BOLSTERING SOCIAL CAPITAL THROUGH BETTER WORKPLACE POLICIES
Patrick T. Brown
Of the major institutions in daily life, few receive more hours of the day than the workplace. Yet too often, building social trust and broader interpersonal relationships ignores the very real role that work can play in building the kind of connections that lead to stronger social capital.
The workplace can also play an important role in establishing, or degrading, the social fabric that surrounds workers and their families. A workplace that gives employees dedicated time away to invest in their community will create space for organic social capital formation. One that leaves workers at the mercy of unpredictable scheduling will make it harder for parents to attend, for example, PTA meetings. Any agenda that focuses on social capital should include a focus on steps employers can take to boost social capital among their employees.
While public policy can strengthen social capital, employers can also play a substantial, voluntary role in strengthening the associations and institutions which can create a better environment for stronger families and communities. Firms could address the following problems as priorities:
The demands of the workplace making it difficult for workers to fulfill their role as parents, impeding family formation and youth investment
Many workers, especially parents, finding it hard to balance their preferred work-life tradeoff, making it difficult to fully participate in civil society
Increased disconnection in the workplace harming individuals’ earning potential and social cohesion
Companies have shown an increasing attentiveness to the physical and mental health of their workforce. Attention to employee’s social and relational health should be included in the assessment of a worker-friendly workplace as well.
Understanding Work’s Relationship with Social Capital
In its definition of social capital, the Social Capital Campaign states the need to promote “the rich network of relationships that sustain individuals throughout adulthood, both professionally and personally.” This understanding is essential—the idea of social capital has just as much to do with an individual’s well-being as with its oft-mentioned relationship with Tocquevillian associational life.
The relationship between social capital and the workplace can pay immediate dividends in the form of stronger prospects or higher earnings. But sociologists have also stressed the connections and informal bonds that are created between coworkers. Work provides a paycheck, but also connections and a sense of identity. These connections can even have impact on family formation—about one in ten married couples met as coworkers, though that fraction has declined in recent years.
Recognizing that social capital has a relationship with an individual’s economic opportunities as well as civic health should push us towards thinking of the workplace as a place where social capital, as well as financial capital, can be cultivated. Lots of workers already have the types of flexible work arrangements and benefits that allow them to balance the responsibilities of work and home as they see fit, but many others don’t.
As such, a workplace-centric approach to social capital will necessarily be contextual; no single approach will be appropriate to improve the different aspects of social capital, such as family formation, for a white-collar professional, a haircutter, and a construction worker. This report lays out some principles and ideas for boosting social capital through better workplace policies, while trying to lay out a way of thinking about the interaction between employer and employee that recognizes the mutual benefits such voluntary initiatives can generate.
SUPPORTING EMPLOYEES AS PARENTS
A social capital-centric focus must include some emphasis on family formation, and policies that make starting and having a family more achievable should be first on the list. One-third of parents say they struggle with the demands of home and workplace, which has a direct impact on family stability, family affordability, and creates demand for additional sources of youth investment. The early years of life have tremendous impact on long-term potential, and high-income individuals tend to be able to afford the stable, supportive environments conducive to better outcomes, whether that be a parent at home or a high-quality childcare situation. Expanding family-related benefits can help more working- and middle-class parents have more choices in the work-life balance that best meets their family’s needs and can help remediate some pervasive gaps in early childhood investment.
Birth
One straightforward family-friendly policy for firms is better supporting pregnant workers and new parents. In June 2022, Walmart announced its associates employed in Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, and Louisiana would be eligible for a $1,000 benefit towards doula services during pregnancy. Doulas are support workers who do not provide medical care, but provide assistance to women during pregnancy and childbirth, and have been linked to lower rates of C-sections, easier labor, and reduced medical interventions. Firms that offer pre- and post-natal care for pregnant workers can help new moms be healthier and feel more supported.
Childcare
When parents return to work, they must balance the demands of care for their new child and their responsibilities in the workplace. Child care is expensive for many parents. Employers who see the value in knowing their workers’ schedule is more predictable and reliable can provide child care benefits to working parents; 13% of full-time workers already receive child care benefits through their employer.
One particular approach that makes child care and commutes a little less complex for families is providing child care on-site at the office. Currently, Section 45F of the Internal Revenue Code offers employers a tax credit associated with various expenses associated with on-site child care, up to a maximum of $150,000 (firms would have to spend about $430,000 to receive the full amount.) According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2019 Employee Benefits Survey, 4% of businesses surveyed offered child care at the office.
According to the Government Accountability Office, between 169 and 278 corporate tax returns claimed the credit in 2016, or about between .002 and .004% of all corporate filers. Research suggests firms are reluctant to invest in building out the physical infrastructure for a child care facility. Firms with a larger labor force, that might be more natural candidates for providing on-site care than smaller businesses, may find the $150,000 annual limit of the credit too small compared to the other considerations at play.
