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<< back to the 2001 archive listing << Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation Commentary From The Executive Director How do we cope? Do you become overwhelmed by the number of tasks that must be done and the amount of time you have to get them completed? Of course you do. At least the majority of working people today have more tasks to accomplish than can be accomplished in the work week. How do we get by? How do we cope with this stress that we all encounter day-to-day? When you add in family commitments, time for relaxation and sleep (don’t forget sleep!); most people are living on a very thin edge. How do we cope? One way that we cope is to prioritize our lives — both our personal and work lives. We must recognize what is most important to our existence and place those items first on the list. Family must come first, but we have to also remember that we work to enable us to make things better for our loved ones. Therefore, we are again caught in a struggle having to prioritize at times which is more important, our work or our family. Life is strange that way! We want to be there for our family, but we know how important it is to our employer (and to our future employment) that we serve our employer. As an employer, IAFP has evolved to recognize that our staff must place a high value on their involvement in family activities. At one time, our staff had very few children and most were able to dedicate their attention to work. Through attrition, marriages and other life-changing events, our staff evolved to where we now have a majority of employees with children and even grandchildren. This is a good thing and makes our staff outings much more exciting. It is fun to see how fast the children grow. This evolution to more family has meant that we, as an employer, had to become
more flexible in allowing time for employees to attend school functions, in
allowing parents to leave work on a moment’s notice when their child became
ill during the day and in allowing time for our staff to be able to spend time
with their families. A few years ago, we converted from the traditional "sick
time off" and "vacation time" to a "PTO" system. "PTO"
stands for Personal Time Off and allows our staff to access a pool of PTO hours
anytime they need to miss work. The staff member controls the use of this pool
and accumulates time each pay period. Many employers use this system now and
it surprises me today when I find companies not under some sort Not too long ago, I was involved in a conversation with a friend. He was talking about how he and his wife planned to visit their son in Colorado the following week, but had to cancel their trip because his employer "might need him" to work. This friend is not employed in a technical position or one that requires travel, not that this should make much difference. He is approaching retirement age, has always been a responsible worker and does more than what is required of him. For his employer to disallow his vacation time for their convenience (because they "might just need him to work that week") doesn’t make logical sense. When you weigh the ill feelings of my friend towards his employer and how this decision affects his productivity, you can easily see that granting the vacation time would have been a much better decision. Had the time been granted, my friend would have come back to work refreshed, enthused after visiting his son and been grateful that he was able to take the vacation he had planned. Instead, he cancelled his vacation, worked the week he planned to take off (of course it wasn’t a particularly busy week) and now harbors a bad attitude towards his employer. This has to affect his long-term productivity and also has a negative effect on those working with him. From that short example it is evident how management decisions affect employees and staff. Whether you are an employee or in a management position, I hope that you value family time and know how to balance the two. I encourage managers to be open to allowing staff to attend school functions, to be understanding when someone has to leave work mid-day to tend to a sick child and to think twice before declining a vacation request. For employees and staff, I encourage you to recognize the benefits you receive. If you are able to participate in family activities and your employer is supportive of your doing so, take a moment to thank them because not all employers see the advantages of providing this benefit. At IAFP, we are indeed fortunate to have seen the benefits of prioritizing
family early |