SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CAREERS / PART-TIME CAREERS : Redefining Success : Part-Time Professionals Are Shaping a New Work Ethic

When Rosemary Mans finished college two decades ago, the “superwoman” concept was just taking hold.

Women, the theory went, could have it all. They could have fast-track careers, satisfying family lives and exciting social schedules all at the same time. Television commercials popularized the notion, showing women in suits whipping up gourmet meals for the kids after a hard day at the office--then going out for a night on the town.

Now it’s the ‘90s and the superwoman is dead. Or at least on an extended sabbatical.

An increasing number of women who wanted--and had--it all are giving up part of it.

Frazzled by too many demands and too little time, they’re backing out of five-day-a-week jobs, opting for shorter hours, smaller salaries and reduced benefits to buy back some time for themselves and their families. They are leading what may be the fastest-growing trend in the work force: professionals working part time by choice.

“What I was doing was using my money to buy back time--to buy back a part of my life,” said Mans, vice president of flexibility programs at Bank of America, who went to a three-day-a-week schedule six years ago. “I had to run through the numbers to make sure I could pay the mortgage on just 60% of my salary. But I haven’t regretted it a bit.”

Statistically speaking, Mans is an anomaly, an exception to a world in which most women work full time even when they have small children at home, and in which most part-time workers are poorly paid clerks with little clout and few choices.

But she and more than 3 million women like her are believed to be at the forefront of a trend that is quietly reshaping the corporate landscape. Part-time professionals are one of the fastest-growing segments of the work force, said Carol M. Sladek, work and family consultant at Hewitt Associates, a benefits consulting firm in Lincolnshire, Ill.

The overall work force and the part-time work force have grown less than 2% over the last five years, but the number of part-time professional positions has jumped roughly 50%, to about 4.5 million jobs today from 3 million jobs in 1989, said Maria Laqueur, executive director of the Assn. of Part-Time Professionals, a nationwide organization based in Falls Church, Va., that promotes flexible work options.

And the statistics, which reflect only employer-employee relationships, probably understate the point. A significant number of part-time professionals are believed to be self-employed--doctors who take patients only on Mondays and Fridays, lawyers who go to court only during school hours and accountants who work only during the busy season. These part-time professionals are not being counted in official figures.

By and large, part-time professionals are women who ask to work part time so they can better handle the dueling demands of home and office, experts say. Although some men also complain about the difficulty of balancing both interests, few of them are switching to part-time schedules.

The reasons are largely practical. Men earn more money, on average, than women. So when it comes to deciding which member of a two-income heterosexual household will scale back a career to handle family duties, it’s usually the woman who can better afford to do so.

There’s also a social stigma. Whereas employers increasingly accept women wanting atypical work arrangements to accommodate family needs, men are often discouraged from seeking it. Some men also are reluctant to take on the “Mr. Mom” image.

“I think that if my husband wanted to work part time, he would be ending any viable long-term career option,” said Karen L. Stuckey, a part-time partner at the New York-based accounting firm Price Waterhouse.

Nell Minow, a Washington money manager who works three days a week, said, “In our culture, it’s just not an acceptable choice for a man.”

But more and more women, particularly new mothers, appear to be opting for part-time positions. And for a host of practical reasons, companies are going along.

About 57% of all companies surveyed nationwide by the Families and Work Institute last year and a whopping 87.8% of the Fortune 500 companies surveyed said they allow for part-time schedules, said Robin Hardman, information director at the New York-based nonprofit group.

In a recent survey by Hewitt Associates, 95% of 505 companies queried nationwide said they provide part-time work, and 57% of them offer “flex time,” which boils down to a full week’s work being done at fairly odd hours.

Companies are accommodating the trend mainly for two reasons: Today’s changing business environment demands some part-time work--and so do a handful of key employees.

In short, the corporate downsizing of the last several years has left many companies thinly staffed and incapable of handling particularly busy stretches without significant overtime or outside help. Trained professionals are hard to come by, so many companies mine the ranks of their “early retirees” for people who would like to return in part-time or temporary positions. New mothers, sometimes while on maternity leave, are often offered similar opportunities.

