Workers redefine best perk

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CORRECTION

Ruth Sheehan's column Monday in City & State misstated Robin Hutchison's role at Carolina Parent magazine. Hutchison is director of marketing.

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I remember when the first "family-friendly workplace" lists were published how my fellow working mothers and I marveled at the laundry list of goodies some employers offer:

Child-care subsidies, on-site day care, emergency care for the late-nights and weekends.

My favorite? Concierge services. Imagine someone at work taking care of your dry cleaning!

But in this year's list of North Carolina's top 40 family-friendly workplaces (published by Carolina Parent magazine), I saw a shift, if not a redefinition of terms.

Kella Hatcher, co-founder of a consulting firm called Balancing Professionals, crystallized it for me. "It used to be all about the benefits," said Hatcher, whose firm specializes in work-life balance. "It's about 'time' now."

Yep, time. The one thing working parents (dare I say, especially mothers?) simply cannot get enough of.

Oh sure, some of the big do-good employers in North Carolina still boast a razzle-dazzle array of services.

Think SAS Institute (the gold standard, including bowls of M&Ms), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Duke University and Duke University Health System.

These are employers that have shown their commitment by investing a ton of money.

But there are also smaller operations -- from Edible Art in Raleigh to Joel Duval Properties in Chapel Hill -- which can't afford the concierge but show they value their workers by, for example, respecting them enough to let them do their work on their own time.

In fact, at both ends of the size scale, I saw emphasis on results-oriented work -- a come-and-go-as you-please approach that brought Best Buy a 13 percent increase in productivity. As the editor of Carolina Parent, Robin Hutchison, put it, "The technology is there." If only we could get away from the 9-to-5 mentality.

I also saw a greater emphasis on acknowledging that employees have lives outside the office that need to be nurtured. There is finally an understanding that allowing people to care for their families (and themselves) costs very little -- and pays off in productivity and loyalty.

Just ask Trish Hanchette, division president for KB Homes Raleigh-Durham. Hanchette has three kids of her own -- under the age of 5. I get tired just thinking about it.

She is an advocate of work-life balance by necessity.

"There are times we maybe have to work late, to put in the extra time to get over the hump," Hanchette said. "But most nights we walk through the office saying, 'You need to go home.' "

Hanchette said she tried to explain all of this to a woman she hired about nine months ago. The woman, also a mother, had obviously heard such promises before.

"She was like, 'Yeah, yeah, whatever,' " Hanchette said.

Over the next few months, the new employee saw co-workers, as a group, join hands on a charity effort in the community.

Individually, they took advantage of flex time to care for children and older parents.

She was soon a believer.

"The big thing is walking the talk, you know?" Hanchette said.

For mothers who work outside the home, that beats out dry cleaning all day long.