07/21/97 A CLOSE-UP OF CORNING

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A CLOSE-UP OF CORNING
It's the home-wrecking company in a new book, but improving
[At a meeting with top executives] I said that the people I worked with wanted a better balance between work and family. I got it right between the eyes. Dave blew up at me: ''Don't ever bring up 'balance' again! Everyone in this company has to work hard!''
--An ''Amerco'' junior manager

From 1990 to 1993, sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild plumbed the pseudonymous Amerco, a large, profitable technology company well known for its progressive human resources policies. Granted extraordinary access, she met with 130 employees at all levels. The result: Her recent book, The Time Bind, a compelling, damning assessment of so-called family-friendly strategies.
To spoil the secret, Amerco is, in fact, Corning Inc., according to numerous past and present company executives. Neither Hochschild nor Corning would comment on Amerco's identity. But others say that ''Spotted Deer,'' the book's riverside small-town setting, is Corning, N.Y. And the ''much admired'' chief executive officer, a great-grandson of the founder, is James R. Houghton, who retired from the company last year.
Many who were at Corning in the early 1990s say Hochschild's depiction of a workaholic environment that yanked people away from their families is dead on. ''It was real,'' says one consultant to the company at the time. ''We had discussions on it at every [employee] session. Local managers just hadn't bought in.'' Observes a former executive: ''There was an honest effort to do something about [work-life balance]. But was it as successful as all the awards would make us out to be? No.''
Four years isn't long enough to transform any culture entirely, but today, Corning doesn't quite match Hochschild's harsh picture. Although the environment remains as intense as ever, employees report that supervisors are more sensitive to family issues and that flexible work arrangements are on the rise. '''Widespread' might be too strong a word right now, but it's more common,'' says one manager. The old perception that longer hours brought better results has waned, too: ''Bob is able to say, 'I'm going to be home for dinner with my family,''' says Pam Walker, whose husband is a sales representative.
Since Hochschild's study, Corning has spent $1.2 million to build a day-care center for 143 children. More important, it began this year to include diversity measures in figuring bonuses for 150 senior managers. And all 2,400 managers will be required by 1999 to take a new nine-day training program featuring diversity and work-life modules.
FLEXIBLE. Such measures may have sold more managers on policies that give workers more time with their families. In The Time Bind, one couple madly juggles presentations at work with a child who must be hospitalized. By contrast, Enolia B. Foti recently took a week and a half off from her job as an information technology project leader when her husband had a serious accident, and another week when her young son had surgery. ''This company demands a lot of you,'' she says. ''But when it comes to family and personal time, it's great.''
Margaret Faber, a 38-year-old research scientist, took more than two months' leave when her first child was born two years ago, then eased back to full-time work over the next six months. Still, she has climbed the ladder and now supervises five other scientists. In contrast with Hochschild's job-consumed parents, she and her husband, Steven Dawes, also a Corning researcher, have cut back on travel and work staggered 9.5-hour shifts to shorten their daughter's time in day care; both visit her child-care center at lunchtime daily.
Yet Hochschild's central finding remains largely true: The vast majority of Corning employees still chooses not to cut back on work hours. At Amerco, ''I wasn't prepared for the degree to which working parents have forced themselves to adapt to an unchanged workplace,'' says Hochschild, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Her controversial explanation: Parents enjoyed themselves and felt more valued on the job. ''In a cultural contest between work and home...the workplace is winning.''
That phenomenon, Hochschild argues, imposes greater strains on workers and their families. It may help explain why Amerco was losing women employees in 1990 at a far greater rate than men. That hasn't changed: Last year, Corning's attrition rate among women was 8%, vs. 3.1% for white males. (Both rates are low by U.S. corporate standards.)
RESISTANCE. Despite Corning's attempts to ingrain work-family balance in its corporate strategy, some middle managers still don't support family-friendly policies. ''Some of my people, they put their families first and their work second,'' complains one. ''In today's marketplace, you just can't compete that way.'' Says Edwin O'Brien, a proponent of work-life balance who heads human resources for Corning's communications sector: ''Anytime we drive change, initially there's always a disconnect between behavior and where we want people to go.''
In that regard, Corning is little different from most companies, few of which have addressed the tensions Hochschild studied. Isolated in western New York, Corning's workers may face unique challenges: ''One reason people worked so hard was there was nothing else to do,'' half-jokes Susan B. King, a former senior executive. But progress is evident at ''Amerco.'' Written today, The Time Bind might be a different story.
By Keith H. Hammonds in Corning, N.Y.

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