Adventures in Alternative Work Arrangements
When it comes to creating career opportunities that support your life and goals outside of work, your words and actions can help transform alternative work from good policy to good practice. The author provides strategies to help readers interested in flexible work arrangements identify existing options; highlight their impact rather than the work hours they log; consider the visibility and opportunity impact of extra work before saying yes to taking on more; and clarify how responsibilities at home might shift based on work commitments.
In these difficult times, we’ve made a number of our coronavirus articles free for all readers. To get all of HBR’s content delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Daily Alert newsletter.
Before having kids, we tend to envision ourselves as the devoted company worker, always present, fully committed, and willing to give extra effort to get the job done. But with kids come new demands, especially for the majority of us who are in dual-career households. Our commitment and career ambitions hold true, it’s just harder to fit life around traditional work structures. It would seem that alternative work programs — flexible hours, remote work, part-time salaried work, job shares, and lateral moves — create a win-win for employers, employees, and families.
Unfortunately, alternative work is a bit of a ruse. Most employers offer it, usually as part of their inclusion programs to attract quality talent (you!). But, often it’s an empty gesture as few employees ever use these options. Research in the U.S. and Europe confirms consequences we already know: using these programs means certain career death.
We desperately need these options. Not on paper, but in practice in our lives. With no yellow brick road to follow, we must find our own way forward. Here are four steps to making an alternative work program work for you:
Get real. Just because a company is recognized as a top employer for parents doesn’t mean alternative work is mainstream. Often, it functions like a glorified mommy track, and access is based on manager preference (and what works in one department may not work in yours). In developing your alternative work proposal, look around, chat with colleagues, and tap into HR to assess potential acceptance and barriers:
Make it worthwhile. Build on areas of acceptance and overcome barriers by helping your leaders realize there are different ways to show career commitment:
Buck gender assumptions. Even though family structures have evolved into countless variations, stereotypes of life divided between a working husband and a stay-at-home wife linger. With alternative work programs, men get the benefit of the doubt while women get punished as motherhood seems incompatible with work commitment. At home, alternative work for women usually translates into more domestic burden, like childcare or housework, but for most men, it facilitates other work arenas like training or a side gig. Consider how gender assumptions intersect with the life you’re trying to create:
Vote with your feet. Finally, if you can’t get support for an alternative program that works for you, take your talent elsewhere. Re-allocate discretionary time to job searching. In your exit interview, tell HR exactly why you’re leaving, as company execs read these reports.
When it comes to creating career opportunities that support your life and goals outside of work, your words and actions can help transform alternative work from good policy to good practice.
If our content helps you to contend with coronavirus and other challenges, please consider subscribing to HBR. A subscription purchase is the best way to support the creation of these resources.
Michele Benton is President of lime LLC, a marketing strategy, capabilities, and performance consultancy. Fed up that society’s message to working parents is “Embrace the Suck”, she runs the blog and resource center BeSaturated.com to help contemporary professionals create a good life in today’s global, social, and digital times. Follow Michele on Twitter @michelebphd
Adventures in Alternative Work Arrangements
Research & References of Adventures in Alternative Work Arrangements|A&C Accounting And Tax Services
Source
0 Comments