Federal Government Work-Life Balance

The third edition of The Best Places to Work in The Federal Government 2007 has been released.  It was disappointing to find that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ranked 30th overall, 11th in “Family Friendly Culture and Benefits” and 27th in the “Work/Life Balance” class.

The Partnership for Public Service and American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation (ISPPI) have released the third edition of The Best Places to Work in The Federal Government 2007. Here’s the overview and the rankings.

It is interesting to note that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), that same government agency that held hearings on April 17th about work-family balance and job bias, ranked a disappointing 30th overall on the list, 11th in the subcategory of “Family Friendly Culture and Benefits”, and an unsatisfactory 27th in the class “Work/Life Balance.”The public meeting held by the EEOC was an interesting one, although you wouldn’t know it from the Commission’s press release. One has to do some searching to find the testimony from Heather Boushey, Senior Economist from The Center for Economic and Policy Research. Ms. Boushey did an excellent job explaining the realities of people’s lives in the following statement:

“These issues are not going away. While families have put in more hours of work, the U.S. economy has grown richer and more productive. Yet, we have not addressed how workers can reconcile the demands of work and family in a way that works for both families and employers. The implications for workers are clear: without the right to have time to care, workers, especially those at the bottom of the wage distribution, must regularly make a choice between their family and their job. This is not a real choice.”

Maybe the EEOC should consider leading by example.

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