Scientists are trained to believe that research should come first in their lives, and the research community supports this expectation. However, if you want to build your personal relationships, care for children or elders, or nurture an important nonwork interest, you need time, attention, and precious energy. Fortunately, life science companies and universities are beginning to discover that it's good business to help employees have better, more rewarding personal lives. Let's look at this trend, and examine how it might affect your next job or promotion.

Traditionally, companies have viewed personal life as competing with work life. Whatever you gain in your personal life is lost from work life, in terms of both time and attention. Many people equate working long hours with loyalty and productivity. Scientists, in particular, often measure dedication to their work by how single-minded they are, which may be gauged by what they sacrifice to their experimentation. They tend to view overworking as a badge of achievement.

The good news for scientists is that changes in the workforce and the culture are forcing companies and universities to consider how work and personal life can enhance each other. According to Artemis Management Consultants, only 7 percent of the U.S. population comes from a traditional family structure that includes a working father and a stay-at-home mother who cares for children full time. Research-based corporations are using empirical studies of their cultures to assess how to improve both work and personal life for their employees - thus attracting and retaining the most talented people and motivating them to work with loyalty and high morale.

For example, Baxter International surveyed their employees in 1995, finding a direct correlation between overall job satisfaction (for both men and women) and how well employees were able to balance work with their nonwork lives. At Eli Lilly and Company, empirical studies have disproved the myth that presence at the job equals productivity. Candi Lange, director of workforce partnering at Lilly, claims that the company discovered an important formula: mutual trust between employees and supervisors, combined with encouraging employers to "own" their jobs, are great predictors of work-life satisfaction and productivity. These two factors, taken together, enable employees to negotiate more flexibility, take on more responsibility, and reengineer their own work processes.

A new type of employment relationship seems to be emerging for scientists and other knowledge workers. In an article recently published in Harvard Business Review, Stewart Friedman (University of Pennsylvania), Perry Christensen (WFD), and Jessica DeGroot (Third Path) studied managers who treat work and life as complementary and mutually beneficial. [1]

They discovered three mutually reinforcing principles at work. First, managers clarify and clearly inform their employees about their business priorities. They encourage their employees to be equally clear about their personal interests and concerns, describing where work falls within the spectrum of their overall life priorities (even if the work priority is not their top interest). Second, these managers recognize and support their employees as "whole people," celebrating the fact that people have lives outside of work. Third, they experiment with the way work is done, hoping to enhance performance on the job while freeing employees to be creative with their time and energy after work. They encourage employees to be scientists in investigating the work process itself, looking for new ways to improve efficiency, flexibility, and even enjoyment.

When examining the biotech industry, Susan Eaton and Lotte Bailyn, both of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), discovered that the old employment contract is already being replaced with a new set of mutual expectations about how work and family life are related. [2] The authors claim there is no longer an implicit contract, but rather "an emergent, ever-changing interactive set of adaptations." [3] The study showed that scientists in biotechnology will accept instability in their companies in return for a greater capacity to improve their skills, integrate their work and personal lives, and expand professional networks.

What can you expect from companies that value work-life balance? The pharmaceutical industry, as a whole, is a leader in providing some work-life incentives. The larger companies, still saddled with layers of hierarchy, are more cautious about some types of experimentation than small companies, and communication of employee needs up the management ladder is still limited. However, these companies can spend prodigiously on personal benefits, including: on-site child care centers; emergency backup child care; summer school for school-age children; help with elder care; sabbaticals; generous emergency and family leave benefits; on-site lactation facilities for mothers; adoption assistance; personal leave for volunteer work or continuing education; job-sharing; part-time and flex-time arrangements; compressed or extended work weeks; and on-site educational programs to help tackle personal life issues.

Telecommuting has become a standard option for many scientists who can do their analytical work at home. (However, don't expect to be able to care for a young child while crunching numbers on your computer.) Work-life advocates predict that companies may soon address after-school programs for teenagers, realizing that investing in teen care benefits employees, the community, and employers.

On the university side, MIT, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania reportedly take burnout and other work-life issues very seriously. They have all hired full-time work-life professionals to help faculty achieve the integration they need. However, changing the tradition of overworking in the university research culture will not be easy.

Among biomedical and pharmaceutical companies, work-life analysts single out several companies for their overall efforts, including: Bechtel, Lilly, Genentech, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and Baxter. Catalyst, a nonprofit organization aiming to advance women in the workplace, gave Baxter its 1999 award for work-life initiatives. Alice Campbell, director of work-life initiatives at Baxter, states that the company is attempting to integrate work-life initiatives systematically into all of its management practices. For example, work-life support questions are part of regular surveys given to both managers and their employees; in theory, this means that attention to work-life issues is one measure of a manager's job performance.

Lilly also uses employee comments about a manager's sensitivity toward work-life issues as part of management evaluation. In addition, the company actively encourages senior managers to model openness about personal needs, starting from the CEO's office. Finally, Lilly is building partnerships in the community to provide benefits to its workers that also help the community as a whole. A science summer camp for children of employees serves as such a model. Lilly created the program with the YMCA, local schools, and retired scientists, and even brought in a local symphony to teach children about sound.

Armed with the knowledge of what companies can offer in work-life integration, you can choose your next position more wisely. Don't ask about all of these benefits during early interviews, however, since not all managers are open to the concept. When exploring a company, talk to members of the groups with whom you will actually work. The policies promoted by well-meaning human resource personnel may not filter down to your individual group.

Christopher G. Edwards is a Boston-based science management consultant, writer and editor.

Andrzej Krauze is an illustrator, poster maker, cartoonist, and painter who illustrates regularly for HMS Beagle, The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, Bookseller, and New Statesman.

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Endlinks

Center for Work and the Family: Facing the Facts - a collection of facts about the American workforce.

Work and Family - an extensive site covering aspects of balancing work and family.

National Partnership for Women and Families - information about such issues as family leave, health care, and other work-family legislation. Includes downloadable guides to the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Work Family Researchers Electronic Network - provides a searchable literature database, Internet resources, and suggested readings.

Kunz Center for the Study of Work and Family - provides links to academic research, some work of the Center, book reviews, and the latest statistics on work and family.