Bringing Elder Care Home

Vol. 2, No. 5

Good Management Basics
Third of Four Parts: Job Design Flexibility

By John Paul Marosy, President
Bringing Elder Care Home LLC
jpmarosy@charter.net
(508) 854-0431

A sure-fire way to assure repeated crises related to work/family conflicts and unnecessary, costly turnover is to keep workers isolated from one another, provide little or no information about co-workers' responsibilities and priorities, and insist that each individual unwaveringly adhere to a prescribed set of tasks that no one else fully understands.

Re-stated in positive terms: A manager can avoid or minimize many productivity losses related to elder care/work conflicts by designing jobs with flexibility in mind.

This is the third in a four-part series of articles that examines how good management basics can promote elder care/work balance.

"Managing elder care conflicts well is a subset of managing people well. To succeed, a manager needs to pay consistent attention to four elements of good management:

Clear accountability for performance
Open, honest, and on-going communication
Job design flexibility, and
Respect for privacy and confidentiality." *

In their new book, Families and Work: New Directions in the 21st Century, Karen Fredricksen-Goldsen and Andrew Scharlach remind us that several studies have shown that "flexible scheduling is the benefit most often cited by employees as what they need in order to manage conflicting work and family responsibilities."

Some managers think that allowing for flextime or job-sharing implies weak organizational structure and a lack of standards in managing worker performance. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, allowing for creativity in how a group of workers fulfills responsibilities requires better organization and clearer standards than the "look over your shoulder" brand of supervision.

The manager needs to pay attention to the following:

Cross-training people, so they can fill in for each other in a pinch.
Continually developing intellectual (planning), emotional (honesty), interpersonal (listening), and, when appropriate, managerial (delegating) behaviors.
Assuring a continuing, need-to-know flow of information among workers, including regular updates on the "big picture," so they understand how what they do contributes to where the organization is headed.
Supporting a team approach to problem-sensing, and problem-solving in order to achieve goals."

When management pays attention to these factors, flexible work arrangements can work well. Fredricksen-Goldsen and Scharlach identify these options and their availability today:

Part-time work (less than 35 hours per week). A survey by the U.S. Government Government Accounting Office (GAO) found that 43% of companies with over 100 employees offered part-time employment with partial or full benefits.
Job-sharing (two or more workers split the work and often the benefits of one full time jjob). The GAO found that about 12% of large employers offer this option.
Flexible schedules (usually involve a set schedule that workers can determine within certain parameters). Examples include:
- Fixed flex time (workers begin work at a predetermined time each day, then leave work 8 or 9 hours later at a predetermined time)
- Compressed work week (workers are given the option of working 40 hours in less than 5 days), and
- Gliding time (workers can adjust their hours as needed).
  
  The 1998 Business Work/Life Study by Galinsky and Bond found that 68% of companies with 100 or more employees allow employees periodically to change starting and quitting times, and 24% allow employees to make these changes on a daily basis.
Alternate work locations (allowing workers to work away from the main office, including at home and at satellite offices). The same 1998 study cited above found that 55% of companies allowed employees to work at home occasionally and 33% allowed employees to work at home or off-site on a regular basis.

Do these options make a difference in quality of life for employees juggling dependent care and on-the-job responsibilities? In their new study, Fredricksen-Goldsen and Scharlach found that "the ability to vary work schedules, take time off during the work week for personal reasons, and work at home were associated with lower levels of role strain and fewer family accommodations." Such accommodations might include, for example, changes in social life or interference with spousal relationships.

Next: Respecting privacy - an increasing concern in the electronic age.

*Unless otherwise noted, the content of this article is excerpted from A Manager's Guide to Elder Care and Work by John Paul Marosy, Greenwood Publishing, Westport, CT, 1999, pages 63-66. www.greenwood.com

We welcome your thoughts and opinions on this subject. Visit the Elder Care/Work Balance discussion group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bringingeldercarehome

John Paul Marosy
Editor and President,
Bringing Elder Care Home LLC

John Paul Marosy is the author of Elder Care: A Six Step Guide to Balancing Work and Family, available from Bringing Elder Care Home Publishing on line at www.bringingeldercarehome.com or by calling 508-854-0431.

"Clearly, years of business and personal experiences in home health care have provided (Marosy) with the resources to write this much-needed book... a must-read resource for all managers and would-be managers that not only addresses the challenges of dealing with employees who have the responsibility of caring for aging relatives, but offers real strategies for adjusting both organizational policies, as well as, employee and supervisor behaviors to benefit all parties."

- Val J. Halamandaris, President, National Association for Home Care

Visit www.bringingeldercarehome.com or call or email today to learn how your organization can offer this effective resource. (508) 854-0431 jpmarosy@bringingeldercarehome.com

This newsletter may be reprinted in whole or in part so long as the author, John Paul Marosy, is credited and the Web site address, www.bringingeldercarehome.com, is provided.