Forget career ladder; they're on the lattice

CHICAGO — Like most big firms that compete for talent, Deloitte & Touche tries to make it easier for employees to juggle work and life.

At one point the firm realized it offered no fewer than 69 flexible work programs, from telecommuting to sabbaticals, yet employee satisfaction actually declined slightly over a five-year period.

The problem wasn't the programs, Deloitte concluded. The problem was that work was organized around models from an industrial era when households with stay-at-home moms were the norm, responsibilities were clearly divided and breadwinners worked full-time until retirement.

"We said, 'Let's just acknowledge that the work force has fundamentally changed, family structures have changed, attitudes have changed,' " said Deloitte Vice Chairman Cathleen Benko, managing principal of talent.

The result is one of the most comprehensive efforts so far to reconcile the demands of a global economy with the needs of a diverse multigenerational work force, experts say.

Instead of a corporate ladder, Deloitte substitutes the image of a lattice on which people can step up, move laterally or down as their circumstances change. Parents can drop out or ease up without fear of forfeiting a shot at a top job after they return. Empty-nesters can work full-throttle or ease into retirement.

Many people fashion unconventional careers without support from employers, with varying success. Deloitte aims to provide a framework for such choices. By the end of next year all 42,000 employees will be using the system.

The program, started in 2004 and rolling out now, is described in a book co-written by Benko, "Mass Career Customization: Aligning the Workplace with Today's Nontraditional Workforce," published by Harvard Business School Press.

Employees choose from a set of options to increase or decrease four aspects of work: how fast they progress toward promotion, how much they produce, the degree to which their hours and travel are restricted and their level of responsibility, from individual contributor to leader.

"Stalled survivors"

Author and work-force expert Tamara Erickson, an adviser on organizational change, said her research suggests that 19 percent of the work force consists of "people for whom work is really important but [who] because of health, family or other issues view their ability to pour themselves with abandon into work to be constrained."

She calls them "stalled survivors."

"It was very clear to us that people went in and out of this segment," she said. "Deloitte's program is a very innovative attempt to wrestle with that and begin to see how corporations can address that segment in a more far-reaching way."

Cultural change tough

Designing a program is the easy part, she added. "Getting the cultural change in place is much harder. So much depends on our concepts about what signals success or commitment. Can a person work fewer hours and still be committed? All those things are in many cases [baby] boomer hang-ups. They tend to get in our way."

Deloitte Consulting principal Terry Noetzel, 52, joined the firm in 1985, when men didn't ask for flexible work arrangements. "There was a subtle or not-so-subtle pressure to be willing to do whatever it took," he said.

He quietly positioned himself for assignments that didn't involve travel so he could be home with his wife and two children. But after he moved to Chicago in 1992 to build the firm's health-care practice, he regularly worked 65-hour to 70-hour weeks while his wife put her career aspirations on hold.

Two years ago, when faced with an assignment that meant more travel, he re-evaluated.

"I'd been telling myself that family came first, but the truth is work was No. 1 and work was No. 2. Everything else was somewhere down the list," he said.

He told his bosses he was unwilling to take the out-of-town account even though it might mean trade-offs for him professionally.

"That was a new step for me," he said. "The firm always has said you can do this, but because we're so driven most of us haven't figured out how to do it on our own."

Dan Mayville, 38, a former Marine Corps officer and manufacturing manager, joined Deloitte 18 months ago after staying home three years with his two children so his wife could take a promotion.

Both parents moved in and out of full-time and part-time work while raising their children, now 11 and 9. Both work full time from their home in Alpharetta, Ga.

Program structure

Deloitte's new program provides "a context and a structure to explain how we've been managing our careers and the family," he said.

"It'll help change the way organizations look at their employees, too. Within that context I wouldn't be considered a maverick or a renegade. It wouldn't just look like, 'He lacked commitment to his career,' because that couldn't be further from the truth."

Benko said managers worried that the program would be unworkable if too many employees wanted limited workloads, schedules or responsibilities.

"In fact, the floodgates for people that wanted to dial down did not open," she said. "What surprised us is how many people stepped forward and said, 'I totally get it, I want to dial up.' "