Internationalization of the business world has also played a role. Some companies, particularly those involved in the financial markets, have been forced to lengthen their business hours to accommodate schedules in far-flung corners of the world. In some cases, employees working flex time are the ones called on to handle the odd-hours requests from customers in London, Germany and Tokyo, said Suzanne Smith, co-director of New Ways to Work, a nonprofit resource group in San Francisco that promotes job alternatives.

Meanwhile, now that roughly 50% of the work force is women--many in their childbearing years--the struggle to reconcile work and family issues has intensified. Some employers have simply succumbed to the pressure.

“It comes down to a matter of survival,” said Cindy Chernow, director of alumni career services at UCLA. “Companies depend on the female work force. And they want to attract more people--more qualified people. Sometimes they can sustain themselves with people who are working part time.”

And professional women are waiting longer to have children than their mothers did. Many are well established in their careers by the time Baby comes along. That gives them more clout when it is time to ask for special consideration. Occasionally these women are the bosses who are deciding the issue for others as well as themselves.

Still, many employers are dragged into these arrangements kicking and screaming, experts say. They allow executives to work part time only when the alternative is to lose the employee.

According to the Hewitt study, 30% of those offering part-time schedules cited “retaining valuable employees” as the most important reason for the benefit.

Indeed, many women who now work part time say their bosses agreed to the arrangement after they had decided to quit--or when it was clear that they would quit if they weren’t accommodated.

Even in companies where corporate policy dictates that managers consider part-time requests, employees cannot be sure of getting a positive answer. In fact, decisions as to whether to allow workers to switch to part-time or flexible schedules are largely made on a case-by-case basis. One manager may approve such deals willy-nilly; another may tend to reject requests outright.

Attempts to maintain conformity between departments--or even to track acceptance and rejection rates--are rare.

Consider IBM, the Armonk, N.Y., computer company. IBM’s written policy allowing part-time arrangements has brought the company congratulations from organizations such as the Department of Health and Human Services and Working Mother magazine. Yet IBM says it has no idea how many workers are taking advantage of its “flexible work” program.

“It’s something that’s held between manager and employee,” said Tom Beermann, IBM’s manager of corporate issues. “I am led to believe there is no centralized tracking.”

Admittedly, some employer reluctance is justified. Part-time positions create difficult management challenges, said Hewitt’s Sladek. For one thing, scheduling becomes more complex--particularly when trying to get several part-time workers in a meeting at the same time.

Gauging performance also becomes more difficult, Sladek said. In the conventional work arrangement, managers tend to assume everybody’s working while they’re in the office. Part-time positions challenge that notion by forcing executives to set and monitor each employee’s goals.

“Managers have to clearly know what has to be done, and they have to actively manage the time of each employee to get the job accomplished,” Smith said. “The manager almost becomes a choreographer, directing this very complicated dance. That can be a very positive force. But if it isn’t handled well, these arrangements are frustrating to everybody.”

Additionally, part-time positions are not offered to everyone. By and large, they’re plums given only to the best and the brightest. That can leave workers who weren’t able to secure similar deals bitter and resentful. Even workers who don’t want to work part time often resent their part-time colleagues because they feel the part-timer is not on the team, Sladek said.

These morale issues also often fall on the manager or division chief.

There is a downside for professional part-timers as well.

Although they are scaling back voluntarily, they’re giving up income, benefits and, often, promotion opportunities, experts note. In addition, some believe that going part time puts their jobs at risk. They fear they will “slip off the radar screen” and begin to feel expendable.

Many women who have done it tell horror stories about raises that were shelved, bonuses that were pared, promotions that were postponed--sometimes indefinitely.

Nonetheless, the costs are well worth the benefits, part-time workers say.

“Financially, I make enough to pay the household bills, and I can still be home for things like school plays and to work in my son’s classroom,” said Laura Mabie, a La Canada pediatrician who works 3 1/2 days a week. “It has been real nice to be a mommy and a professional and to not feel that I have to give up one to do the other one well.”

“I am a total evangelist for part-time work,” said Minow. “This is a wonderful, wonderful life!”

As for the superwoman and the apparently outdated idea of having it all, Minow summed up: “You can have everything,” she said. “You just can’t have it all at the same time.”