Companies have to find new ways to attract and retain skilled workers

Improving the balance between the working part of the day and the rest of it is a goal of a growing number of workers in rich Western countries. Some are turning away from the ideals of their parents, for whom work always came first; others with scarce skills are demanding more because they know they can get it. Employers, caught between a falling population of workers and tight controls on immigration, are eager to identify extra perks that will lure more “talent” their way. (1) ….

Some companies saw the change of mood some time ago. IBM has more than 50 different programs promoting working balance and Bank of America over 30. (2) ….

The chief component of almost all schemes to promote work-life balance is flexible working. This allows people to escape rigid nine-to-five schedules and work away from a formal office. IBM says that 40% of its employees today work off the company premises. (3) …. Globalization has spread the hours in which workers need to communicate with each other and increased the call for flexible shifts. The spread of flexible work has come about at least partly as a result of initiatives to keep women workers. Companies have had to offer extended periods of leave for them to look after dependents (young and old), and flexible working in between.

Some of these initiatives are spreading even to the citadels of binge working, such as investment banks. Lehman Brothers has just launched a program called “Encore” which is aimed at easing back into the industry people who have spent time out of it (which means mostly women). (4) … The majority will inevitably be mothers wanting to rejoin the workforce. But fathers are also asking for sabbaticals. Working balance “is not just a women’s issue” any more, says Ted Childs, who is in charge of human resources department at IBM. “Men, too, are very concerned about it.”

The demand is being stoked by the “Generation Y”, the under-28s. They look skeptically at the idea of lifetime employment within a single organization and they are wary of the commitment they believe too often drove their parents to the divorce courts. Today’s business-school graduates are looking for a work style to go with their lifestyle, not the other way round. (5) ….

To some extent, the proliferation of work-life balance schemes is a function of today’s labour market. Companies in knowledge-based industries worry about the shortage of skills and how they are going to persuade talented people to work for them. Although white-collar workers are more likely to be laid off, they are also likely to get rehired. (6) …. The same competition for talent is evident in Britain.

Europeans suggest that the reason why so many work-life initiatives come first from America is that American firms have more scope for improvement. Paid holidays there, for instance, are considerably shorter than in Europe. Flexible working and the occasional sabbaticals may be the local alternative to Europe’s longer annual leave.

The introduction of flexible working, of itself, gives no guarantee that employees’ work-life balance will improve. The same technology that enables them to work flexibly from home also prevents them from ever leaving their office. (7) …. At the same time, young skilled workers increasingly write their own terms of employment. In such a labour market, where short-term contracts are the norm, corporate schemes to improve the balance of employees’ lives can become a side-show.

Some argue that in the not-too-long term, the desire of global firms to entice the West’s educated elite may disappear in a flash of enthusiasm for the graduates of India’s and China’s education systems. Even today, less than one in five of the world’s university graduates are white men. However, Liz Ramos, the partner at Bain & Company in charge of human capital, says that though employers are looking to India, it will be a while before India’s business schools produce graduates comparable to those from Europe and America.

(From ‘The Economist’, abridged)

V Read the article again, find the following words and word combinations in the text and learn their meaning. Make it a particular point to use these words in the further discussion of the problem.

Retraining, to lack smth, binge (working), a sabbatical, scarce, rigid, premises, a dependent, to launch a program, workforce, to be in charge of smth, a commitment, to some extent, proliferation of smth, a white-collar worker, terms of employment