we reward ourselves with to make those 70-hour workweeks more bearable. Maybe we can even dispense with that $4 cappuccino needed to kick-start the workday. Just bring your rhinal cortex injector to the office, stick it in your head, and get to work.

Posted by Anjani at 10:47 AM

August 12, 2004

Roof Top Gardens

Peter, your query on Roof Top Gardens: Yokogawa Electric Asia in Singapore maintains a roof-top hydroponics garden.

Here employees are allowed to grow their own vegetables like tomatoes, rock melon, cucumber for home consumption, canteen and charity.

Multiple benefits!

Posted by Deepa Balaji at 12:40 PM | 1 Comment

June 21, 2004

Behind Every Good Business Man...

Earlier this year, Fast Company explored the state of women at work. A recent New York Times article -- and a growing literary genre -- takes a look at the flip side of the "Where Are the Women?" equation. If more women aren't working at high levels, what does that mean for the men in their lives?

They are late-boomer and post-boomer men who grew up in a climate of assumed equality and, for the most part, came of age fully expecting to take part in equal-partnership marriages.

Many at the younger end, according to a Families and Work Institute study conducted in the late 1990's, never intended, or desired, to play a typical provider role in their families. Many, like their wives, thought that our brave new world of no-gender-roles marriage would bring them a new level of personal fulfillment, emotional expression and freedom.

"Why should Daddy always be the one to miss out on those precious Kodak moments - the school plays and soccer games and parent-teacher conferences?"

Are we right back where we started?

Posted by Heath Row at 5:55 PM

April 19, 2004

Work-Life Balance (Spread)Sheet

Stewart Brand recommends Llamagraphics' Life Balance software -- the "to-do list for real life" -- as a useful tool to do more and stress less.

The "life balance" part comes at the start of using the software. You define a half dozen or so major life activities within which all your activities and tasks can be hierarchically outlined. Then you break everything down into projects, tasks, and subtasks. The program keeps a tally of what you actually do (ie. check off your lists) and keeps you informed how your overall balance is developing.

According to Brand, that pie-charting is the least interesting aspect of the tool. Instead, he says, the truly useful part is how integrated the list making is. Users can set repeating tasks, define lead times, assign relative importance and difficulty, break subtasks up sequentially, and add date-specific items to their calendars.

Might be worth a look!

Update: Incidentally, Johanna Rothman's recent item on "time boxing" as a project management tool could make a useful parallel read. "Timeboxing is a technique to fit what you can accomplish (some of the scope) into the time you have allotted. Timeboxing works when you have fixed schedule and fix team size, but the feature set is variable. If your users/customers don't help you prioritize the choices, the project team will choose which features to implement."

Posted by Heath Row at 11:28 AM

December 4, 2003

Family Tries

Congratulations to the Employers of the Year winners of the recent Parents at Work awards in the UK. Encompassing organizations particularly well-versed in employment practices, diversity, family-friendly culture, and innovation, the awards recognize:

• Telford and Wrekin Borough Council
• The Birmingham and Solihull Job Centre Plus
• Central Scotland Forest Trust
• Happy Computers and Telford and Wrekin Borough Council
• Citigroup and Farrelly Engineering & Facilities

Posted by Heath Row at 9:06 PM | 2 Comments

November 20, 2003

Calculating Balance

MSN Careers offers a quick quiz that may help answer the question, "Are you making time for you?" The 10-question exercise, which indicates where you stand in terms of work-life balance, isn't terribly useful as a problem solver, but the questions it poses are thought provoking. For example, I was caught off guard by "I tend to think of myself only in terms of my responsibilities to others."

Posted by Heath Row at 11:43 AM

November 12, 2003

Balancing Act: Men Need Not Apply?

The ferment over work-life balance continues to rage, with the most recent entry being the New York Times Magazine's cover story on women opting out of the workforce to stay home with kids.

Somehow these stories never mention the guys who are underwriting the mortgage, groceries, car insurance, etc. so their wives can spend quality time with the kids. Is work-life balance only a women's issue? Given a choice, would guys like more time at home too? Or is it a new status symbol to have a stay-at-home wife? Also, do guys risk being pegged losers at work if they are less than full-throttle? Would love to hear from others.

It will cost about $3 to access this archived New York Times article in its entirety on the Web.