Redesigning work for gender equity and work–personal life integration

Abstract

This paper describes a series of intervention projects in the conditions and design of work geared to increasing gender equity in organizations and the ability of employees to integrate their working lives with their personal lives. It shows that approaching work with a work–family lens tends to lead to changes in the temporal conditions of work, in what has come to be known as flexibility in the workplace. With a gender lens, more nuanced aspects of the institutions governing the workplace come into sight allowing the possibility of greater actual change in the way that work is designed and accomplished, thus leading to a better fit between the current workforce and the workplace. Although such intervention projects are being done in multiple countries, the discussion is most relevant to the USA, with its limited – almost non-existent – national support for the reconciliation of work and family needs.

Ce papier décrit une série de projets d'intervention sur les conditions et la structure du travail visant à accroitre l’équité homme-femme dans les organisations ainsi que la capacité des employés à intégrer leur vie professionnelle et leur vie privée. Ces études démontrent que l'appréhension du travail à travers une perspective vie professionnelle/vie privée [work–family lens], tend à faire évoluer les conditions liées a la durée du travail, ce que nous appelons maintenant la flexibilité au travail. Une perspective focalisée sur l’équité homme-femme fait apparaitre des aspects plus nuancés des institutions qui gouvernent le monde du travail, rendant possible un changement réel plus important dans la définition et l'accomplissement du travail et permettant ainsi une meilleure adaptation entre la force de travail actuelle et le monde du travail. Bien que de tels projets d'intervention soient accomplis dans de nombreux pays, la conversation est plus pertinente aux Etats-Unis, pays dont le soutien national pour la réconciliation des besoins professionnels et personnels est limité – voire presque inexistant.

Keywords:

• gender
• work–family
• work–life
• action research
• institutional change

Mots-clés:

• genre
• équité homme-femme
• équilibre vie professionnelle-vie privée
• recherche-action
• changement institutionnel

Notes

1. This research team was led by Lotte Bailyn and Deborah Kolb, and included Susan Eaton, Joyce K. Fletcher, Maureen Harvey, Robin Johnson, Leslie Perlow, and occasional participation by Amy Andrews. Rhona Rapoport served as consultant to the team.

2. Joyce Fletcher is now a distinguished senior fellow at CGO.

3. Bailyn was Matina S. Horner distinguished visiting professor 1995–1997. PPI was founded and led by Paula Rayman.

4. Phyllis Moen (this issue) explains this lack of fit by a career myth that ignores the gendered life course.

5. Anne Mulcahy, who later became CEO and is now Chairman at Xerox.

6. The quotation marks around family were meant to indicate that we were referring to more than just the nuclear family, but rather to people's entire non-work lives.

7. We came to call this a ‘dual agenda’: our double goal was to enhance equity and people's lives as well as work effectiveness.

8. This issue is taken up again in the Discussion section.

9. Included in this section is an example from outside our work – that of Best Buy's Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE).

10. As will be seen in the next section, there are also examples where the work side becomes singularly dominant. Indeed, that was our main concern when we started and we were actually surprised to find examples where the personal side dominated.

11. Various perspectives on how they ‘lost gender’ are available in the November 2000 (Volume 7, Number 4) issue of Organization.

12. One of the original Xerox interventions (see Rapoport et al., 1998, pp. 7–10; Rapport et al., 2002).

13. Jessica DeGroot's work at the Third Path Institute in Philadelphia (www.thirdpath.org) helps couples dedicated to fully sharing the care of their children redesign their work to make this possible. Though this is still an individual approach to the redesign of work, it begins to address both arenas together.