Corporate Voices for Working Families

Search Institute, a member along with Corporate Voices for Working Families of the Ready by 21 National Partnership, recently released Teen Voice 2010 a national survey of 1,860 15-year-olds, sponsored by Best Buy.

“This year’s Teen Voice survey shows us the importance of positive adult-teen relationships. As caring adults, we must all do a better job to give teens the support they need to thrive,” said Brian Dunn, CEO, Best Buy Co., Inc. “Teens play a unique and important role in shaping the world in which we live, and it’s critical that we foster opportunities to make their voices heard and improve their chances for success. “

Teen Voice 2010 explores three interlocking concepts:

• Sparks – teens’ deepest passions and interests
• Voice – teens’ confidence, skills and opportunities to influence things that matter to them
• Relationships – teens’ access to high-quality resources and relationships that help them nurture their strengths

Teens who scored highly in each of the three areas do better on every academic, psychological, social-emotional and behavioral outcome studied, suggesting that they are also on the path to success in school, work and life. This year, only 7 percent of 15-year-olds scored high in all three areas.

The Teen Voice 2010 survey found:

• Thirty-eight percent of 15-year-olds did not score high on any of the three strength areas.
• Overall, just 22 percent scored high on the voice index, indicating that few teens feel as though they have the confidence, skills and opportunities to voice their opinion and influence the things that matter most to them.
• Just 51 percent scored highly on the spark index, indicating a gap in the proportion of teens who are fully engaged with the issues they care about most. This gap could have an effect on workforce readiness. Nearly six in ten (57 percent) students said pursuing their sparks has given them a lot or a great deal of new skills that would help them in a career.

This 49 percent gap in the spark index could continue to have an effect on the preparedness of entry-level workers. As Corporate Voices learned in  Are They Really Ready to Work? new entrants to the workforce do not arrive with a core set of basic knowledge and with the ability to apply their skills in the workplace. A follow-up report, Tomorrow’s Workforce: Ready or Not, showed that young people can learn these important workplace skills, but we, as a country, are failing to provide the opportunities they need to do so.

Young people should have opportunities to participate in the activities they are passionate about. As we state in Strengthening America’s Economic Competitiveness, business, community and education leaders have a chance to come together to “create a coordinated and integrated system of learning and development that provides a range of opportunities” for young people – not only to find and activate their spark, but also to use that spark to gain skills they will need to be successful in the workplace. This success of our future workforce will ultimately drive business sustainability, ensure global competitiveness and uplift the standard of living for working families.

The Teen Voice report includes recommendations and advice directly from young people about how adults can tackle the deep and sustained issues that undermine teens’ success. Adults play an important role in forming relationships with teens, listening to them and serving as positive role models – and teens who have these relationships have a significant leg up when it comes to staying, or getting, on a path to success.

As part of this year’s study, Best Buy and Search Institute created a video to visually highlight the key findings of the report and outline steps adults can take to develop more meaningful relationships with teens. To watch the video, visit www.bby.com.

As a Ready by 21 Mobilization Partner, Search Institute will be taking this research into the Ready by 21 communities to assist leaders in engaging the youth in their communities. Youth engagement is an important component of the Ready by 21 strategy, which meets leaders where they are, challenges them to think and work differently, and helps them progress further and faster to deliver results for youth. Without a successful strategy to meet the needs of young people, communities lose their potential to build a competitive workforce, strong social networks, stable families and future leaders.

For more information about @15 and to view the full report, log on to www.at15.com.

More information about Ready by 21 and other Corporate Voices’ workforce readiness initiatives, research and publications is available on our website.

By Jennifer Weber

Working Mother is now accepting applications for the second annual Best Companies for Hourly Workers recognition.

When Corporate Voices initiated Best Companies for Hourly Workers in partnership with Working Mother last year, we wanted to highlight those companies that set the standard for best practices for hourly workers. We also wanted to use this recognition as a way to engage business leaders and policymakers in an important discussion about hourly workers and their role in our nation’s economic competitiveness.

Clearly, our inaugural celebration held in May more than exceeded those expectations.

• Six outstanding companies – CCLC (Childrens’ Creative Learning Centers), Marriott International, McDonald’s USA, Sodexo, University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics and UNM Hospitals – were named Best Companies for Hourly Workers.
• We celebrated their leadership and best-practice management during an engaging, informative and extremely well-attended forum and luncheon, with Marriott CEO J.W. Marriott Jr. providing the keynote remarks.
• The winning companies received substantial online media recognition for their innovative programs and support of hourly workers.

