Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    
    
    I just saw a small article in DTW about a month ago that mentioned
    something about encouraging MORE part-time people rather than
    contract or tag.  You might want to get a copy of this issue.
    I was surprized to hear that Digital is encouraging part-time
    positions because it hasn't been evident in my group.  Two years
    ago, two people in my group on 32 hours (with written letter from
    personnel) were told they HAD to go full-time or would have to
    leave there jobs.  They brought this to personnel's attention
    and were told this was so.  They have been working full-time since.
    
    I understand that most of the other major corporations are
    encouraging part-time work and ACTUALLY doing it but Digital
    seems to frown on this.
    
    

    
>    I just saw a small article in DTW about a month ago that mentioned
>    something about encouraging MORE part-time people rather than
>    contract or tag.  You might want to get a copy of this issue.

	I did read that article and had to laugh.  The benefits (or
	cut/off for no medical, personal, etc.) did not change at all.
	Maybe they will later but I get exactly the same benefits
	(vacation, pension, and stock -- which is okay) as R20 as
	I got as PP1.  I still get no medical (with no option to buy
	into medical), no leave, no tuition reimbursement, etc.

				Eileen

    I just got off the phone with John Doherty of Corporate Personnel
    on the subject of job sharing.  He acknowledges that right now it
    doesn't work very well, but agrees that it makes good sense and
    is working toward better support for it. 
    
    As Eileen points out, right now only persons working >= 30 hours/week
    are able to get medical benefits, and only those working full-time
    (i.e. 40 hours/week) are able to get personal leaves for anything
    other than military service.
    
    When you add to that the fact that Finance (well, the Finance software
    really, I expect) still counts 2 people sharing 1 job as being 2 people
    for headcount purposes [brainless!], managers have very little
    incentive right now to permit ...let alone encourage!... jobsharing. It
    is the headcounting problem that John is working on right now.  He
    sounded pretty certain that it will be solved, but thinks probably not
    this year. 
    
    But solving the headcount problem still leaves the question of how do
    we partial out medical benefits and personal leaves.  Presumably, since
    med bennies are at 80% for fulltimers, a halftimer might reasonably
    expect 40% support; it would follow the pro-rata model used for other
    elegibilities.  It isn't at all clear to me why personal leave isn't
    available as a matter of course anyway; that question remains to be
    understood.
    
    It might be worthwhile to survey our membership (and non-member
    colleagues?) to find out what the pressure for parttime/jobsharing is,
    and what skills are available for matching.  If there is a large
    population of potential jobsharers, we might be able to convince upper
    management to provide the needed support more quickly.  What do
    you all think?
    
    						=maggie

    From the February 1988 "Mgmt Memo":
    
    Future Challenges of a Changing Work Force
    ------------------------------------------
    by John Murphy, Consultant, Corporate Employee Relations
    and Harris Sussman, Strategic Information Group, Corporate Personnel
    
    ...
    
    Flexibility in work schedules is also important because people with
    highly-specialized skills -- such as software engineering -- are
    becoming scarce.  One way to deal with the scarcity of people is
    to recruit part-time professionals -- people who prefer a reduced
    work week for family reasons or because of outside interests.  There
    is a pool of exceptionally high-quality people that we can attract
    for individual part-time employment.  In other words, variable
    schedules and other arrangements can and should be considered when
    they make good business sense.
    
    ...

    Maggie,
    This is encouraging. I'd always heard that Digital makes it difficult
    to hire part-timers, and that managers who wish to do so have to
    go to extraordinary lengths. Has something changed to make it easier?
    
    Liz

    Yeah, Liz, supply and demand :-)
    
    Holly

    What really needs to change is Digital's way of determining head
    count.  They literally count heads.  If they were to count hours
    the managers would be able to hire part timers, and allow job 
    sharing.