If Brown’s firm was talking out of both sides of its mouth, so are many others. While a growing number of corporations are adopting credos of “family-friendliness, " many are finding the concept works better in theory than in practice. Many managers look at expensive parental perks, which especially benefit working mothers, as a threat to the bottom line. They say granting such special favors sets unwieldy precedents. To be sure, a handful of corporations have adopted the position that helping families can help the balance sheet–even in recessionary times. They are offering everything from “intergenerational” day-care centers to rooms equipped with electric breast pumps . Still, “three fourths of all companies are just beginning to think about this,” says Ellen Galinsky, coauthor of a newly released Families and Work Institute report that rates family-work initiatives. “It’s largely a piecemeal effort.”
To add to the problem, working moms aren’t getting much help from the government. President George Bush is expected to veto the family-leave bill passed last week, shifting more of the responsibility for work-family incentives to private corporations. Those companies will have good reason to care about moms on the corporate ladder. By the end of the decade, about half of the work force will be women, according to New Ways to Work, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that promotes workplace flexibility. If firms want to remain competitive, recruiting and keeping women with children will become a major challenge. Many workers will be single parents or part of two-career couples. And with companies cutting back, there’ll be more work for those left behind–a big problem for working moms. Companies may also have a legal incentive to cater to moms. A recent study by Wright State University shows that a woman on pregnancy leave is 10 times more likely to lose her job than an employee on other kinds of medical leave. A separate analysis of maternity-related cases before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that a quarter of those filed during the past three years resulted in cash awards to moms.
While most companies agree that accommodating parents is important, how to do it is a matter of increasing debate. Two years ago a groundbreaking article in the Harvard Business Review by Felice Schwartz touched off a storm of controversy. She proposed that corporate America should think of female managers as fitting into two broad categories: “career primary” women who put work first, and “career and family women” who want to divide their attention between work and family. Feminists worried that such a system–dubbed “mommy tracking” by the popular press– would only reinforce corporate and social prejudices about women. But at the same time, the piece opened the floodgates of discussion. “Up to then, there was a conspiracy of silence [about how to handle career women],” Schwartz says. “The article got people talking.”
Few companies have embraced the mommy track, but some are at least beginning to address the issue. In the seminal study by the New York-based Families and Work Institute, researchers Dana Friedman, Carol Hernandez and Galinsky devised a “family-friendly index” that looks at such options as alternative work schedules, job sharing, on-site child-care facilities and parental leave. What they found was that 79 percent of the 188 firms surveyed had not moved beyond an ad hoc response to employees’ family needs. Out of a top score of 610, only four companies scored at or above 179 points: Johnson & Johnson, IBM, Aetna and Corning. The average score was a mere 68 points.
What the high scorers had in common were written policies and a commitment to encouraging managers to use them. IBM allows some employees to work out of their homes and gives workers flexibility during lunch hours to take care of personal needs. Aetna grants up to six months’ unpaid leave at the time of a birth, adoption or serious illness in the employee’s family. Corning offers both formal part-time work and informal job sharing, and rewards managers partly on how well they handle employees’ family problems. At Johnson & Johnson, employees can even place their child in an I. M. Pei-designed child-care center where tuition fees are determined by family income, so that working moms won’t have to make a choice between their jobs and their kids. “For the first time we sent out the message that it’s OK to work with employees to minimize work-family conflicts,” says Christian Kjeldsen, vice president of human resources at Johnson & Johnson’s New Brunswick, N.J., headquarters.
But sometimes that message doesn’t get through. Corning found that only a small percentage of employees take advantage of its policies. The reason: “They tell us they think it’s too risky,” says vice chairman Van Campbell. “They’re concerned that they won’t be viewed as serious.” In some cases, changes bring overt resistance. Campbell says a lot of older women resented changes made to accommodate young families. And some managers believed that part-time jobs and flexible hours couldn’t work in some environments. Corning employee Katherine Funk came back to work part time–with the blessing of her boss–after the birth of her twins but soon found there were not enough staff members to cover for her when she was out. She has since transferred to another division.
Some companies aren’t exactly egalitarian about dealing out their perks. At San Francisco’s Morrison & Foerster, considered one of the most family-friendly law firms, lawyers are granted six months of childbirth leave, while support staff may take only four and a half months. Managing partner Keith Wetmore says the discrepancy is largely market driven; staffers such as secretaries aren’t as apt to demand the kind of extensive benefits lawyers do. “It’s a troubling discrepancy,” he says. “But it’s an expensive benefit. And we’re still not the People’s Republic of Morrison & Foerster.” The policy has caused some dissension among women at the firm. Says Joanne Hoeper, a part-time attorney who was recently named partner: “It seems like an elitist division. We’re all mothers, whether we’re secretaries or attorneys.”
How well do family-friendly policies boost the bottom line? At Corning, turnover has dropped by half, and Aetna reports the number of mothers who don’t return from maternity leave has plummeted by more than 50 percent since extended-leave policies were adopted. Some managers say they’ve been able to retain top employees–and save money–by allowing flexibility. Bank of America senior vice president Fran Taylor was able to keep two experienced employees by accepting their job-sharing proposal. At Apple Computer, job sharers Janet Wollbrinck and Kathy Tovar say they offered “two minds for the price of one.” But the main advantage to employers may be more subtle. “I was able to balance my life. I can go to Elliot’s soccer practice or Elyse’s school field trip and also be a lawyer,” says Morrison part-timer Rochelle Alpert. And that may bring a peace of mind that employers can never quantify.
Although many companies have been slow to respond to the needs of working mothers, a number have adopted innovative programs. A sampling:
Operates a kids’ summer camp at one site.
Provides “Mothers’ Rooms” equipped with electric breast pumps and refrigerators.
Kids-To-Go program takes children on field trips on school holidays when parents have to work.
Has “sick bay” for ailing kids.
Offers on-site intergenerational day care, where children and seniors can interact.
Has a Child Development Center with petting zoo, gardens, theater and computers.
