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Bias confronting parents — and particularly mothers — has been well documented. We call it the "Maternal Wall," and we've been studying it for years, researching how women who have always been successful at work sometimes find their competence questioned when they have motherhood leave or ask for a flexible work schedule. We know now that this bias can affect fathers, too, when they seek even pocket-sized accommodations for caregiving. For example, a consultant in ane report reported that he was harassed for taking 2 weeks of paternity leave — but applauded for taking a iii-calendar week holiday to an exotic locale. Parents, studies consistently testify, face extra scrutiny.

But while the information is clear that parents are more likely to face bias at piece of work, sometimes we also hear most a unlike problem: that people without children find that their managers are more understanding of working parents' need for flexibility, while expecting childless or unmarried staff to choice up the slack because they "have no life." Indeed, research has found that women without children piece of work the longest hours of any group.

How can managers set and enforce flexibility policies that are off-white to everyone?

Simple respond: if you give people time off piece of work to run a marathon, you should give people time off piece of work to take care of their sick kid. If you requite people time off work considering the nanny didn't testify upwards once more, y'all should give people time off piece of work considering their grandmother is sick.

Though people's reasons for needing flexibility at piece of work may differ, the principles for managing that flexibility are the same.

Here are some guidelines that managers can follow to be fair to parents and not-parents alike:

In general, more than-flexible schedules work improve for everyone. Flexible hours benefit both parents and non-parents, but in unlike ways. For parents with very immature children, their work schedule can be tied to the baby'southward slumber schedule. Parents with older kids may need to work around inflexible schoolhouse or activeness schedules. This helps parents be more than productive with the time they have, and helps them balance their piece of work and lives easier.

Non-parents too apply flexible working hours to exist more productive. Some people do their best work from 7-9am, while not-morning people hitting their stride at 10am. Workers with long commutes might endeavour to shift their schedules to spend less fourth dimension sitting in traffic, or piece of work from home on certain days. Some people may have clients who are in unlike time zones, and information technology might make more than sense for them to be online when those cardinal accounts are most active.

What kinds of flexibility are feasible will depend on the workplace and the task. Plain, a cashier cannot telecommute and a trial lawyer tin can't get home like clockwork every day at iii p.m. Merely a cashier tin job share, and a lawyer can telecommute or take chunks of time off once the case has settled. Given the broad array of flexible work options, from flex-time (command over when y'all work) to remote piece of work to job sharing (where two people seamlessly spilt a single job), managers tin typically offer a diversity of options to suit unlike workers' needs.

If you have a work-from-home policy, information technology should be reason-neutral. It'south more often than not non a good idea to have to estimate different peoples' "reasons" for working from home. This leads to uncomfortable territory: does sick baby trump dying grandparent? Instead, when people piece of work from home, simply have them say "I'k working from home." Don't make people explain why.

Exceptions might be when in that location is a reason for an employee to exist in the office (like an in-person coming together), but something comes upward at the last minute, or if a particular employee has shown that they can't encounter their deadlines when they're working remotely. In those cases, a manager may need more transparency with their employee nigh what'due south going on.

Ensure that employees can actually apply your flexible work policy. Don't tell your employees that they can take advantage of your flexible policy and and so expect them to be in the part from 9am to 6pm every day. Research by Deborah Rhode plant that, in the legal profession, there is consistently a "huge gap between what [role-time] policies say on paper and what people feel costless to use." One of us (Joan) has been studying this phenomenon for years, specifically in a 2013 article with Mary Blair-Loy and Jennifer Berdahl titled, "The Flexibility Stigma: Work Devotion vs. Family Devotion." The article found that while virtually workplaces allowed their employees some flexibility in working hours, the usage rates for employees were very depression. The reason is considering the use of flexibility policies was shown to result in negative work consequences for employees, such as wage penalties, lower operation evaluations, and fewer promotions.

Offer your employees flexible working hours, and and so let them take reward of the policy. Make sure you're not signaling — either through subtle means ("Oh, you're leaving already? Must be nice!") or through more than straight consequences (like poor performance evaluations) — that employees should actually be working "normal" hours.

