Approaches to Work and Family Initiatives

Some organizations report that their "family-friendly" work policies and practices earn them productivity improvements as significant as those coming from their quality initiatives. Increasingly, organizations view work/family programs as strategies to improve performance and not just to make things easier for workers. This seminar reviews the assumptions upon which traditional and emerging work/family policies are built and identifies common and conflicting interests that labor and management have about work/family issues.

Participants will:

• Learn how a joint labor-management approach can help to address the dilemmas associated with effective implementation of work/family changes.
• Outline a joint planning process appropriate for their organization.
• Examine the linkage between promoting work/family innovations and organizational performance.
• Hear from unionized organizations that have successfully implemented work/family programs.
• Strategize the next steps to take in their workplace.