Support for work-life balance helps employee retention
Hi friends of women in science,
When I go out and speak on women in science issues, or on my memoir about breaking into molecular biology in the 60s and 70s, someone often says to me that it's too bad that treating women well and supporting family life costs too much to be interesting to industry or academia. I usually mutter something about how payoff in employee morale can affect productivity. So I was pleased to run across a study that showed employers succeed better in reducing personnel turnover when they address these balance issues.
In a study by the Ha Group, they found 17% of employees planned to leave in pro-balance employers, but 27% planned to leave from organizations that do not support work-life balance. In a company of 10,000 employees with an average salary of $35k and an average replacement cost (recruiting and hiring and training) of 50% of salary, a ten percent reduction in turnover translates into cost savings of 17.5 million dollars over a two year period.
The study also documented a continuing trend of employers to ask their employees to do more with fewer resources, human and other, so that more stress is being placed on work-life balance.
Have you run into evidence that paying attention to work-life balance is handled well or not so well at your own institution? How do you think it's affecting morale and productivity?
cheers,
Laura
While child care remains a huge problem, the question of work-life balance is not limited to child care. Many people are dealing with older parents, or other family complications. The expectations of the academic job are huge--not limited to a 9-5 workday, but reaching deep into nights and weekends. And really, none of us married our universities. Do they really need to demand we give them a 60-80 hour week?
Hi Bonnie,
Yes, I got terribly frustrated trying to get child care at the Claremont Colleges. Some people I thought would be allies got terribly technical and obstructive, and while I was VP I never succeeded in getting over their barriers. I'm pleased that you got yours, and that it's working so well!
cheers,
Laura
We have on-site child care that is pretty affordable, and that has made a tremendous difference. We got it two years ago, and before that, we did lose people because of that issue.
BRB
