Estée Lauder settled a dispute with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over the agency’s first lawsuit targeting a parental leave policy that gave new mothers more time off than new fathers, in an agreement that signals a shift in how corporations and regulators respond to such policies. What the New York-based cosmetics giant agreed to this month—and where the agency came down against the company—could be instructive to employers.
At employees' request, parental benefits are on the rise. Over the past few years, major organizations like Facebook, Morgan Stanley, and IBM have beefed up their policies. It's safe to say that right now is the best time in history to be a working parent -- in theory. Unfortunately, a policy doesn't constitute practice. Although they have more company-supported time than ever before, men are hesitant to use it.
Growing numbers of Americans face the immense and often overwhelming challenge of caring for an aging parent or other loved one, a burden that will skyrocket as 76 million baby boomers move into their 80s and need help coping with dementia, cancer, heart disease or just plain frailty and old age. Social trends and medical progress are working against each other. Half of the 35 million family caregivers who now assist older adults have full-time jobs.
Millennials by the numbers. Do all those assumptions about their wanderlust and fear of commitment hold up? Are they really so different from everyone else? Jean Twenge, who spoke at our 2016 Spring Roundtable Meeting, is featured in this piece.
It was Jan. 4, 2015. Noah, who had long struggled with his mental health, had killed himself three days earlier. He was 15. The family Noah left behind — Stephen, his wife Janna and son Eli, now 23 — started a foundation that works to end the stigma surrounding mental health, and funds programs that support families whose children suffer from mental illness.
While Japan famously brought the world the concept of “death from overwork,” South Koreans work longer hours, according to labor data. In fact, they put in 240 more work hours per year than Americans do — or, put another way, an extra month of eight-hour workdays. The South Korean police say work pressure plays a role in more than 500 suicides a year, out of a national total of about 14,000. South Korea’s leaders are trying to change that.
