Parenting is very rewarding but it can be stressful. Children of different ages have different needs from their parents. Working mothers/parents often need to find a balance between their family life and work life. The same rule is applicable to every working person, single, married, no child or parents with child/children. Work is an important part of life but there are always more than work in life. Parents need to know how to manage stress between work and family. Although their kids do not go to work with them, children are sensitive and they often notice all the leftover unhappiness or stress carried home by their parent or parents.
It is great to work for a supportive employer that makes everything easier. Although my own employer has a flexible working-hour policy and generous offers on the maternal/parental leave, the fact is that the company lacks corporate culture supporting their policies. The work-life balance does not exit even they have been trying to create. Most of managers in my department only focus on the results and ignore the stress to and the feedback from their direct reports. For them, everyone is "replaceable" except themselves. In the past two years, my employer hired the consulting companies and engaged in Gallup Survey to improve better working environment. The intention is very good; they certainly understand that happy employees are more productive. However, survey was comprised of a pile of paper work; it does not do any good without actions. My employer always encouraged us to engage in all the "best" company surveys, so our company can be recognized as one of the best companies to work for. The results have been mixed so far, some name recognition is out there but they have not been as successful as they were hoping for.
The up management really needs to come up solutions to improve the working environment; surveys alone appear to be not sufficient. Giving 50 dollars gift certificates away once a while and talking alone without actions, are not good enough to retain talents. The employee turnover is relatively high. One discouraging example may explain why this is happening. A couple of my colleagues went to talk to the senior director in our department about the inexperience of our manager and some bad decisions of hers. Ironically, the Sr. Director gave a consistent response which incompetency of her management is expected because she was not hired to be a manager. The manager was hired based on her technical skills and she would need time to acquire the management skills. The message was crystal clear and I was profoundly disappointed and disturbed by the hiring physiology. If one is not hired for management position, why twelve of us need to report to her, is there something not logical?
The best 100 companies for working mother in 2009 are selected by Work Mother Magazine. These companies have built authentic family-friendly culture over years. 100% of them have telecommuting and flextime schedules. 98% offer job-sharing and 94% have compressed workweeks. 86% provide backup care, and 62% provide sick-child care. Some companies provide better health insurance package, on-side daycare, extended maternal/parental leave, and support network to their working parents. Their employees can keep life-work balance and can be productive and happy. They are good companies for working mothers, fathers, and singles. Who does not want to have a little bit of flexibility at work?
The top 20 companies are:
- Abbott
- Accenture
- Allstate Insurance
- American Electric Power
- American Express
- AOL
- AstraZeneca
- Automatic Data Processing
- Brain & Co.
- Bank of America
- Baptist Health South Florida
- Bayer
- Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina
- Bon Secours Richmond Health system
- Booz Allen Hamilton
- Boston Consulting Group
- Bristol-Myers Squibb
- Capital One Financial
- Carlson
- Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
- Children's Memorial Hospital (Chicago)
- Chrysler
- Cisco
- Citi
- ColgatePalmolive
Hall of Fame
- Allstate Insurance
- American Express
- Bank of America
- Baptist Health South Florida
- Citi
- Deloitte
- DuPont
- Eli Lilly and co.
- First horizon National
- GlaxoSmith-Kline
- Hallmark Cards
- HP
- IBM
- Johnson & Johnson
- JPMorgan Chase
- Marriott International
- Merck & Co.
- Northern Trust
- Patagonia
- PricewaterhouseCoopers
- Proctor & Gamble
- Prudential Financial
- SC. Johnson & Son
- The Phoenix Companies
Nine Pharmaceuticals are in the list:
- Abbott
- AstraZeneca
- Bristol-Myers Squibb
- Eli Lilly and Co.
- GlaxoSmith-Kline
- Merck& Co.
- Novartis Pharmaceuticals
- Pfizer
- Sanofi-aventis
