More Firms Cautious On Culture U.S. Multinationals Nurture Work-Family Programs Abroad

At a conference in Tokyo, IBM managers, dismayed to learn of their Japanese employees’ hours-long daily commutes, proposed a telecommuting program.

“That sounded easy and good,” said Maria Ferris, a consultant with IBM’s global work force diversity department who attended the recent meeting.

But then the Japanese told the Americans about the tiny size of most homes and the numbers of elderly parents who live with children. Working from home would be difficult. So instead, IBM is starting a pilot program to lease suburban office space to save commuting time.

Inspired by the growth of the global economy and research showing that good work-family programs save money, U.S. companies are paying much more attention to the juggling that employees face whether they’re in Toledo or Taipei. But along the way, they’re facing their own cultural balancing acts.

“As we branch out into other countries, we need to understand each culture,” said Kathy Kane, director of work-life and wellness programs at Motorola Inc. “We can never presuppose that we understand a culture in which we haven’t lived.”

Motorola, a pioneer in the movement to take work-family programs abroad, has built child care centers in Scotland, Taiwan and South Korea, and is constructing its latest in Germany. Employee surveys in South America and Britain show that eldercare and child care are major concerns.

“Understanding the needs of our employees outside the United States is critical to our business,” which operates in more than 200 countries, Kane said.

That’s what other U.S. multinationals are beginning to discover, said Brad Googins, head of the Center for Corporate Community Relations at Boston College, at a recent work-family conference.

“It’s going to be increasingly difficult for a General Motors to talk about work-life just in the United States when their business is more outside the United States than in,” he told representatives from Seagram & Sons Inc., Amway Corp. and the World Bank.

Chase Manhattan Corp. was so interested in bringing family-friendly programs to its employees in Britain that it helped persuade WFD, a major U.S. work-life consulting firm, to open its first international office in London last July.

Now WFD helps not only U.S. employees working in Britain, but British workers who must deal with family problems in their homeland while working in the United States, said Liz Bargh, WFD’s chief executive in London.

Recognizing the importance of work-family issues abroad is only the beginning. Myriad complications - from a reluctance to address the issue to vastly different perceptions of family life and work - await companies that go global. The work at times demands U.N.-style diplomacy.

When BMW first tried to introduce family-friendly policies in Germany, workers scoffed, “We should be making cars, not babies,” according to a Boston College report on work-life in Europe. In many countries, balancing work and family is seen as a woman’s problem.

In developing a worldwide work-life strategy, IBM faced reluctant local managers who felt American solutions were going to be forced willy-nilly on foreign problems. In response, IBM dropped the term “work-life” - which meant little to most foreigners - and started talking about workplace flexibility and balance.