Flexible work schedules are really not enough
Six months after her baby was born, Amanda Sanchez still couldn’t imagine returning full-time to her job in marketing at Adobe’s Lehi, Utah, offices. Her family’s finances depended on it — but 40 hours a week away from her baby?
“You become so attached, it’s so hard to think of being away for an hour at a time,” she said. She hoped to return to work with a more flexible schedule, working from home at least a few days a week, but she hadn’t discussed it with her manager before going on leave. She figured she’d push for it once she got back. “If it wasn’t going to be offered, I’d look elsewhere for it, because it was important for me,” she said.
Luckily for her, while she was on leave, Adobe Systems had begun piloting a new programme that lets any US employee returning from at least three months’ leave work a non-traditional schedule at full pay for at least four months, once they’re back. Under the programme, employees such as Sanchez don’t have to stress about asking for a flexible arrangement — or the guilt or stigma that might bring. That’s because all returning employees must meet with their managers and with HR to discuss the possibility.
Many women drop out of the workforce after maternity leave because the rigid 9-to-5 schedule interferes with child care. An entire industry of services such as the Mom Project, which matches mothers with flexible work, promises the flexibility they want. And researchers have argued that less conventional work hours could close the gender pay gap.
But if new parents don’t take the flexibility that’s available, none of that matters.
Despite the growing popularity of alternative work arrangements and the proliferation of employers offering them to new parents , many people still feel stigmatised for even asking about their options. A survey by the Family and Work Institute found that two out of five people worry about using the flexibility their employers offer, fearing it could jeopardise their jobs. (People also fear taking paid family leave in the first place, a major Pew survey found recently.)
As a result, employees either decline to take advantage of flexible schedules or else hack their own. A 2015 case study of an unnamed, high-profile consulting firm found that rather than ask for formalising flexible schedules, men at the firm simply made their own schedules without telling their bosses or coworkers. (Women, by contrast, didn’t feel as comfortable bending the rules to their needs.) Less surreptitiously, people at some companies might take one day of parental leave each week, over a period of months, to work a reduced schedule without losing out on pay. — Bloomberg