Now we are working to build on that solid foundation as we continue to expand the recognition of those leading companies that are dedicated to creating and using best practices to support their hourly employees.

More detailed information is available here about the 2011 Best Companies for Hourly Workers recognition and eligibility requirements. The online survey is open to applicants now through October 15, 2010.

Winning companies will be featured in the May 2011 issue of Working Mother magazine and on workingmother.com, and will be invited to celebrate their success at an event to be held in the Spring of 2011.

South Korea, one of the Asian Tigers noted for its exceptionally high economic growth rates and rapid industrialization throughout the second half of the 20th century, has discovered that its fertility rate is among the lowest among developed countries.  South Korea’s fertility rate is 1.19, compared to the U.S.’ rate of 2.1. This low rate has serious social implications and will affect the future health and vitality of South Korea’s workforce.

The fertility rate measures the total number of children an average woman will have during her child-bearing years. The replacement rate, or rate at which enough children are born to replace people who die in the population, is 2.1. This is the rate that countries need to maintain the sizes of their population. If South Korea continues to have low birth rates, its population could decrease by 10 to 15 percent by 2050.

According to the Korea Herald, this is a huge problem.

From the article:

“The decline in the birth rate is a serious problem. It means that the country faces a declining labor force in years ahead. The population in the 30-40 age group has been declining since 2006, according to the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family. By 2018, those over the age of 65 will constitute 14 percent of the population. Unless the falling birthrate is reversed soon the country is destined for a weakened economy and a failure of the social security system.”

The demographic trend in South Korea is similar to what we are seeing in the U.S., although South Korea’s demographic shifts are more dramatic. For the first time in history, South Korean women aged 30-39 gave birth to more babies than women in their 20s in 2005. In America, the Pew Research Center found that more women who were 35 or older were giving birth to more children in 2008 compared with 1990 data.

The fact that children are increasingly being born to older women in the U.S. is a function of increasing educational attainment and getting married later in life, among other factors, however it is not hindering the overall birthrate of the country. In South Korea, however, women are not only waiting until they are older to have children—women are increasingly choosing not to have children at all.

To fix this problem, the South Korean government has, for many years now, taken measures to encourage families to have more children.

“The government has unveiled a plan to offer bigger tax incentives for households with two or more children in order to arrest the declining birth rate. The economics package, however, also includes more welfare measures for married couples, [such as] more day care services, preschool education, and improved child care facilities…to encourage South Koreans to have more children.” –LifeSiteNews.com

Not seeing the birthrate improve, the government has broadened its approach to include more than just financial incentives to encourage people to have bigger families. The government has realized that because of overt and subtle discrimination against working mothers in South Korea, larger families will require effort from the public sector and the business community to provide policies such as more flexible work arrangements, availability of affordable, high-quality childcare, and maternity and parental leave.

South Korea has started sending researchers, officials, and students abroad to learn and research how other cultures have used family-friendly business policies, in the hopes of learning from best practice models.

Students from Chung-Ang University in Seoul last week visited Corporate Voices to learn about its partner companies’ best-practice family-friendly workplace policies. They heard from Donna Klein, who told them about the history of the work-life movement in the U.S., about the history of Corporate Voices for Working Families, and about the emerging consensus in America that there is a business imperative for policies that help working families.

The students plan to stay in America for a week conducting site visits, interviewing other family-friendly U.S. companies, and researching the work/life field. When they return to South Korea, they will publish their findings in the hopes of encouraging South Korean companies to adopt management systems that benefit working families.

Corporate Voices believes that family-friendly policies such as workplace flexibility helps improve the business bottom line. In its report, “Business Impacts of Flexibility: An Imperative for Expansion,” 29 America firms provided data showing the positive business impacts of flexibility policies and practices. The data showed that flexibility practices improved employee engagement, productivity, and well-being. As such, they are a valuable recruitment and retention tool for key talent in an organization.

Corporate Voices is proud to have its partner companies serve as best-practice models for family-friendly workplaces, and to serve as an adviser for other countries in the work-life field. We look forward to following the outcomes of the students’ research when they return to South Korea.