SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOB MARKET: WORK AND FAMILY : Single Workers Are Asking, What About Us? : Benefits: With so much focus in recent years on family issues at the workplace, the other side is beginning to feel left out.
It reigned as the biggest concert of the year: the Rolling Stones, together again, at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. And Kevin Boethling was among the lucky thousands who held a ticket to the sold-out event in 1989.
But the ticket would go unused. As Boethling was preparing to leave work, his supervisor informed him of a sudden, urgent deadline.
“I said, ‘I have plans to go to this concert,’ ” recalled Boethling, then a single salesman at an office products company. “I was more or less told, ‘Too bad, the other people have to go home and take care of their kids.’ It was as if my personal life was considered less important than theirs.”
As Mick Jagger put it, you can’t always get what you want. And one thing that many single or childless employees say they don’t always get is equal treatment at the workplace. These employees say they are often looked at first for overtime, first for out-of-town transfers and last for raises.
Although they may sympathize with their overextended co-workers who are juggling 40-hour workweeks with baby-sitters, pediatrician appointments and school plays, they want to be taken seriously too.
Beyond the day-to-day slights--often committed unknowingly by supervisors with good intentions--single employees miss out on some of the family-oriented policies many forward-thinking companies are embracing. Paternity leave, for instance, is useless to the unmarried man who has no plans of becoming a father.
With so much focus in recent years on family issues at the workplace, the other side is beginning to ask, “What about us?”
Childless employees account for a big chunk of the U.S. work force. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 34 million female employees in 1991 did not have children under the age of 18, contrasted with the 22.3 million women who did. The bureau does not keep such records on male employees.
While many studies have documented parents’ struggles to mesh work and kids, the needs of single or childless employees are beginning to come to the forefront.
“Our focus groups have shown there’s a lot of anger among people without children,” said Bonnie Michaels, president of Managing Work and Family Inc., a consulting firm in Evanston, Ill. “Quite often, the single person or the person who doesn’t have visible family responsibilities is asked to take on an extra load and to work late. He or she isn’t considered a candidate for flexible work programs.”
She encourages employers to keep in mind that “everyone wants to have a life outside of work.”
Ellen Jalinsky, co-president of the New York-based Families and Work Institute, has also noticed growing discontent among single and childless employees. In recent surveys, the nonprofit research center has begun asking such questions as: “If you don’t have children, how do you feel about picking up the slack for those who do?” and “If you don’t personally benefit from some of your company’s policies, how does that make you feel?”
At one company with a large number of single employees, many of the workers said they felt overburdened. “The assumption was that if you didn’t have children, you didn’t have a personal life,” Jalinsky said.
Debbie Duke, 31, who works for a specialty equipment company in Los Alamitos, said she noticed how her employer grew more considerate of her personal needs after her recent marriage.
“When I was single, they didn’t appreciate the fact that I hadn’t seen my boyfriend in three weeks because I’d been working so much,” she said. “The relationship isn’t important to them until you’re married.”
Duke recalled an earlier incident when she was working for a home builder in Colorado. After learning that a married man in a similar job at the company earned more money, she requested a raise, but was turned down. “They told me to my face, ‘He has a family; he needs more money than you do,’ ” she said. Duke soon quit the company.
Although tempted to do so, Boethling, the Rolling Stones fan, didn’t walk out on his job after the concert incident. But he also remembered an earlier incident in which he felt treated unfairly because of his marital status.
Boethling was working in the Los Angeles office of a Fortune 500 company when his boss demanded that he fill an opening at the company’s San Diego branch. He protested, to no avail.
“Married people weren’t asked to even consider relocating,” said Boethling, 34, now a self-employed electronics sales representative. “Their justification was: Why should we uproot an entire family when you only have yourself to worry about? I said: ‘I have friends and family members here. Why should I have to leave them behind?’ ”
Health insurance and other benefits programs--which along with salary or wages are part of an employee’s total compensation--are other areas of concern to single and childless employees. These employees argue that, generally speaking, a married employee with children would use more of these benefits and would therefore get higher compensation than a single, childless co-worker in a similar job.
Patagonia Inc., a Ventura sportswear manufacturer, has taken a unique approach to the issue of health benefits: Its medical plan simply doesn’t cover dependents--period.
“We believe that it’s not fair for an employee with a family to get more benefits than an employee without a family,” said Terri Wolfe, Patagonia’s director of personnel. “All employees get equal benefits regardless of family status.”
Patagonia’s policy--which might seem severe to some--is interesting because the company gets high marks for other family-oriented policies such as flexible time, which allows employees considerable freedom to mold their own work schedules. “Some people like to work the late shift so they can surf in the morning,” Wolfe said.
A handful of companies and municipalities have begun adjusting employee benefits programs to take into account non-traditional lifestyles. Computer software giant Lotus Development, ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry’s Homemade in Vermont, the Village Voice newspaper and the cities of West Hollywood and Laguna Beach are among the employers offering health benefits to unmarried couples who live and share expenses together. And clothing manufacturer Levi Strauss & Co., based in San Francisco, plans to begin offering health benefits to unmarried partners of its 23,000 U.S. employees on June 1--the largest company to adopt such a policy.
Michaels, of Managing Work and Family, suggests that an equitable way to handle employee benefits is to set up a “cafeteria-style” benefits program.
“The company spends ‘X’ amount on each employee and employees can pick and choose the benefits that suit them best,” she said. For example, employees who don’t reap full advantage from group health insurance could opt for a couple of extra vacation days to balance the scales.
But a company’s benefit policies may not matter much in those situations when the boss is looking for someone to pull an overtime shift. There is a good chance the boss will feel a little less guilty about asking the single or childless employee.
On the other hand, accessibility has its rewards. In some cases, the freedom that many single workers have to take on extra assignments or work longer hours may help them advance faster in their careers.
“I feel that I’ve gotten much further in my career than I would have if I’d had children,” said Sharon Kaplan, vice president of Psomas & Associates, a Santa Monica engineering firm. “It’s been easier for me to take on responsibilities at work and to get ahead.”
Kaplan, 41, is engaged to a man who has a 3-year-old son. After her marriage, she hopes to slow down her professional life.
“I’ve been happy to have career as my focus,” she said. “I’ve done what I want to do in that area. The timing is perfect. Now I can sit back and enjoy my family.”
