Family-friendly University: helping people blend work and personal lives makes UC Davis a top employer - Work/Life

HR Magazine, May, 2002 by Andrea C. Poe

When Jill Frankel found out she had to have bed rest for the last couple months of her pregnancy, she was afraid that her boss, who didn't have children, would not be understanding, "but he was awesome," says the HR analyst at the University of California, Davis. "I telecommuted from home."

After 12 weeks of leave, her boss allowed her to work part-time and ease back into her schedule. "The school was incredibly accommodating," she says.

Frankel's experience isn't uncommon. UC Davis is known as the diamond among the gems in the University of California system. Californians have long considered it a progressive workplace, one with a myriad of work/life benefits available to employees throughout the system at all levels.

The administration has made work/life programs a priority, says Barbara Ashby, manager of child care and family services for the Davis campus, which took the mandate to heart. Starting in the 1980s, the campus started formally implementing work/life programs, such as onsite child care.

UC Davis, a campus with 16,000 employees and 27,000 students, is a pioneer, known within the UC system for trying new programs and introducing initiatives that are staff-and faculty-driven. The school is proud of this hard-earned reputation.

Work/life balance benefits at the university include onsite child care and kindergarten, breast-feeding support, flextime, alternative work schedules, catastrophic leave assistance, broad family leave policies, onsite athletic facilities, onsite housing for faculty and staff, and job placement assistance for domestic partners.

The campus's location off the beaten track--100 miles from San Francisco and 100 miles from Lake Tahoe--is partly responsible for the plethora of work/life benefits, school representatives say. "Davis is a small community, and the university is the major employer, so there isn't this big divide between people's work lives and personal lives," Ashby explains.

The university's attention to work/life programs has made it an employer of choice, says Dennis Shimeck, associate vice chancellor of human resources. "Our work/life programs really resonate with people."

Frankel agrees. Four years after the birth of her child, she continues to sing the praises of her workplace. Her supervisor lets her take an hour and a half for lunch so she can fit in a workout. "I live in a subdivision with its own fitness club, so it takes me awhile to drive there, go to my class and come back," she says. "My boss totally gets how exercise affects mental health." She makes up the time by arriving a half hour earlier in the morning.

From Co-Workers to Community

The work/life initiatives can make a difference in people's lives. Just ask Carlene Blaylock, assistant dean for administration and finances in the College of Engineering. An administrative assistant in her department with two small children had recurring breast cancer. When she ran through her own leave, she was able to tap into catastrophic leave assistance, a program that permits employees to donate their unused vacation time to colleagues in need.

Blaylock sent out a call for help. "I e-mailed everyone, telling them what was happening to Linda," Blaylock says. "The response exceeded all of our expectations." Employees offered up nearly a year of vacation time.

"People who didn't even know her donated their very preciously earned vacation time. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Unfortunately, Linda wasn't able to use all the time since she lost her fight. But I will tell you this: It made people feel really good that they could help someone in need," Blaylock says. The employees' compassion cost the university nothing.

In Committee

UC Davis officials credit communication among managers, faculty members, HR and other staff members and unions with the development of work/life initiatives. Where many institutions would find gathering consensus among this disparate group akin to herding cats, Davis has embraced the process.

"As an academic institution we have a long history of committees," says Ricardo Freeman, human resource manager. "There's a built-in mechanism that enables all kinds of employees to come together and share ideas. By bringing a cross section of people together, we can find out what's really needed."

Virginia Hinshaw, provost and executive chancellor, says: "People are the biggest investment you're going to make. Our committees are geared towards soliciting information from our employees so that we can meet their needs."

Most of the initiatives have come from these employee-driven committees. "We're famous for positing a program and then piloting it to see if it works," Freeman says.

For example, the lactation program began as an idea generated by a small group of new mothers who requested a private place to pump breast milk. There are now 10 rooms across campus designated for breastfeeding mothers; each is stocked with literature about child care and breastfeeding. In addition, a nurse is on call 24 hours a day to answer questions. In the five years since the inception of the program, some 200 women have made more than 8,900 visits to the lactation rooms.