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Workplace

To Make Big Change, Start Small: Have the Conversation with Your Boss

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

To Make Big Change, Start Small: Have the Conversation with Your Boss

These days, a growing number of traditional companies are finding new ways of working that allow their employees much more flexibility and even cash support for parental leave, daycare, and in some cases even eldercare. Openwork.org, for instance, invites workers and bosses to reimagine the workplace and overcome the poverty of imagination that is hampering our productivity, with lots of examples from companies that are ahead of the game.

Many other companies, however, still cling to what I describe as a Mad Men workplace; one that assumes that all of its employees have a full-time caregiver at home. The 21st century reality is that nearly 60% of all American women are in the workplace and over 70% of mothers are. Moreover, almost as many fathers as mothers say that it is very or somewhat difficult to balance work and family. With those numbers, making room for care is not a women’s problem, but a work problem. Employers who cling to last century practices are shutting valuable talent out of the work place and losing their own investment in the women and men they hire and train. A McKinsey report just estimated that closing the gender gap -- hiring and promoting women equally with men – would add $12 trillion to the global economy. That’s a lot of value; every company that has not managed to retain a talented woman who needs some time and flexibility for caregiving can measure its own losses.

So how do you get your employer to join the 21st century? In Unfinished Business I describe a number of strategies, but the simplest one is to have a conversation with your boss. Let me give you an example.

One of my former students at the Woodrow Wilson School, Fatema Sumar, worked for then-senator, now–secretary of state John Kerry on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. When she returned from maternity leave after having her second child, she proposed to her staff director that she be able to work from home on Fridays in order to fit her new caregiving responsibilities together with her continuing professional responsibilities. Critically, she also said she thought she could produce better results for the committee this way. He agreed on a limited trial basis and quickly found that she became one of the most productive members of the office. This arrangement lasted even after she had her third child, and it allowed others to make more flexible choices about when and where they worked as well.

Fatema found the courage to have a direct conversation with her boss about what she needed. After all, you can’t really expect your manager to know what you want if you don’t ask for it. But there are more and less successful ways of asking. Here are some pointers to make it easier.

Highlight the benefits to your company. It is critical that you start out in the right mindset. Do not approach this in terms of what your company can do for you, but what you can do for your company. It’s all about getting the work done, better and more efficiently. What you are asking for is a way of working that will help you do a better job. Working from home can allow you, for instance, to focus on bigger projects that require concentrated thinking for hours at a time, which can be very difficult to do in the office. If your boss is hesitant, suggest a trial period—career experts recommend three months—after which, if it’s not working out, you can reassess. And be sure to agree on metrics for evaluating the results of the experiment.

Do your research. Check your employee handbook to see what the company’s policies are on flexibility. If the company advertises the possibility of flexible arrangements, then your pitch should be less about whether you can take advantage of them than about how to ensure that you stay on track for promotion—even if on a slower track—if you do. Presume that the company’s values are in the right place, but tackle flexibility stigma head-on.

Have a plan. Whether you’re making a proposal in line with existing company policy or proposing a customized arrangement, make sure you have a specific plan in mind that will make it possible for you to fit the different pieces of your life together. It might be working a four-day week, telecommuting on Mondays or Fridays, leaving work at 5:45 every day so that you can pick your kids up from daycare and come back online after they’re asleep, or whatever other arrangements will reduce your stress and increase your productivity.

Make an appointment. Don’t just spring your suggestion on your boss at the office coffee machine. Signal that you and your partner have been talking about how to best maintain your commitments to your careers while making time for caregiving.

If at first you don’t succeed . . . Asking doesn’t guarantee receiving, of course. But even if your boss says no, you don’t have to let the issue drop. In a Woman’s Day article about requesting flextime, Sara Sutton Fell, the CEO of FlexJobs, suggests that if you’ve been turned down, bring the issue back up at an annual review. She even offers a potential script: “I know we discussed this a while ago, and it’s still on my radar. I see it as a benefit not just for me personally, but for business,” and follow it up with an explanation about what you’re bringing to the table as an employee.

I’ll be frank. When employees at the Woodrow Wilson School asked for more flexible schedules when I was a dean, I was willing but backed down in the face of staunch opposition from existing supervisors. The argument was always the same: “If we do it for this person we will have to do it for everyone and we won’t be able to maintain any kind of control or discipline.” Or else resentment that the person in question would be getting special treatment.

At New America, the question has been more one of linking teleworking to agreed standards of performance and of navigating the tensions between one set of standards for administrative staff and another for the program staff who work on policy analysis and research. In both cases, as in the State Department, the issue has been how to make the transition from an old system to a new one. I come from an academic culture where I am used to getting lots of work done in many different places—where my office was a place I went to mainly for meetings. But for people who come from more traditional office cultures, home or a café or even a library is a place you go when you are not working. This transition may need to be made gradually, one experiment at a time, with clear measures of success or failure.

One final note. It’s important to remember that your boss isn’t necessarily your adversary; you may be pleasantly surprised at how he or she reacts to situations in which you have to adapt your work to fit your family. One week in the State Department, Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg repeatedly missed or came late for Secretary Clinton’s 8:45 meeting. On the fourth day, she raised an eyebrow at his assistant. But the minute his assistant explained that Jim’s wife was traveling (she also worked for the government) and he was taking their daughters to school, Clinton’s potential irritation turned to respect and support for his willingness to be an equal parent.

In general, your boss wants you to be the best employee you can be, and that means making you a happy employee. British economists have even found that happy workers are about 12 percent more productive (something you might want to mention casually to your boss!). It’s going to take some time to revolutionize the workplace, but every step an individual employee takes sets a precedent; the women and men following in your footsteps will thank you.

Anne-Marie Slaughter is the President and CEO of New America. This essay is adapted from her new book, Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family, published by Penguin Random House.