More Dads Resist Business Travel
As a comic book illustrator who draws well-known "Star Wars" and G.I. Joe images, Dave Dorman is often asked by his publishers or clients to attend autograph-signing events.
But more than once, the 48-year-old father has turned down travel assignments so he could be home for special family events.
"Taking care of family has taken priority over business travel," says Dorman, father of Jack, 2, adding that his own father was with the military and had to travel often. "Last year, there was a convention on Father's Day, so I did not go to that. Jack is young and wouldn't remember, but I would remember."
That reluctance of working dads to travel is cropping up more often. Employers are facing more resistance from employed men who are refusing or negotiating a reduction in travel-related assignments to spend more time with family.
Nearly 50 percent of male senior executives say they're more likely to ask for less travel during their job negotiations than they were five years ago, according to a 2007 study by the Association of Executive Search Consultants, a New York-based trade group.
The concern about the impact of fathers' travel on family is a challenge for employers grappling with retention and recruitment issues. Some are responding by developing unique programs to curtail travel, but employees are increasingly asking for concessions, such as negotiating travel schedules, the ability to take family members along on trips or greater flexibility from their companies when it comes to work-life balance.
"Work-and-family issues were exclusively women's issues. Now, guys are feeling more comfortable," Armin Brott, author of books on fatherhood and a partner with Fathers At Work, a provider of workshops on fathers and work-life balance. "(The younger generation) is making the inroads. They want to be home and with their kids."
But it can also create tensions among co-workers who don't have children but may feel they're expected to shoulder more of the traveling burden.
"There's this building resentment," Brott says. "They feel those with kids can get extra benefits and accommodations."
Need To Retain Workers
Employers are responding to requests for less travel by dads because the need for talented workers in a tight labor market means they can't just let valuable employees walk away because they are unwilling to travel. For example:
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At public relations company Porter Novelli, Martin Pearce, 34, a vice president in Seattle, is raising a son, Xander, who has medical problems that require trips to the doctor. But Pearce's job also requires international and other travel.
To help ease the burden, his company has offered to send meals to his home to ease the stress of his business travel on family. Pearce and his partner, Shane Brooks, 38, are raising, Xander, 1.
"There have been times to say, ‘I can't take this trip,' " Pearce says. "My office and my clients have been very supportive. My company would do anything I'd ask them to do."
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Stephen Vance, 48, travels every week for his job as a zone manager with Ford Motor's customer service division. The company has helped him by letting him set his own schedule so he can be home on the weekends. He has a son, Jamie, 18, and daughter, Danielle, 14. He's also been able to travel on weekends so he can be at his children's' events during the week -- a desire to balance work and family that has grown as his children have become involved in more activities.
"If I needed to be home for a special father-daughter event, they give me the freedom to manage that within your work life. You don't get criticized," says Vance, of Pittsburgh. "Ford encourages it, and they're very accommodating."
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The Solae Co., an ingredient manufacturing business based in St. Louis, has been devising alternatives to limit travel.
Greg Paul, global director of nutrition strategy and father of three children, has been faced with intense travel demands, so the company is developing a series of "webinars" (which are presentations or lectures over the Web that allow for interaction), webcasts and videos to lessen his travel load by allowing him to show information or data to clients without having to be there in person.
"It's important to keep employees happy, (to) help them balance work-family-life demands and also look for ways to improve productivity and efficiency," Ford Motor spokesman Andrew Shea says in an e-mail.
Paul says the efforts help give him more time with his family and alleviate the stress his absence puts on his children, Hannah, 9, Christopher, 7, and Megan, 4.
Balancing Work And Life
It's a challenge more employers can expect to face as fathers become more comfortable asking for accommodations that allow them to balance work-life issues. One in four fathers is dissatisfied with his work-life balance because of work demands outside of normal working hours, according to a survey by online job network CareerBuilder.com. Men between ages 36 and 50 were the most likely to say they'd give up the breadwinner role if their spouse or partner earned enough to support their families. Those in the 51 to 65 age group were least likely.
"Employers are slowly, slowly getting on board with this," Brott says. "Fathers used to be considered good fathers if they worked hard. Things have definitely changed."
One reason the issue is moving to center stage is that men with children who are climbing the corporate ladder are grappling with the same work-balance issues as their own employees.
The Mayfield Group in Solon, Ohio, has also dealt with fathers' reluctance to travel by relying more on technology, such as showing graphics by using a webcam or meetings held via video conferencing. The understanding for the need for work balance comes from the top.
"We still travel, but to combat it, we've shifted our focus to use technology. It's helped internally with the employees I have," says Dean Kampman, a partner with the company. "I'm a reluctant traveling dad myself."
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