Flexibility in the Workplace

Imbalanced, our lives are imbalanced. We do not have time to climb the ladder of success if we want to be home to raise our children. We do not have time to raise our children if we want to climb the ladder of success. There are not enough hours in the day to do all the things that we need to do to have a fulfilled life. We do not have time to cook a healthy meal from scratch. We grab a box of Hamburger Helper, a can of peas, and a bag of rolls and we have dinner. Exercise consists of walking between the car and the door and maybe a little wrestling around with the kids before bed. At work productivity is counted by how many hours you spend doing your job instead of the results that our produced in that time. Mindsets like this hold us back. Flexibility for the employee is the future to balancing our lives.
Workplace Flexibility is slowly climbing in the United States but it is not moving fast enough because of social norms and bottom lines. I am currently a stay-at-home mom and a student on the job hunt and what I have noticed is that there just are not a lot of opportunities for working mothers who are not willing to give up putting a meal on the table every night for their kids. Hourly employers love flexibility, but when they say flexibility they mean that they want their employee to be available anytime. I read must be available for days, nights, weekends, and holidays on over half of the job descriptions I looked at.
A glimmer of hope is that some companies that employ a lot of hourly employees are starting to see the benefits of giving more flexibility to their employees. Capital One Financial not only offers flexible schedules, but they also offer health insurance, a 401(k) and other benefits to their employees.(Capital ...

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...protecting families.
Professional working mothers who cannot work 50 or more house a week are often barred from the fast track and put on the mommy track.(Willams, 2010) On the mommy track they might receive more flexibility but they lose chances for advancement. Professional who uses flexible work arrangements may be seen as less valuable than those who are willing to work long hours every week.
The part-time work given to hourly employees is often paid with low wages that make it hard to even pay for daycare. After having a second child I had to leave my hourly part-time job because the pay would not cover the cost of having two children in child care. They lack health insurance, paid sick leave, or time to care for a sick family member. 7.5% of low-income children between ages 5 and 8 are left alone while their parents work because they can’t afford child care.