Dow Jones Interactive

Report on Business: Managing
Men join struggle for work-life balance Many fathers are taking a hard look at how their time is spent, KIRA VERMOND writes
KIRA VERMOND
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

03/01/2002
The Globe and Mail
Metro
C1
"All material Copyright (c) Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved."

For three months last year, Kent Kaufield had the time of his life. He woke up weekday mornings to wrap his newborn baby, Michael, in his arms, crawling back into bed with him and sleeping in until 9:30. He took the baby skating on the canal near their home in Ottawa. And he hung out with all the moms at the local baby gym class.

"It was a really great time, but my wife thought I was having too much fun," he says now, laughing.

Mr. Kaufield, a senior manager in e-security services for Ernst & Young, was able to spend three full months with his child on a paternity leave. While he savoured the time, he was unprepared for the reactions he got from colleagues and clients. Most were overwhelmingly positive and supportive, but a small few were not as charitable.

"Although no one would ever come out and say anything too politically incorrect, I did get comments like, 'Well that was an odd decision.' "

Mr. Kaufield's experience illustrates the shifting working environment many professional men encounter today. While women have typically been at the forefront of demanding flexible work arrangements, many men are also beginning to take a long, hard look at how their time is spent.

And no wonder. Gone are the days when one parent went to work, the other stayed home and everyone convened around the dinner table in the evening. Parents are also working longer hours than even 10 years ago. According to a 2001 Canadian Policy Research Network survey, these changing patterns are taking their toll on men, with 55 per cent saying they experience "high role overload." Simply stated, they feel they need to be all things to all people. In 1991 only 46 per cent felt that way.

Some workplaces have adjusted. "It's really about responding to the needs of our people," says Keith Bowman, national director of human resources at Ernst & Young and a strong proponent for programs that help employees -- both men and women -- achieve work-life balance.

Formal and informal programs that tolerate, if not encourage, flextime, work-sharing, part-time, telecommuting, and compressed work weeks are good for the employees, he says. But they're also good for the company -- if they're carried out right. As baby boomers begin retiring over the next few years, it will be imperative to attract and keep younger people, who are going to be asking for flexible work arrangements.

Nora Spinks, president of Toronto-based Work-Life Harmony Enterprises, says there is definitely a generation gap when it comes to men's perceptions about work-life balance. Older men who grew up with the mantra "work hard and prosper" are at odds with younger men, who grew up watching their parents lose jobs after 30 years of loyalty. These young men were also forming views of home life during the 1970s and 1980s, when divorce and separation rates spiked.

"There was a less gender-specific division of responsibility. You live with mom, she does everything. You go to dad's on weekends, he does everything," Ms. Spinks says.

Although some older partners supported Mr. Kaufield when he took paternity leave, he says there was clearly a generation gap when it came to who was encouraging and who was not.

And like Mr. Kaufield, whose wife is a chartered accountant and director of finance for a high-tech startup, younger men today are also more likely to be married to career women than their fathers were. With two people working long hours, it just makes sense that something has got to give.

The 1999 PricewaterhouseCoopers International Student Survey clearly showed that work-life balance is on young people's minds as they enter the work force.

"Kids are a lot smarter these days," says Navin Dave, a partner with KPMG who has moved his family around the world and now watches his son make his own way into the working world. "I think the generation today seems to have a better priority on balance. Now young managers are telling us, 'I don't want to work 80 hours. I don't want to be like you. I'd rather do it another way.' " Mr. Dave pauses. "That's a wonderful thing."

Of course, it's not only the twenty- and early thirtysomethings who need flexible arrangements. Lorne Burns, chief human resources officer for KPMG Canada, has two active boys, ages 11 and 13, and says he often arrives at work early in the morning so he can leave on time to be with his family. He also regards some family commitments, such as his sons' hockey games, as fixed events and simply works around them.

"I will do what I can so I don't miss out on the things I have in my family life. They don't come around again," he says.

This is not to say that men feel comfortable asking for flextime. Many men -- as well as women -- feel they'll be penalized for wanting an adaptable schedule.

Even with Ernst & Young's formal work-life balance mandate, however, Mr. Kaufield says he was still a little surprised and disappointed that his decision made such waves -- good or bad. In his own mind, paternity leave was just the natural thing to do in a two-income home. After all, three months was only a blip in a 40-year career.

"I hope that more men do it. I really do," he says.

Illustration