Corporate Voices for Working Families

Corporate Voices for Working Families was pleased to be invited to the White House launch of the Middle Class Task Force on Working Families this morning.

 Donna Klein and Tiffany Westover-Kernan attended, along with a group of a hundred individuals representing the House, Senate, administration, labor, and advocacy groups. 

While it was an honor to meet both President Obama and Vice President Biden, we were impressed with the candor of the formal remarks and the very casual management of this launch event.

Members of the Task Force include the Secretaries of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Commerce as well as the Director of the National Economic Council, Office of Management and Budget, Domestic Policy Council and the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.

 The Task Force outlined five goals:

 - Expanding education and lifelong training opportunities

- Improving work and family balance

- Restoring labor standards, including workplace safety

- Helping to protect middle-class family incomes

- Protecting retirement security

 The first two goals are closely aligned with the work of Corporate Voices, and we hope to be able to continue the dialogue with Task Force members. The first meeting is February 27 in Philadelphia on the subject of Green Jobs: A Pathway to a Strong Middle Class.

The following guest post was written by Ellen Galinsky, President and Founder, Families and Work Institute. Ellen is a member of the Board of Trustees of Corporate Voices for Working Families.

I was at the same time cheered and chagrined to read an article in the New York Times Sports Section last weekend (January 24) about WNBA star Candace Parker’s effort to balance career and family.

 I was pleased to read yet another example of a high achieving woman making choices about finding the right fit between parenting and professional life on her own terms. 

Over the past several months Americans have become familiar with a 40-something female candidate for Vice President who is the mother of five; a 30-something international film star and UN Goodwill Ambassador who is the mother of six; a newly appointed Senator from New York who is mother to two very young children; and now the 22-year old marquee star of the WNBA who is having a child in the early prime of her career.

In all cases, we see that women can be successful at work and can find their own way to manage their family responsibilities.

Yet I also felt a familiar pang of disappointment that when a women wrestles with these choices it makes for headlines and feature stories, whereas a man’s decision on work-life is a footnote, if mentioned at all. When will it stop being news, but rather business as usual, that women and men alike make hard choices to pursue their careers in conjunction with a family?

For those in the front office of the WNBA or Los Angeles Sparks who worry about the short-term challenge of losing Parker for several months, they might be heartened by lessons learned from the business world. 

Research conducted last year by our Institute and Catalyst shows that having the right fit between work and the rest of their lives was the third most important value to senior corporate leaders—both women and men. However, this study found that women were less likely than men to work in workplaces where their values were actually realized. When leaders worked in workplaces where they could manage their work and family life, they were much more likely to be engaged and to stay with their employers. 

The takeaway for an employer in professional sports: support your star employee in her (or his) life choice today and you have a much better chance of winning loyalty in the long term.  In the world of multi-million dollar athletes who often switch teams for the highest bidder, higher loyalty may pay very quantifiable dividends down the road.  Meanwhile, I look forward to the day when such every day support plays out in private offices, not the media, as do most personal employment issues.

Interesting article in The New York Times this morning about the stimulus plan that is working its way through Congress and the amount of money earmarked for education: “Stimulus Plan Would Provide Flood of Aid to Education.”

The plan targets $150 billion in federal spending over a two-year period, reaching programs from Head Start to college. Here’s from the article:

 The proposed emergency expenditures on nearly every realm of education, including school renovation, special education, Head Start and grants to needy college students, would amount to the largest increase in federal aid since Washington began to spend significantly on education after World War II.

Critics and supporters alike said that by its sheer scope, the measure could profoundly change the federal government’s role in education, which has traditionally been the responsibility of state and local government.