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Best practices from corporations that nurture their employees to encourage true talent to grow and stay, including ROIs on the most successful work/life policies
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Who REALLY Benefits From Work/Life?
By Barbara Frankel
In this Blackberry world, it seems like we are all working 24/7. Is technology actually ruining our lives? To find out the answer to this question and others on the racial/ethnic and gender divides in work/life, we put together a roundtable of corporate leaders and nationally recognized work/life experts. ...more
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Why Domestic-Partner Benefits Are Good for Your Company
By T.J. DeGroat
Twenty-three years after New York City-based The Village Voice made history as the first U.S. company to offer domestic-partner benefits, about half of the Fortune 500 provide this benefit to their employees. That number has increased dramatically during the past decade, not just because it's fair to employees, but because the benefits help the bottom line. This coverage certainly helps recruit and retain gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) employees, said Lori Marra, manager of new and interactive multimedia design at Eastman Kodak. ...more
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How to Communicate With Coworkers With Disabilities (Part II)
By Eric L. Hinton
Nancy Starnes, vice president and chief of staff for the National Organization on Disabilities (N.O.D.), believes the etiquette on how people with disabilities interact with their coworkers is set early in the relationship-building process. "Any time there is someone new that is different in some way, there will be discussion," Starnes says. "If that person has a disability, that discussion could be about would this person blend with the team and what will he or she add. Those initial doubts are natural. It can and should be discussed. It's the only way to get beyond what those differences are." But the first question out of your mouth never should focus on the disability. Instead, offers Starnes, take time to get to know your colleague. ...more
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How to Communicate With Coworkers With Disabilities (Part I)
By Eric Hinton
The corporate office can be filled with potential landmines. For example: You meet up with your new coworker, who is in a wheelchair, in the company hallway. Up until this point, you've only had a chance for some limited small talk, but as far as you can tell, you've hit it off well. As you proceed along the hall with some office chit-chat, you notice the corridor begins to slope upward. Noticing your colleague is now having slight difficulty moving the wheelchair up the incline, you think nothing of it as you take hold of the chair from behind and gently guide it toward the end of the hallway. Good deed, right? Wrong. Instead of gratitude, your new colleague looks at you with an unexpected mixture of anger and resentment. As you come to the end of the hall, he rolls away without as much as a word. The incident leaves you befuddled and a little angry. Where was the disconnect? "Some people are going to want you to assist them if they're in a wheelchair, and others aren't," says Michael Takemura, director of the Hewlett-Packard Accessibility Program Office. ...more
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Helping GLBT Employees When a Life Partner Leaves
Dealing with a divorce or separation can be difficult for any employee. Often, employees feel torn between sharing the details of their personal lives with a boss or colleague and keeping a stiff upper lip in the interest of maintaining a professional image. ...more
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Common Denominator: Quadriplegic Psychologist Teaches What It Means to Be Human
By T.J. DeGroat
Psychologist, radio host and writer Daniel Gottlieb knows what it takes to overcome adversity. Molested by a teacher, divorced, widowed and paralyzed from the chest down after a near-fatal car accident, Gottlieb could have chosen to sleepwalk through the rest of his life. But like all great survivors, he has turned his struggles into lessons. He was the midst of his deepest despair when a colleague touched his shoulder and said, "Dan, whether you like it or not, from now on you're a teacher." It was a powerful realization. "That's what I do, not consciously or intentionally, but through my life I teach that you can be disabled and have dignity, you can be dependent and have dignity, you can be helpless and happy, make a contribution to the world," he says ...more
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