One, the nature of securing the beast that is the mobile workforce. Where I work, I will not name explicitly (many who read this, both of you, will know anyway) - but is a large organization concerned with disaster preparedness, response and providing blood has some special concern around this. We must be flexible enough to provide connectivity away from the office and perhaps in the middle of a disaster. We also are required to protect the data and the biomedical computing environment. I will write more on the twists of these challenges in a later post. Suffice it to say, thinking about the needs of workers to connect while on travel or late night from home bring has a seismic shift over the years to the old castle/moat theory of a perimeter.
From a business standpoint I looked at the article below and thought, well, my boss does a great job of supporting these type of situations; but does everyone. I am a father of six, so I qualify as one of those people who have kids and special events during the workday to run to and finish my work day later in the evening. However, I have a memory from back in the old days where three of my friends, Bobby, Ellen and Dave, worked for the DoD. We were all young then and all single.
While my friends worked in this particular defense department division, as unmarried and childless, the threesome were tasked with near continual travel and time away from home. You could say they were burning out from it rather quickly. It was overtly noted (again, long ago - in a time when these things could be said) others in the office could not travel on the same heavy rotation because they were married or had children. 'You are single; enjoy your five weeks in Rock Island!' Hmmm...thanks. Many in the office were the same grade, but my three amigos were saddled with the burden of being gone six of eight weeks most of the time. I remember two of them at different times remarking to me that 'if we are always away from home, how are we to find someone to marry so we can slow our business travel'?
Enough of my meanderings, I just found the traveling of the unmarried friends running in parallel to the story in the Washington Times. I believe the story also is applicable to mothers as well as fathers. But if workers are allowed a bit of flexibility for their family events; are there any folks who are childless and finding themselves stuck at the office continually and not able to get in touch with co-workers during business hours? Just food for thought. Nothing meaty - just some extra cheese. Let me know if you have any stories.
Fathers finding work-life balance
Spending more time with their children
by Whitney Stewart
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Sunday, June 15, 2008
On a sunny Friday afternoon, a tall man wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses skirted around a construction zone with his daughter as they headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch.
Brian Kelleher, a Seattle resident, stays busy working as a self-employed recruiter for engineers, but last week he closed down shop to bring his 11-year-old daughter to the nation's capital for a leadership conference. He said he makes a habit of spending time with his three children - even when that means putting work on hold.
Read the full story:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jun/15/fathers-take-advantage-of-flexible-workplaces/
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