Susan's Blog  
(Occasional comments by Susan Seitel)

May 10, 2008

Some facts about the American family

The Council on Contemporary Families has prepared this list of interesting facts to show what's happening to the American family. We have, they observe, taken a "long leap" into an unanticipated world.

• In 1963, 14% of working women who bore a child returned to work by the baby's first birthday. Today, 83% of working moms return to work by baby's first birthday, and 55% of first-time moms return to work by the time their child is 6 months old.
• 70% of working mothers with new babies are working the same hours they worked before the child's birth.
• Ten million families of children under 14 pay for childcare.
• Fewer than 10% of daycare centers are accredited.
• Fewer than 1% of in-home day cares in the private sector are accredited.  
• In 2005, average childcare costs ranged from a low of $58 per child per week for a pre-school aged child in Alabama to $259 per week for infant care in Massachusetts.
• Parents in Massachusetts with an infant and a four-year-old will spend an average of $1,926 per month on childcare – more than their average monthly mortgage bill of $1,645.
• In 2004, approximately 2.5 million daycare workers in this nation made an average of just $8.65 an hour, or $346 a week.
• Three-fourths of all childcare workers work in a home care setting and make even less.

It is what it is. Most of it we're not going to change, nor would we want to. Research seems to indicate that our kids aren't any worse off than they were in my day, when we stayed home with them pretty much full time. But what is incredible, and what we can do something about, is that we are paying those to whom we trust our society's future less than $18,000 a year. In 2006, the median income per household member (including all working and non-working members above the age of 14) was $26,036.

May 6, 2008

Working with far-flung employees

An article this morning in the Wall Street Journal is about the joys and frustrations of remote management, an experience more of us are having as our employees become more mobile. Not many managers come prepared to manage a virtual team, and they may have to get up to speed on their own, finding tips where they can. This article offers a few. Pack a bag and meet your team members on their own turf, says Chicago consultant John Challenger. That will help you establish the relationship and build trust. Communicate each person's role and objectives regularly, and establish agreed-upon ways to resolve conflicts and solve problems, says author and senior manager James Eicher. And as much as possible, use plain clear language.

Our newly revised e-course for managers, The Flexible Workplace: A Guide for Managers,  has one module devoted to building a virtual team. Here are a few of the suggestions you'll find there: Make sure the whole team is aware of each other’s contact details and has general information about everyone's work schedule. Be sure everyone has the technology and software they'll need to communicate schedules and share documents on a common platform, no matter where they are. Equip them with devices that allow them to reach others or be reached as easily as possible.

Hold regular meetings no less than twice each month, and include everyone – even remote and part-time workers – on a regular, programmed day and time. Assign an office “buddy” to each remote worker to be their point of contact, keep them informed about what’s going on at headquarters, and help them solve problems on the ground when they can’t get to the office. 

Make sure you keep everyone informed about birthdays or other important events and invent some way of celebrating. (The WSJ article suggests a personal visit if there's really something to celebrate). If your entire team is virtual, invite them to post a short biography with photographs and a little personal information on a special page on your company website.

And one final tip from the Journal: Be prepared for the difficulties that may arise. Just because you're sitting at your desk after a good night's sleep doesn't mean everyone is having the same experience, especially when a call crosses multiple time zones.

May 2, 2008

A little enlightenment about the health care debate

I'm sure you too have been watching closely as the three candidates exchange views on how health care should be handled in the coming years. A Wall Street Journal article last week by David Wessel shed some welcome light on the differences, the similarities, and what has a chance of working. Read the article if you have a minute -- if not, here's a little of what it said.

Wessel covered a recent Washington forum where all three plans were analyzed, and one thing those experts pointed out was that Democrats have finally acknowledged that their plans will cost a lot. And as one of the speakers – and several analysts – have observed, the candidates "are going to get rid of the Bush tax cuts and do that as many times as necessary to pay for all this stuff."

If McCain has his way, the insurance market will essentially be deregulated, with people in one state being allowed to buy insurance in another. Low premiums will attract the healthy, and those with pre-existing conditions will pay sharply higher fees. The result, says one analyst, will be a rush to Medicare that Republicans will hate.

The Clinton-Obama proposals, he says, will force private insurers to compete against expanded government health insurance plans. The government having the most muscle, it will end up dictating prices to hospitals and doctors below those offered to private insurers. The rush to government-run health-care plans will be on.

All three acknowledge that cutting costs is imperative. But no one really has come up with a way to do that. (If you don't hear providers yelping about the plans, says one health consultant, it's not going to save money.)  But the news isn't all bad. The differences are sharp, but in some areas all three candidates are edging toward the middle. Maybe it's a first step toward really getting something done.

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