The spectrum of work flexibility is very broad. Certainly it has both broadened and become more of a cultural transition since I first started asking for flexible work 10 or 12 years ago. Today there are still mostly cultural and management issues that get in the way of an employee having the best balance of work and personal obligations. I still see signs every day of general mistrust of the employee's commitment if they ask for a reduced hours schedule at the office. Sad was the number of times during my high tech career that the worried Fortune 100 companies repeatedly laid off talented and dedicated professionals only to bemoan the scarcity of such talent a year later when they began hiring again.

Still, flexible deals were made in the office and they were not uncommon - only unspoken. At the other end of the spectrum today are companies like IBM which has a culture of measuring professional performance not by an observed and rigid schedule. Each employee has their own deal and is accountable for their work. Funny enough, some of this flexibility came about as a cost cutting measure. Instead of laying off people, IBM got rid of their offices and put people to work on the road and at home. The culture still dictated working long hours and forgoing vacations and the lines between personal time and work time began blurring. At the end of the day, the employee's life has become more manageable and the corporation is still getting it's pound of flesh.

Best Buy, Netflix, Patagonia and a host of other companies have caught the wave of using performance measurement and the honor system. "When you have a work force of fully formed professionals who have been working for much of their life," said Patty McCord, chief talent officer at Netflix, "you have a connection between the work you do and how long it takes to do it, so you don't need to have the clock-clock-out mentality."

The key to all of this culture change is not difficult to pinpoint. Management must be up to the task of setting the measurements and implementing them. Rarely in my twenty years in corporate did I encounter a manager who was highly skilled at this. I did, however, frequently meet individual performers who managed themselves very professionally. They set goals, deadlines, organized cross functional teaming and ran budgets. They didn't usually report on their methods. They just did them.

Do I really want a wife? I think that what I really need is the acknowledgement that I am best suited to do the disproportionate workload for our home and family BECAUSE I CARE. Shira Boss said in a New York Times 8/11/07 article that "even if the workload is divided, women complain that they are usually the ones organizing, juggling and filling their head space with the daily demands of family life." That's a fact at our house.

If you were to ask my husband about all my: (pick one) complaining, organizing, juggling and analyzing over the household, he would shrug his shoulders and mutter that I take on too much. After putting this topic on the weekly meeting agenda a few times over the years, neither one of us has altered our opinion on what constitutes "workoad." I used to be so sure that this was because my husband was either (pick one) too tired or too lazy at the end of the day to carry more of the load. Sure I was left with less energy to devote to workplace tasks. But I always felt strongly about my homeplace commitments too.

The plain truth is that "women are held to higher expectations and hold themselves to higher standards," according to Sumru Erkut, associate director of the Wellesley Centers for Women.
I don't think the solutions lies in women lowering their standards either. I derive huge satisfaction from nurturing our (pick one) meals, laundry, vacation plans, interior design, garden, volunteering. All this, and I love my work too. The solution once again lies in women's ability to identify and implement schedules for their time that is in proportion to their needs and interests. Most of the time this will include a flexible work schedule and that time has come.