One Employer's Perspective: Family Leave Insurance Program
Thank you for putting together this event, Working Families Multi-State Coalition Meeting Download pdf file about the Consortium. I am Carolyn Sevos, the VP of Public Policy for NAWBO-NYC, the National Association of Women Business Owners. NAWBO is a national association, the largest
collective voice of business owners in the US. We represent all trades. According to the 2006 Center for Women's Business Research, in New Yorks state, we have over 600,000 women-owned businesses and we generate nearly 88 billion in sales. On average, women businesses have:
’Ģ 10.6 full time employees
’Ģ 2.5 part time employers
’Ģ 5.0 contract or temporary employees
NAWBO NYC strongly supports the Families in the Workplace Act. As the California law has shown, the extension of the Family Leave Insurance Program to include paid leave and flexible work hours for employees to manage an illness’Äîtheir own or for a family member’Äîhas been positive.
I can speak from my experience as a small business owner. I have a technology company, IntraCommunities, Inc. (ICI) that puts together ecommerce systems and interactive community websites as well as runs an ISP. I have three employees and a group of part-time programmers and designers.
When I told my staff where I would be speaking this morning, they were thrilled. Especially, one of my staff who recently took time off after his baby was born. It is not quite a year and now he still works from home and is one of the most productive people I know.
As a small business owner, I am most affected by increased taxes and insurance costs. I even hate jury duty. I demand a lot of my staff, but in the face of family crisis or health issue, it is impossible to expect anyone to work or to be productive. Sometimes we need the time to manage our personal lives. And, ultimately, what we are talking about here, and what is my most important commodity is employee loyalty.
Even Deloitte, a large company, estimates saving $41.5 million a year in productivity through the flexibility of their work programs.
Family crisis and health issues are facts of life and do impact my bottom line with or without insurance. The insurance that has been set forth in this law is actually a beneficial safety net for me. For me, high turn over is harmful.
New workers whether temporary or full time require training in our methods and procedures. Security is paramount for us and high turnover is a recipe for disaster. I need to make it possible to keep my staff though the bad times along with the good.
There are minimum standards required for a healthy and safe workplace. In my opinion the US has fallen behind in recent decades and both work and families are suffering.
Squeezing every ounce of work of an employee and keeping salaries low may work for some, but it is not a sustainable long-term view. I work in an industry that trumpets the glory of outsourcing to keep labor costs as low as possible to stay competitive, I could be wrong, and only time will tell, but I do not think that reality supports this as a business model.
Finding a way to help workers during family crisis is not a maybe, but a necessity. The challenge is finding the ratio of how far an employer can go to help its employees and maintain profitability.
I think that the Paid Family Leave Act as it is in CA and proposed by NJ achieves this delicate balance.