Women and the family

Do the family-friendly polices employed by corporations encourage working adults to spend more time with the family?
Due to the spread of ideas of equality between genders, more women are getting educated and possessed the ability to pursue a job to their liking. Also, due to globalization and the rising costs of living, more women felt the need to work and contribute to supporting the family. Many feel that these rising phenomena posed a threat to family, as women are generally seen as the pillar of the family- shouldering the needs of all the family members. They feel that when women go to work, the welfare of the family will be compromised. However, as the world gradually accepts the fact that the women’s role in the economy is needed, we try to come up with policies and ideas to lessen the burden of the women and ensure that the welfare of the family is not sacrificed.
One of the help extended by society would be that corporations are employing family-friendly policies to aid working parents cope with the juggle between work and family. Some corporations introduced policies like the flexi-time, parental or child care leave, or even allow employees to work from home, so that they have more time for the family. However, in spite of all these, majority does not use such policies and still find it difficult to achieve a balance between family and work. Why is that so? In this essay, I shall attempt to evaluate the usefulness of the policies and suggest what caused the failures.
Firstly, in my own opinion, corporations come up with such policies not because they are concerned about the amount of time the employees spend with their family. The policies are profit-driven. If the workers are distracted by problems in the family, their performance at work will be affected. When their service is not up to standard, it may affect the impression of the customers, and hence affect the image of the company, reducing sales. Also, when women find that they cannot cope with the burden of being a quality mother and a quality worker, they may just leave the job. In the competitive world, where labor and talent is scarce, the companies cannot afford to have the women leaving and having nobody to fill the gap. Hence, companies find it necessary to implement policies to lessen the burden of the employees. However, as mentioned earlier, the motive behind the policies are still profit-driven, thus it can be questioned whether these policies nip the bud in its roots.
One of the policies is offering part-time as an alternative to the workers. Workers can work three to four days a week, instead of the five-day-work week for full time workers. This way, workers have at least an extra day off for the family. There would be time for bonding and improving the family relationships. However, my concern is that not all jobs can afford to allow their workers to work part-time. For jobs that require a lot of planning and research, like jobs of the lawyers and managers, much time is needed to produce good quality work. Even if they opted for part-time, they may find that at the end of the day, they still must stay back to finish their work. Working part-time is not feasible for them. Furthermore, not all companies are willing to offer the alternative of a part-time job. As mentioned, competition is tough, especially with globalization. Employers can easily find another worker who has no burden of the family and is able to work full time. Hence, the employee who is unable to work full time may lose the job and the source of income. Furthermore, working part-time means the worker does not have the same amount of wages and benefits from that of a full time worker. Thus, if the medical benefits, paid leave and higher amount of wages post a more attractive idea to a worker, especially one from a lower income group, he may in the end opt for working full time. Therefore, it can be seen as to why the policy did not work out for the employees.
As to the flexi-time policy, for in example, HP, workers can choose the timings of their work, as long as they fulfill their daily eight hours. 'HP's goal is to help employees handle dependent care responsibilities for children, elders or partners so they can achieve their business objectives while they are at work,’ HP's vice-president of human resources for Asia Pacific and Japan, Rich Vosburgh said. (The Business Times, Feb 24, 2004. http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship/award_singapore.pdf). Although employees can choose the preferred time to start work, so as to send their children to school, prepare dinner etc, it still doesn’t cut the amount of time they spend at work. And if necessary, they still may have to work over time, attend inquires at home too. Majority of the time is still not available for the family.

The Sun Microsystems also adopted a policy called the iWork, which, coupled with mobile technology, enables staff to choose where, when and how to work. (The Business Times, Feb 24, 2004. http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship/award_singapore.pdf). Employees can now work from outside the office and produce the same quality of work too. However, even when employees work from home, it does not mean they have more time for the family- they are still working. Moreover, such a concept is rare in Asian countries, where they still prefer employees working in the office. Also, not all jobs can offer such an alternative. Laboratories related jobs require the professionals to be situated in the labs itself. For those in the service line, it is quite impossible for them to work at home too. Hence, the policy is not application to all situations too.

Lastly, the most common policy used by corporations would be offering parental or child care leave. Workers can apply for the leave to spend time with the family, mostly with the children. However, most of them only apply for the leave during emergencies like when the child is sick. Also, for the top elites, their job may be so time consuming that applying for leaves seemed impossible, let alone to spend time with the family. Hence the policy does not solve the problem of allowing working adults to spend more time with the family again.

To me, I feel that the policies adopted by the companies can only help and encourage, to a certain extent, the workers to spend more time with the family. For the lower income group, they simply need the job to provide the necessities needed for the family. They may even juggle a few jobs to ensure livelihood, despite knowing they should spend more time with their family. Survival is equally important. And that the policies leased out by the corporations may not meet their needs due to lack of comprehension of the situation. For the upper or middle income group, there’s a feeling that parenting and home making is increasingly becoming a chore. They do not get the satisfaction they do at work. Hence, they are reluctant to spend more time at home. Also, they are the ones who can afford the costs of care services, and thus need not worry so much about the physical needs of the family. Therefore, in conclusion, I feel that corporations can only do so much. At the end of the day, it’s still up to the individual and the environment they are in to judge how much time they can spend with their family.