Sunday, May 18, 1997

Is work a more pleasant place than home?

By VICTORIA GRIFFITH / The Financial Times

After spending three years following 130 people through their days, Arlie Russell Hochschild has concluded in "The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work" (Henry Holt & Co, $22.50) that, while workers complain they don't spend enough time with their family, many are actually eager to get in to the office early, leave late and put in extra hours on weekends.

The reason is an odd inversion of management styles. Decades ago, many Americans hated work because they were treated like machines.

The maximum efficiency standards of Frederick Taylor, a management theorist popular in the 1920s, pushed employees to perform their tasks as quickly as possible without regard for their feelings and motivations.

Today, things have changed, says Hochschild. Work now feels like home and home like work.

Hochschild a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, discovered that employers' efforts to make their workforce feel valued have paid off. Terms such as "empowerment" and "teamwork" are the buzzwords of the '90s and, according to Hochschild, it's more than just talk.

In fact, the new management techniques have worked so well that many workers can't wait to get to their desks in the morning.

"At work, they make decisions, they feel empowered, they get raises and they have a social life," says Hochschild. "It's very rewarding for them."

Hochschild notes the pleasant details of her subjects' daily work lives: the coffee thoughtfully placed on someone's desk by a co-worker, the congenial chats by the coffee machine, the award ceremonies for the most valued employee of the month.

Home, on the other hand, has come to feel more like a factory, or "Taylorized," as Hochschild puts it.

"Home to a lot of people is a place where they have to get a lot of chores done as quickly as possible," says Hochschild. "There is laundry, cleaning, helping kids with their homework. Because everyone is so rushed, there is little time for socializing.

"At work, people joke, talk. At home, the parents organize the logistics of the day: who will pick up the kids from the soccer game, and whose turn it is to go to the supermarket."

Shouldn't employers be happy about this turn of events? Not necessarily, says Hochschild. By spending so much time at the office, their workers may eventually become less well-rounded and therefore less creative.

Moreover, if they ignore their family long enough, workers may eventually confront an emotionally draining problem: divorce or troubled children, for example. And that's sure to affect their work performance, Hochschild points out.

Another consideration is the well-being of future generations of workers. Unless children receive family support to develop intellectually and emotionally now, she says, they might not be good employees 20 years from now.

Children's well-being is a leading casualty of today's distorted family/work structure, says Hochschild. In her study, she observes the trend towards "outsourcing" family duties.

Outsourcing truly thankless tasks such as housecleaning may be acceptable, but unloading relationship-building duties is not.

"I think that when someone starts paying a tutor to help a child with their homework, it has gone too far," says Hochschild. "It's not a good idea to outsource parenthood."

So what can employers do about this turn of events?

Hochschild believes they should encourage workers to spend more time away from the office. Once workers are at home more, they may even be able to squeeze in a little leisure activity and start enjoying their family life.

To have more private time, workers need better flexible work, job-sharing and telecommuting arrangements.

"It is not enough for companies to have these policies on their books, they have to be a viable option for someone trying to make a career for themselves," she adds. "Workers have to know they won't be penalized, at least not in the long run, for taking life a little slower for a while."

The government should get in on the act as well, Hochschild argues, by giving out a high-profile award to the company with the best work/family balance.

While Hochschild blames corporations for not being sufficiently family-friendly, the greater onus is on workers themselves. People could create a more enjoyable home life through more socializing within their family and community.

To do that, she says, they should turn off the television, buy homes closer to work to reduce commuting time and spend less time shopping.

In fact, what Hochschild seems to be calling for is a revolution in the American lifestyle. Does she really think it will happen?

"Well, it could," she says. "A strong grass-roots movement pushing for fewer working hours could really change things. Look what the environmentalists have done over the last 30 years."

People should join hands to demand fewer working hours from their employers, says Hochschild.

"What would a company have to lose if their workers come to them and say, 'We're all going to work fewer hours, and we're willing to take a cut in salary so you can hire other people.' "

The trouble is, with the economy as strong as it is these days, companies might have a hard time finding more workers to take up the slack.

And it might be difficult to convince people voluntarily to reduce their pay - especially when they're having so much fun at the office.