Making the Connection Between Time and Value in the Workplace

It’s a stressful time in homes and offices across the country as men and women of all ages receive mixed signals about family values and work expectations.

These signals come in many forms. Welfare mothers are told to leave home and find a job, while working women are faulted for not being home. The promise of success is linked to working long hours, while massive layoffs create doubt about the promise.

Gail Sheehy wrote a best seller suggesting women in their 40s and 50s have new bursts of energy, while employers view them as over-the-hill. Men in their 50s and 60s are put out to pasture, while the International Executive Service Corps recruits them as consultants abroad. Technological advances are creating “virtual parenting,” with beepers and e-mail as stand-ins for hugs while Mom and Dad are forever connected to work.

Put another way, the life cycle of human beings is out of sync with organizational needs. The life cycle concept, commonly used in the field of marketing to predict consumer demand, is based on the notion that age, marital status and number of children in the home are major factors in predicting consumer behavior.

Men and women starting families in their 20s and 3Os are told to invest vast sums of time early in their careers--just when they are most needed at home. Those who chose to work part-time with flexible work hours or take sabbatical leaves are sometimes viewed as less committed to their careers, and their value to the company is diminished.

Fortunately, some enlightened organizations have begun to take life cycle needs into consideration as they watch key employees join smaller firms, become consultants and contractors, or start their own companies. Deloitte Touche, the large accounting firm, is one of the leaders in this area.

Deloitte has a policy that allows professionals to work part-time, yet become partners. The policy sends a signal that value is based on a variety of performance measurements, not merely hours worked. Although it is simpler to measure value in terms of hours--since these can be easily quantified and are objective--this measure has many flaws. Some people work faster than others, some work smarter than others, and some bring special talents that cannot be measured in hours.

“My experience as a manager makes me question the assumption that youth and the amount of hours worked are necessarily correlated with productivity and quality,” says Per Schau, a manager at FHP. “I am convinced that 40 well-spent, focused hours yields much higher quality output than 60 marginal ones. Similarly, a part-time employee is not by definition less committed than one who works full time.”

Pittsburgh Penguin fans would probably agree. Mario Lemieux, a Penguin player, is the leading scorer in the National Hockey League. Yet because he is recovering from Hodgkin’s disease, he spends less time on the ice than his teammates. Lemieux’s value is not measured in the hours he skates, but rather what he accomplishes when he’s skating.

In other words, there is sometimes a disconnection between time and value. Men and women of childbearing age today question the “time bravado” attitude implicit in work expectations, particularly as the bonds of loyalty between employer and employee loosen. What is emerging is a work environment in which employees are becoming free agents. At the same time, employers are gaining flexibility. This is the upside of change.

There’s a downside too. The newfound freedom for employees has also meant they have no safety net when it comes to benefits. In the case of employers, it means earning rather than expecting commitment from those they employ. When corporate leaders realize that the life cycle needs of employees can no longer be ignored because they are failing to recruit and retain quality personnel, they will begin to change their policies and practices to reflect this reality.

Unfortunately, most businesses continue to reward what Helen Wilkens, writing in a recent issue of the Utne Reader, calls “presenteeism,” or exaggerated “face time.” Strengthening the bond of loyalty between employer and employee requires a new way of thinking. The traditional mind-set that views work and home as mutually exclusive no longer makes sense. The two are inexorably intertwined.

Changing the old mind-set will require lower financial expectations on the part of young people at the start of their careers, and perhaps higher expectations on the part of others as they create second and third careers. It will also require that health care be made available at a reasonable cost for those who choose to be free agents, and that job design and performance evaluation be linked to life cycle needs. As MIT professor Lotte Bailyn says in her provocative book, “Breaking the Mold,” it means combining the legitimacy of private need with the rethinking of the conditions of work.

Yogi Berra has it right when he says, “You can observe a lot by just watching.” Answers to the mixed signals being heard today suggest that major changes in corporate policies will be needed if men and women are to do more than talk about balancing work and family.

* CAN YOU AFFORD TO QUIT?: Some practical issues for someone leaving the workforce, D4