A Michigan State University (MSU) professor discussed her recent book about managing flexstyles for women, work and family.
Ellen Kossek, from the MSU School of Labor and Industrial Relations and author of CEO of Me: Creating a Life that Works in the Flexible Job Age, spoke to the IU South Campus as part of the Gloria Kaufman Memorial Lecture Series.
The lecture was centralized around how people negotiate work and personal life and how that balance affects their lives.
Kossek discussed the three styles of workers which are the separators, the integrators, and the volleyers. The separator is a person that works in chunks of time. The integrator mixes personal life and work life. The volleyer has periods of time where they have high integration and others where they are more like separators.
Kossek has worked with the working poor, the unionized workers and the Dutch government, among others, to help create a better and more productive work environment. She studies people and workplaces and how work and personal time fits together.
“We must learn to take control,” said Kossek. “In order to do that we must first reflect on our values then talk to our support systems at home and at work and try to make small changes to get control.”
“U.S. culture is quite unique and there are many different ways, and what’s interesting to me is how many different countries are still trying to figure this out,” said Kossek.
She had studied different companies and how teleworking had affected the workers. She found that her ‘control group’, which was supposed to be working only at work, was secretly teleworking at night. This was due to the massive amount of work.
“Time at work is equated with productivity,” said Kossek.
Kossek believes we need to change our ideas of what is an ideal worker. Our ideas of what is a good worker need to be more flexible.
“Technology is a huge problem,” said Kossek. “The technology had changed the way the workplace was done.”
She discussed how technology has changed the rules of work and personal life. Making people more hyper-accessible and putting the pressure on people to be hyper-responsive.
Kossek has found that people that have taken a break have a higher productivity than those who just worked.
In her book, she discusses how to regulate our personal lives and our work lives. She also has a questionnaire that will help you determine what kind of worker you are. She believes we can take control of our lives and manage our boundaries between work and home, our attention and allocation of time as well as managing our relationships.
Managing life in a flexible job age
Speaker offers advice for women on managing life, work and family
Published: Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Updated: Wednesday, December 2, 2009
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