Work-family balance can boost productivity

The “typical HOME” has undergone a drastic transformation in the last 50 years.

Today, it is more common to find households running on two incomes, with both spouses juggling time between professional duties and raising a family.

Parents of such homes have become so busy that they have brought a new status to multitasking: It’s more of a survival skill than a computer-related concept these days.

The irony is that, as a “skill,” multitasking isn’t even useful; it affects productivity negatively by causing persons to forget important information. Because those who multitask are easily distracted, they tend to leave more work unfinished (or poorly finished). They end up with so many uncompleted tasks, so they also tend to cope with a greater amount of stress-and of course, stress is one of those reasons why employees resign.

This is perhaps the best argument for work and family life balance: If employees are not stressed, if they are able to deal with the demands of their professional and household duties, then they will be able to perform better at the workplace. They will be less likely to leave the company.

Fostering balance

Because companies invest in their talents, employers are in a prime position to help alleviate stress caused by the lack of balance between work and family life.

“Creating a supportive work environment not only contributes to productivity and sustainability, but also to the wellbeing of families,” notes Karin Becker, a Chilean human resource professional and recognized in 2008 as Best HR Manager by Seminarium and Revista Capital.

The mother of seven, who has worked in such companies as Banco del Trabajo, Banco Urquijo de Chile, Security Pacific Natural Bank, and Security Bank, believes that working parents today have a lot on their plate.

“It’s not only the work in the office that deserves one’s full attention,” she says, “but also the work in the home. Family duties must be given the same professional treatment as paid work. Homes need the maternal touch—therefore so does society in general.”

Internal CSR

In 2014, Becker became the president of Work and Family Foundation Canada (WFFC), a nonprofit organization that started in 2010. The WFFC encourages companies to respond to employees’ needs, particularly those that foster integrity-that is, create a balance between one’s personal and professional spheres.

“Corporate Social Responsibility is the big thing these days, because companies want to make a difference in society,” says Becker. “The WFFC wants to promote an internal CSR-we want to get organizations to look into their policies and consider how they are helping their very own employees build and sustain a happy home.”

The idea behind WFFC’s vision is that neither business nor society at large can remain viable without a healthy family life. By supporting society’s basic unit, companies can contribute not only to business sustainability but also to the betterment of the social order.

Pro-family, an edge

Apart from her work at the WFFC, Becker is the concurrent Corporate Culture Manager of Grupo Security, a Chilean group of companies offering diversified financial products and services. Grupo Security has 3,500 employees, 65 percent of whom are women.

Under Grupo is Banco Security, which has always been recognized as one of the Best Companies for Working Mothers and Fathers, bagging the top rank in 2005. Since its beginnings in 1991, Banco Security has had extensive experience in flexibility policies, creating an organizational culture that is very pro-family.

“Our company has this edge over other financial companies,” notes Becker. “If the other companies improve their technology or systems, we can follow suit and improve ours, too; but our culture, our way of doing things, is not easy to duplicate.”

‘Common sense’

The company’s pro-family culture has been created through years of analyzing real data, with those in human resources finding ways to help women employees in particular to balance their professional and family duties.

“Many of our reconciliation measures were made with a lot of common sense,” adds Becker, who emphasizes the Grupo’s firm belief that each person is a single unit containing professional, personal, and family spheres-spheres that cannot be separated or taken apart from the rest.

Accreditation

Because of its flexibility policies, Grupo Security has been accredited by the WFFC as a Family-Responsible Employer. Partnering with the IESE Business School’s International Center for Work and Family (IESE-ICWF), which has formulated the IESE Family-Responsible Employer Index (IFREI), a way to measure the ability of work environments to help employees integrate work and family life, the WFFC gives accreditations to companies that have results of at least a 70 percent score in the IFREI.

Of the accreditation, Becker says, “Many companies do not see the value of facilitating the integration of work and family life of their employees. But I know from experience how business practices that help improve employees’ quality of life become profitable in terms of sustainability for the company-more talents stay for the long term-and for society.”

The IFREI in Asia

This year, the WFFC accredited a local company-the University of Asia and the Pacific. This breakthrough makes the Philippines the first country in Asia to join Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico in the ranks of countries with Family-Responsible Employers.

“I’m very happy that the IFREI is now available in the Philippines and Asia,” says Becker. “The IFREI is different from other employee engagement surveys in that it gives companies useful data to help them pinpoint the areas for improvement, apart from simply measuring how well the company makes it possible for employees to balance work and family.”

Becker continues, “What’s more, the accreditation as Family-Responsible Employer stands for three years, giving the company not only a reputation for helping employees achieve work-life balance, in turn attracting more talent, but also prestige.”

Dr. Avic Caparas, Associate Professor at the University of Asia and the Pacific, affirms, “I am very fortunate to work with Karin in the WFFC. She brings to the team her immense experience in making a pro-family corporate culture happen. With the WFFC accreditation of family-responsible companies, the Philippines and Asia would surely make big steps to reconcile societal cultures that are highly collectivistic and family-oriented with corporate cultures that lean heavily towards performance improvement and excellence.”

To know more about the WFFC accreditation, visit workfamilyfoundation.org. To know more about the IFREI Project in Asia, visit www.ifrei.asia.