Now that's more like it

I was thrilled today to sit down with my morning coffee and read this Seattle Times article about several local companies honored by the nonprofit Families and Work Institute for creating flexible workplaces.

Here are real-life examples of companies making a profit and treating workers well by giving them control over their work life. Some of the techniques used: flextime, working from home, bringing baby to work, and my personal favorite, an extra month of vacation every five years. Sign me up!

As these companies have discovered, happy workers are productive workers.

I was thinking about this today as I took my kids to the park. My husband runs his own company, which gives him a lot of control over his schedule so we can spend more time together as a family. But every so often, he has to work on the weekend -- 18 hours yesterday, and a full day today. (One of his employees recently had to leave the country because his visa expired. In a company of only five people, that hurts.)

Like I said, my husband doesn't have to do this often, but sometimes things come up. Just like in my last job, things would come up that might require my time on the weekend.

With our time with the kids already limited during the week, having to give up time with them on the weekends as well seemed inherently unfair. But it also illustrates the problem of what to do when both spouses have demanding careers.

Does it mean one has to sacrifice their career? Not necessarily. But if women earn less money than men, as a recent study shows, whose career do you think will suffer?

It's no wonder working mothers are being pushed out of the workplace.

Employers, are you listening? Maybe it's time to take a lesson from your more flexible counterparts.