The sixth IFREI study, presented at the 4th FRE Forum held at IESE on July 11th, shows no major differences between companies in terms of their adoption of work-family reconciliation measures. However, the report does confirm that the keys to change are the budget and the executive team in charge of implementing the work-family reconciliation plan.
In Spain, only 18% of companies have a budget earmarked for this type of plan, while around 30% claim to have a team or executive working either full or part time on the matter.
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One thousand Spanish executives responded to the IESE-AUDI survey on professional decisions and careers. The results show that 50% of the males think that men’s roles should be redefined, and 70% of the women surveyed agreed. For the women, it’s the balance between work and family that is the priority that weighs the heaviest in their decisions on their professional careers. Even though men are aware of this situation, they view professional promotion as equally important.
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Amparo Valcárcel, Secretary of State for Social Services, Families and Disabilities, and Antonio Trueba, President of the +Family Foundation, awarded the Family-Responsible Employer (FRE) certificate to 21 entities that have adopted a management model aimed at fostering equal opportunities, integration, and the reconciliation of work and family life.
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Forty executives of companies from the whole of industry took part in the first program to be held in Spain on critical aspects of female leadership. The top subjects were glass ceilings, work-family reconciliation policies, quotas, and careers. The sessions, held from March 12th to 15th, 2007, at IESE’s new campus in Barcelona, used the case study method and teamwork and were supplemented with individual coaching sessions.
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Companies like Randstad, Vodafone, Mutua Madrilena, Procter&Gamble, and Bausch&Lomb are pushing for a European schedule, in which workers could leave work earlier while keeping the same productivity levels and goals. This was what they shared in the workshop entitled “El horario europeo en España 2010: la verdadera asignatura pendiente”  (The European Schedule in Spain 2010: Unfinished Business) held at IESE Madrid on June11th.
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If there are hardly any women in upper management, on boards of directors they are virtually nonexistent. With the goal of overcoming this inequality, this year the IESE-Creade-Cuatrecasas Forum has launched a series of conferences on the presence of women on boards of directors and the Law on Equality being passed by the Spanish Parliament.
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Rotating shifts, schedule flexibility in offices, training, and services: these are the keys to work-family reconciliation in this multinational in the food sector, with 780 employees, 60% of them women.
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Chinchilla, N.; Moragas, M.
It is possible to reconcile our professional, family, and personal lives? To the authors of "Dueños de nuestro destino" (Masters of Our Destiny): How to Reconcile Professional, Family and Personal Life, the problem is that people never manage to direct their own lives because of a lack of balance between work, family, and personal life. This book reflects on these three pillars of any individual’s life and concludes that we are all responsible and should commit ourselves to society so that it works.
The book is based on the authors’ knowledge of this issue in Spain, as well as on the solutions that are being applied in countries within our geographic and social setting. According to Chinchilla and Moragas, to truly make work-family reconciliation possible, what is needed is involvement by our political leaders and legislators, flexibility and good practices on the part of our business leaders, and efforts by families.
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Chinchilla, N.; León, C.
In the forthcoming years, organizations will have to get used to new work settings, new market needs and products, diverse and global working teams, and especially an ongoing need for specialized yet versatile staff. In order for companies to rise to these challenges, they must be more flexible and facilitate their employees’ personal and family balance.
The "Guía de las buenas Prácticas de la Empresa Flexible 2007" (2007 Guide to Good Practices for the Flexible and Responsible Company ), published by the International Center of Work and Family in conjunction with the Community of Madrid, surveys the best solutions used by companies in this area. The document concludes that companies cannot rise to the challenges of work-family reconciliation alone, rather it is a task to be undertaken jointly by public administrations, companies, and society.
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Chinchilla, N; Mayo, Margarita; Sánchez, E.
Achieving fully equal working opportunities for men and women is one of our society’s greatest challenges. In the "Guía para la igualdad de oportunidades entre mujeres y hombres de la empresa" (Guide to Equal Opportunities for Men and Women in Business ), professors Nuria Chinchilla, Margarita Mayo, and Esther Sánchez analyze the different areas where discrimination might exist in companies, and they offer specific solutions to foster equal opportunities. One of the keys to this handbook is that it offers the tools needed to develop an equality plan in the company taking into account legal requirements. The guide was drawn up with the help of the Ministry of Employment and Women’s Affairs of the Community of Madrid.
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Even though the majority of Spanish companies are SME’s, business research tends to focus on large companies. This especially holds true when examining the issue of work-family reconciliation. Are Spanish SME’s family-responsible? What type of work-family reconciliation policies do they practice? To find out more, the ICWF has initiated research focusing on SME’s, and the preliminary results are in.
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The ICWF is mainly working on four avenues of research: family-responsible policies and culture, individual and organizational decision-making, conflicts and stressful situations derived from reconciling work and family, and managing personal life and professional careers. Each of these avenues is approached from a twofold perspective, both academic and practical, and they are aimed at cultural change within the company.
Additionally, the ICWF also analyzes work-family reconciliation policies on three different levels: individual, company, and society. All the studies conducted at the center adopt an international perspective, which enables it to compare information on the different cultures in each country. In addition to qualitative and quantitative studies, the ICWF also draws up teaching materials, such as business case studies, which are meant to support the executive training programs taught at IESE.
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Does your company reconcile work and family? Benchmark!
What is your company’s level of work-family reconciliation within your market or industry? Do you know its strengths and weaknesses in the area of work-family reconciliation? What do other companies in similar circumstances do? After several years of working with companies of different sizes and from a variety of sectors, the International Center of Work and Family (ICWF) has seen that the technique of benchmarking, which entails an exchange of practices and experiences, helps to channel efforts into actions that have been shown to be effective.
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