Work-Life Balance May 21, 2009, 5:00PM EST

How Women Are Redefining Work and Success

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"Today's business world, where work can be done anywhere at any time, calls for a flexible environment that provides the opportunity for work-life balance," Barnes explains. "This doesn't mean employees work less; instead it means empowering employees to do their work on a schedule that works for them. So if they want to work from their kitchen table at 3 a.m., as long as the work gets done, who cares when or where they are doing it? Companies need to recognize that this kind of flexibility offers employees the ability to manage and balance their own careers and lives, which improves productivity and employee morale."

And, by the way, Barnes is working hard to be sure others can have the opportunity for fulfillment that she had. Sara Lee offers a multitude of flexible work options, and Barnes has also launched a program called Returnships. It's aimed at midcareer professionals who've been out of the workforce for a number of years, and offers them the chance to retool and retrain, with an eye toward a permanent, and probably flexible, job.

Most of us, of course, aren't going to be able to quit a CEO job and then get another, but the fact that it's been done helps us all. And there are satisfying, life-changing, and winnable battles that are well within reach. Robin Ehlers, now a sales manager for General Mills (GIS), works a full-time job almost entirely out of her home, with only occasional travel. But negotiating this work life did not happen without a struggle—especially at her former job at Pillsbury. "As I moved down in status at Pillsbury, so I could travel less and have a more manageable schedule, I was still working from the office," she explains. "I was trying to get my office moved to home, and there was no way my boss was going to let me, but to me it just didn't make any sense. I can remember kind of having a breakdown and just thinking: 'I can't waste the time on my commute when I could be with my new baby.' " All of her work was by phone and computer with customers in other cities, and she felt she'd be equally, if not more, efficient at home. Her boss wanted everyone together.

Finally, thanks to Ehlers' persistence—and a director who arrived and wanted her office space—her boss changed his mind. She got her deal, and when General Mills bought Pillsbury, managers saw no reason to change it. Ehlers' negotiation, seemingly random and one-off, and the negotiations of millions of women like her, are having a collective impact by tearing down the old hierarchy brick by brick.

But the savviest companies aren't waiting for disgruntled women to do the work; they are trying to do the demolition themselves. Creative, manageable work programs are taking root all around the country. Here's a taste from the Families & Work Institute's recent award winners:
• At Kaye/Bassman International, a recruiting firm in Plano, Tex., each employee simply asks for what they need—to be home with children in the afternoon, to work via laptop—and in almost every case, the request is granted. CEO Jeff Kaye says humane treatment gets productivity results back to him in spades.
• The KPMG accounting firm offers its staff work-compressed workweeks, flexible hours, telecommuting, job sharing, or even reduced workloads. And workaholics beware: The firm has implemented wellness scorecards to find out whether someone is working too hard or missing vacation. If so, supervisors get in touch to urge a slowdown. Oh, and how about eight weeks fully paid maternity leave, even for adoptive parents? And two-thirds pay if you need more time.
• Chapman & Cutler, a midsize law firm in Chicago, started a two-tier pay scale. Hard-chargers who bill 2,000 hours a year are paid top dollar. For those who prefer to slow down and see their families and friends, they can bill 1,800 hours and earn less. More than half chose the reduced schedule.

Companies everywhere are starting to retool. "The one-size-fits-all workplace doesn't work," says the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Christensen. "The idea that you will work full-time year in and year out, that you will be on a career trajectory that is a straight line, is vanishing. Employees increasingly feel more entitled to say: 'I need and I want to work in a certain way.' "