Workplace Flexibility a Rarity for Many
May 29 -- With a boss who often tells her, "I don't care where you do your work — just do it," Barbara Goldberg knows she's lucky.
A vice president at a New York City-based public relations firm and a mother of two children aged eight and six, she works a flexible 30-hour work week that allows her to pick up her kids from school and spend time with them. She typically leaves her office in the early afternoon for her suburban Maplewood, N.J. home and continues to work from there.
But Goldberg says most of her friends are not so fortunate.
"Everyone that I know, whether they're working moms or non-working moms are like, 'Wow I wish I had your deal,'" says Goldberg. "I get headhunted all of the time and I always tell them, 'You'll never be able to do what my employer is doing.'"
Indeed, for all of the lip service that many companies pay to providing flexible schedules, the reality is that many employers remain reluctant to give options like telecommuting, shortened schedules or work-sharing programs that enable workers to have more flexibility in their lives.
The latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that 29 million full-time wage and salary workers, or 28.8 percent, had flexible work schedules in May of 2001. That's only slightly higher than the 27.6 percent of workers who had such options in May of 1997.
Further, these statistics reflect workers who can simply vary their workday by alternating when they start and end their shift while still putting in the same amount of hours every day, something many human resource experts don't consider a truly flexible schedule. More than one in four workers can vary their schedules, but only one in 10 are enrolled in a formal, employer-sponsored flex-time program, according to the Labor Department.
Slacker Stigma
With more and more two-income families and single parents in the workplace than ever before, flexible schedules are a benefit that many employees would love to have.
But many companies are reluctant to institute such plans because of the ingrained culture of "face-time" that most workplaces have, say experts. Many employers still abide by the notion that if employees are working from home, they are really just sitting on the couch watching Oprah and picking up the phone from time to time instead of working hard on their next presentation.
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