Business Leaders Explore Work-Life Options
Posted: 2:57 pm CST November 21, 2009
By Rebecca Ryan
Madison Magazine
Special To Channel 3000I’m confused. The most high profile boss of our lifetime, Jack Welch, is sending mixed messages about work-life balance.In his book Winning, Welch writes, “Even the most accommodating bosses believe that work-life balance is your problem to solve. In fact, most know that there are really just a handful of effective strategies to do that, and they wish you would use them.” In his straight-talk style, he adds: “Your boss’s top priority is competitiveness. Of course, he wants you to be happy, but only inasmuch as it helps the company win. In fact, if he is doing his job right, he is making your job so exciting that your personal life becomes a less compelling draw.” Spoken like a man who divorced his first (non-compelling?) wife and—by his own admission—didn’t know his children very well. GE must’ve been like crack to Jack. So compelling. So exciting. So addictive.Now that Jack’s been away from the crack pipe (work) for a few years—and the U.S. has been served an economic crap sandwich—“Neutron Jack” has disarmed his tough talk on work-life balance. He told attendees at the 2009 Society of Human Resource Management conference that “many companies are turning to tools they hadn’t used before to keep their employees happy, such as flexible work arrangements. It’s important to take care of your best, so they don’t leave when things get better.”Not exactly an endorsement, but Jack’s newfound interest in work-life options mirrors that of business leaders in Madison and beyond who are exploring compressed workweeks, reduced workloads, and job sharing as a way to trim personnel and operating costs and avoid layoffs.Kyra Cavanaugh of LifeMeetsWork.com (Chicago) ticks off a laundry list of reasons she believes flexible work arrangements are here to stay: “If you look at the convergence of trends—skilled labor shortage, generational attitude shifts, advances in technology, environmental awareness, the need for disaster/contingency planning, alternative work schedule experimentation and the changing values of Americans in response to the recession—I think it’s a fair bet that things will never go back to the way they were.”To continue reading, visit MadisonMagazine.com.
Madison Magazine
Special To Channel 3000I’m confused. The most high profile boss of our lifetime, Jack Welch, is sending mixed messages about work-life balance.In his book Winning, Welch writes, “Even the most accommodating bosses believe that work-life balance is your problem to solve. In fact, most know that there are really just a handful of effective strategies to do that, and they wish you would use them.” In his straight-talk style, he adds: “Your boss’s top priority is competitiveness. Of course, he wants you to be happy, but only inasmuch as it helps the company win. In fact, if he is doing his job right, he is making your job so exciting that your personal life becomes a less compelling draw.” Spoken like a man who divorced his first (non-compelling?) wife and—by his own admission—didn’t know his children very well. GE must’ve been like crack to Jack. So compelling. So exciting. So addictive.Now that Jack’s been away from the crack pipe (work) for a few years—and the U.S. has been served an economic crap sandwich—“Neutron Jack” has disarmed his tough talk on work-life balance. He told attendees at the 2009 Society of Human Resource Management conference that “many companies are turning to tools they hadn’t used before to keep their employees happy, such as flexible work arrangements. It’s important to take care of your best, so they don’t leave when things get better.”Not exactly an endorsement, but Jack’s newfound interest in work-life options mirrors that of business leaders in Madison and beyond who are exploring compressed workweeks, reduced workloads, and job sharing as a way to trim personnel and operating costs and avoid layoffs.Kyra Cavanaugh of LifeMeetsWork.com (Chicago) ticks off a laundry list of reasons she believes flexible work arrangements are here to stay: “If you look at the convergence of trends—skilled labor shortage, generational attitude shifts, advances in technology, environmental awareness, the need for disaster/contingency planning, alternative work schedule experimentation and the changing values of Americans in response to the recession—I think it’s a fair bet that things will never go back to the way they were.”To continue reading, visit MadisonMagazine.com.
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