Family or work? A matter of priorities.

• Author: Fram, Eugene H.

SMALL BUSINESS owners and managers urgently need to make contingency plans to accommodate growing employee demands for family-related leave time and schedule flexibility. Those who do not are shortchanging their companies and possibly compromising their firms' futures. The biggest issue, often overlooked, in a small business is how to get work done productively when a key employee needs to be absent to solve a family problem. Another top concern is how to accommodate schedule changes for employees who find normal business hours unworkable for their family situations.

The Wall Street Journal noted in 1994 that small businesses appear ready to cope with the requirements of the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Yet, few seem to realize that dealing with the legislation's provisions on an "as needed" basis, without contingency plans, is not enough.

Societal pressures are building that will force smaller organizations to realize that employees' family problems increasingly will conflict with maintaining productivity in the workplace. Greater numbers are seeking a better balance between family and work obligations, as evidenced by the wide support for the FLMA.

In the past, the interests of labor and management frequently collided over these issues, with key workers in small companies often bowing to the needs of their employers. In the future, though, this likely will be reversed.

The workforce is continuing to undergo restructuring. More women--the traditional caregivers in American society--are employed either full or part time. The number of two-income families is growing, and the amount of men taking more responsibility for daily child care is escalating.

Because of the complexity of modern life and changing interfamiliar expectations, employees are finding an increasing variety of family-based reasons for being absent from work or requesting alternate schedules. According to one human resources manager, workers' family problems usually follow a similar pattern: The younger group tends to have more marital and child-raising problems. The 30-39s are running into school and behavioral difficulties with their kids hitting their early teens or late adolescence. The 40-49s are having to cope with both their children and aging parents, while the 50-plus group has to deal with their parents and their own health.

The over-all issue dependent caree is a family and a business concern of increasing dimension. Any working parent who has lost a babysitter or other child care provider with little notice car testify about the emotional havoc created. For adults, job responsibilities suddenly collide with the mandatory care needs of yound children. Since the U.S. has it growing population of older persons, elder care also is becoming an increasing consideration.

Although small businesses appear willing to cope with the requirements of the FMLA, few appear to have thought about many of the implications. Are they ready to face the increase in complicated requests for work schedule flexibility? Are they prepared to accept an attendant reduction in productivity during the temporary loss of a key employee? Are they in a position to attempt to mitigate potential production losses through advanced planning?

Without sufficient tactical planning, most substitutions of a key person or changes in work schedule are likely to lead to production slippage. From a productivity viewpoint, a temporary replacement almost never is equal to an experienced employee. Even if the temporary person is another employee who was cross-trained to do the work in emergencies, production slippage probably will occur somewhere in the system.

To determine how organizations are responding to employees' critical family needs, in-depth interviews were conducted with human resources managers at 14 small firms or autonomous divisions of larger companies. All have reputations for being "family friendly," and eight are family owned. The basic approaches they utilized included...