Ready articulate boundaries & procedures for being in impact. Flexible schedules have many upsides, but they can also have downsides. They tin make managers nervous — what if I really need to arrive affect with my staff and I can't? What if a work emergency happens? They can as well brand employees feel like they need to be "ever on" and constantly checking e-mail. To deal with this, managers need to put a system in place for when employees demand to exist immediately responsive.

Establish clear boundaries and procedures and so employees know when they are expected to be available and when information technology'due south okay for them to work their preferred hours. Make certain anybody is aware of, and signs onto, the rules.

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For instance, if your employee works 8am-4pm but you prefer to work 10am-6pm, yous could tell the employee that when y'all email them afterward they are done working they are not expected to answer to it until the adjacent day, unless you text them with something urgent. This volition requite both of y'all peace of mind: the employee can sign off and enjoy their life without having to worry whether they are missing important work updates from you, and you tin can shoot off emails to your employee and cantankerous things off your to-practice list without worrying almost bugging them when they're off work.

This is also a good policy to use for weekends. Telling employees that they don't need to respond to weekend emails unless they are specifically chosen tin can give your employees much-needed residue time and can besides keep you assured that if something urgent comes upwards, you can get ahold of them.

Plant trust with your employees then trust them. When yous allow your employees to manage their own schedules to best suit their strengths and lives, and when you also piece of work a schedule that fits your life, sometimes you don't work side-past-side every twenty-four hour period. How exercise yous ensure that they are working when they say they are working, that they're non skiving off piece of work and responsibilities, that they aren't making up excuses or fake dr.'southward appointments?

Bottom line, y'all tin can't. And y'all shouldn't try to. I of the easiest ways for a comfy workplace to become toxic is if there becomes a culture of trying to trap people in lies, checking upwardly on people unexpectedly, or generally not trusting each other. There needs to exist trust established between managers and employees and coworkers for a workplace to function. Recall well-nigh it this style: fifty-fifty if your employee is sitting eight anxiety away from you, are you looking at their screen all solar day? Are you monitoring their every movement? No. Just physical proximity tin can make us feel like nosotros have a handle on what someone else is doing. Spending time and energy trying to monitor what your employee is doing every second of the day isn't going to help everyone.

Our recommendation is to build trust with your employees from the kickoff, and and then trust them. If you lot feel you can't trust your employees to work out of your sight, that'southward a performance problem. Treat information technology like i.

Measure outcomes, non process. "Okay, I trust my employees, but I still need to know what they're doing!"

We get it. Our communication is to measure employees by the work that they produce, rather than the mode in which they produce it.

It's time to move away from rewarding the 80-hours-a-week employee just because he puts in the about "face up time" at the office. This continued dedication to the "ideal worker" disadvantages parents and people with lives, and puts emphasis on a non-essential work office. Who cares who spends the virtually time at their desk-bound? Maybe that person is just woefully inefficient. What you lot should exist asking is: who does the all-time work? Who gets the near done? Whose projects are the most impeccable?

Salvage your scrutiny for employees' work products, non their whereabouts. This will assistance avert toxic climates and will redirect employees' energy away from looking busy and towards doing their actual job.

Policies, policies, policies. You lot can manage your employees perfectly, but if your workplace doesn't have policies in place to support them, you lot are opening a hornet's nest. Important policies to have in your workplace:

  • Paid parental leave (for all parents!)
  • Paid sick days
  • Paid personal days
  • Paid bereavement days
  • Disability leave

Simply don't let your supportive policies dice in the employee handbook. Encourage your employees to take advantage of them.

In our office, people'southward start times vary from 8am to 11am, their end times vary from 4pm to "when the baby wakes upward." When babies are ill, parents' hours that day are "when the babe is sleeping," and when people accept doctor's appointments, or have to wait around all day for Comcast, or take to exist offline for an 60 minutes to bargain with a family state of affairs, we work around it. With a lilliputian bit of advice, offices can allow everyone to adjust their hours to fit their employees' strengths, schedules, and conform their lives.