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What the work conditions survey doesn't show
Submitted by Ellen Wallace on April 3, 2007 - 11:14.
Switzerland has its head in the sand when it comes to work, and it is high time to look up and shake the sand out of our eyes. I have just published an article on GL about how well Switzerland comes out on a European survey of work conditions that includes 31 countries. Clearly, things could be worse, and for some people it is - the boss from hell or crazy hours. For the most part, though, the picture looks pretty good, with 91% of workers saying they are satisfied or very satisfied with work conditions. So far, so good, I think.
And then I get to the 88% who say they find they can easily or very easily balance work and home lives. I balk. This simply does not correspond to what I've been hearing recently at the many meetings and conferences I have attended as part of GL's efforts to make itself known to the community. Men and women both are desperate to find solutions to work and family life. All I can think is that the question was not phrased properly.
At a GWIT (Geneva Women in International Trade) standing-room only presentation by Egon Zehnder executives about managing your career, the buzz of anger and frustration was palpable among the crowd of over 100 people, about the inability to balance a management job and a family.
When asked about the situtation in Switzerland and how women can deal with it the presenters noted with regret that they can really do little. Evelyne Sevin of the company's Paris office, gave a case study of a top manager who tried to cut back to 50%, a scary tale that would make any sensible breadwinner think twice before doing it. Companies give executive search companies mandate. The Zehnder people did not say these rarely include women who take four hours off in the middle of the day to go home and cook a hot meal and have meaningful conversations with their adolescent children, but the implication was there.
At the Lift07 conference in Geneva in February I had a senior manager come close to tears as he talked about his wife's trouble finding work, and what it meant to their mutual happiness. Budget was not the issue. If he took part in the survey, which I don't know, he probably said that he could balance his job and family life. That doesn't mean life at home is a bowl of cherries - where was his wife in that survey?
This is not just about managers. I think of a former assistant of mine who speaks several languages, has excellent administrative experience, is a hard worker and a clear thinker. Post-children, she's spent more time than she would have liked, just thinking about finding work. Her husband is unemployed but if they decide he'll watch the children he'll never find a job or they will be stuck once he does.
Some of us manage by juggling work from home when the children are little: the men and women who make up that glorious brigade, the self-employed. I also published an article today about poverty in Switzerland and independent workers are high on the list of those who cross the poverty threshold. When my children were small I was self-employed and worked in snatches between naps and meals and I remember well the fear that one of them would wake up when I was in the middle of an important interview. I earned peanuts, which was depressing, but hardly anyone knew it, which made it worse. False fronts are sometimes necessary - no one likes to hire a walking failure - but they are tough to maintain.
Here is the problem with that survey on work conditions: those who simply can't manage the work/home life balance don't work. They are usually women. They are not in the survey.
Many women don't want to work, or want to stay home for a while. But many others are often not happy about leaving jobs or staying away from the workplace because there is little choice - miserable and frustrated are probably accurate descriptions of them.
This has much, much, much to do with children coming home for lunch because Swiss schools do not provide cafeterias or any other alternative. If there is one place I want my tax money spent, this is it. I want the Swiss economy to remain strong, and this is what it will take to make that happen.
Twenty years ago there were still discussions about the importance of Mother being Home for the Children, and in some pockets of Switzerland you still hear this. It is increasingly rare because two incomes are often needed to keep up with rising home prices and other costs.
More girls than boys are now completing secondary school in Switzerland, I was told by the Claus Haessig, head of the research coordination office in the rectorat at the University of Geneva last week. This explains why more than half of the university's students are now women. Presumably they want interesting jobs when they finish.
Where are they going to be working in 10 years? In the kitchen, slicing bread and stirring the pot?
What a waste, dear Switzerland, what a waste!
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Switzerland has its head in the sand when it comes to work, and it is high time to look up and shake the sand out of our eyes. I have just published an article on GL about how well Switzerland comes out on a European survey of work conditions that includes 31 countries. Clearly, things could be worse, and for some people it is - the boss from hell or crazy hours. For the most part, though, the picture looks pretty good, with 91% of workers saying they are satisfied or very satisfied with work conditions. So far, so good, I think.
And then I get to the 88% who say they find they can easily or very easily balance work and home lives. I balk. This simply does not correspond to what I've been hearing recently at the many meetings and conferences I have attended as part of GL's efforts to make itself known to the community. Men and women both are desperate to find solutions to work and family life. All I can think is that the question was not phrased properly.
At a GWIT (Geneva Women in International Trade) standing-room only presentation by Egon Zehnder executives about managing your career, the buzz of anger and frustration was palpable among the crowd of over 100 people, about the inability to balance a management job and a family.
When asked about the situtation in Switzerland and how women can deal with it the presenters noted with regret that they can really do little. Evelyne Sevin of the company's Paris office, gave a case study of a top manager who tried to cut back to 50%, a scary tale that would make any sensible breadwinner think twice before doing it. Companies give executive search companies mandate. The Zehnder people did not say these rarely include women who take four hours off in the middle of the day to go home and cook a hot meal and have meaningful conversations with their adolescent children, but the implication was there.
At the Lift07 conference in Geneva in February I had a senior manager come close to tears as he talked about his wife's trouble finding work, and what it meant to their mutual happiness. Budget was not the issue. If he took part in the survey, which I don't know, he probably said that he could balance his job and family life. That doesn't mean life at home is a bowl of cherries - where was his wife in that survey?
This is not just about managers. I think of a former assistant of mine who speaks several languages, has excellent administrative experience, is a hard worker and a clear thinker. Post-children, she's spent more time than she would have liked, just thinking about finding work. Her husband is unemployed but if they decide he'll watch the children he'll never find a job or they will be stuck once he does.
Some of us manage by juggling work from home when the children are little: the men and women who make up that glorious brigade, the self-employed. I also published an article today about poverty in Switzerland and independent workers are high on the list of those who cross the poverty threshold. When my children were small I was self-employed and worked in snatches between naps and meals and I remember well the fear that one of them would wake up when I was in the middle of an important interview. I earned peanuts, which was depressing, but hardly anyone knew it, which made it worse. False fronts are sometimes necessary - no one likes to hire a walking failure - but they are tough to maintain.
Here is the problem with that survey on work conditions: those who simply can't manage the work/home life balance don't work. They are usually women. They are not in the survey.
Many women don't want to work, or want to stay home for a while. But many others are often not happy about leaving jobs or staying away from the workplace because there is little choice - miserable and frustrated are probably accurate descriptions of them.
This has much, much, much to do with children coming home for lunch because Swiss schools do not provide cafeterias or any other alternative. If there is one place I want my tax money spent, this is it. I want the Swiss economy to remain strong, and this is what it will take to make that happen.
Twenty years ago there were still discussions about the importance of Mother being Home for the Children, and in some pockets of Switzerland you still hear this. It is increasingly rare because two incomes are often needed to keep up with rising home prices and other costs.
More girls than boys are now completing secondary school in Switzerland, I was told by the Claus Haessig, head of the research coordination office in the rectorat at the University of Geneva last week. This explains why more than half of the university's students are now women. Presumably they want interesting jobs when they finish.
Where are they going to be working in 10 years? In the kitchen, slicing bread and stirring the pot?
What a waste, dear Switzerland, what a waste!