But as the Washington Post’s Alyssa Rosenberg pointed out, a post-Covid office environment might tend to have more physical space available than a firm strictly needs, ready to be re-purposed as child care space. And in a tight labor market, employers might consider competing for workers with children by recognizing the benefits of having parents and kids with the same commutes (and, especially for nursing moms, easy visits during the day.) Patagonia, for example, spends about $1 million per year, on net, on on- site child care that provides services for a total of about 80 children. It recoups some of its expenses through the Section 45F credit, but estimates another 30% of its costs are offset by greater employee retention and lower training costs.
ADDRESSING WORK-LIFE BALANCE
Prior to the pandemic, research would cite the lack of flexible scheduling and ability to work-from-home as making it difficult for workers to achieve the work-life balance they sought. Though it is a stretch to call it a silver lining of the global pandemic, a post-Covid world may indeed open end up opening new options for employees.
The flip side of more flexible work, of course, is the threat that an environment in which work can be done from anywhere becomes a certain expectation that work should be done everywhere. Making space for community life might mean reining in some of the workplace’s expectations. In France, labor negotiations can include preserving time in the evenings or weekends when employees are expected to not be responsible for e-mails or messages. Portugal passed an even more aggressive law in 2021, making it illegal for companies with more than 10 employees from contacting workers outside of their scheduled working hours, save for emergencies.
But not every job can be done from home, and many service-sector employees from a lack of stable, predictable scheduling. “Just-in-time” scheduling adjusts worker shifts to meet demand, helping contain labor costs but shifting the burden onto workers to adjust their schedule to meet their employers’. It goes without saying that an unpredictable schedule makes it harder for employees to meaningfully commit to the institutions of civil society, like church, neighborhood or community.
This practice is especially common in service-sector jobs, like retail, food, and hospitality – an 2019 survey found less than half of workers in those industries got their schedule more than a week ahead of time. According to the Brookings Institutions’ Katherine Guyot and Richard Reeves, one-third of female workers know their work schedule less than two weeks in advance.
This is, of course, especially hard on parents with young children, who must figure out care arrangements at late-notice. Unsurprisingly, one study found “on-call shifts, shift timing changes, work hour volatility, and short advance notice of work schedules are positively associated with difficulty arranging childcare and work-life conflict.” There are current no federal laws relating to work scheduling practices, but localities have moved to restrict the practice, and in 2020 Oregon became the first state to require schedules 14 days in advance.
RESTORING CONNECTION IN THE WORKPLACE
Lastly, an understanding of social capital in the workplace should recognize the potential for the office itself to be a place of friendship and connection. Robert Putnam, in his seminal treatment of social capital Bowling Alone, stressed that “civic engagement and social connectedness can be found inside the workplace, not only outside it.” He argued for new forms of civic discussion groups and service clubs in the workplace, as well as new forms of connection to address the rise of what he called “contingent work,” such as contractors and freelancers.
In the time since Bowling Alone was published, the trends have gotten worse. New forms of gig work have sprung up, allowing people more flexible hours but at the cost of a traditional cohort of coworkers or officemates. And pressure on companies’ bottom lines has led to a divergence of connection within the workplace as well.
Major companies have outsourced non-essential activities such as payroll, accounting, janitorial, and maintenance to outside firms, allowing them to focus on increasing benefits for their employees and driving value for shareholders. David Weil, an economist at Brandeis University and Obama administration U.S. Department of Labor appointee, calls this phenomenon “the fissured workplace.”
Concurrently, a 2018 paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that income segregation within workplaces has risen over time. Instead of corporations bringing together a mass of workers under one roof, the period of 1978 to 2013 saw increasingly efficient sorting by skill - high-wage workers became increasingly likely to work in high- wage firms, and increasingly likely to work with each other.
The upshot of these trends can mean greater workplace flexibility and benefits, but at the cost of connection with other workers (and for those who have had their job contracted out, perhaps a loss in benefits as well.) It does little good for lower-skilled receptionists, clerical staff, or janitors to see increasingly generous benefits flow to professional staff while the third-party contracting firm that is responsible for hiring them is unable or unwilling to increase their scheduling flexibility. And increased self-sorting of high-wage workers with other high-wage workers means that non-college educated workers, who already report fewer workplace connections or personal relationships at work, will be even less likely to benefit from trends that disproportionately benefit high-skill workers.
These trends are difficult to buck at the level of the firm; a company that chose not to outsource its clerical work or janitorial services while its competitors did may credibly claim to be at a real financial disadvantage. Policymakers may have to think about creative ways to ensure flexibility and protection for gig or contract workers. But the potential decline in connection and camaraderie should not go unremarked upon, even if there are fewer policy tools to address it.
OPTIONS FOR EMPLOYERS
There is unavoidable tension between efficiency and flexibility. Firms that seek to be more competitive may adopt labor practices that are more efficient in the short-run, but push more of their associated costs and burdens onto their employees. Employers, as well other significant institutions such as colleges and universities, should be clear-eyed about the expectations and burdens they place on their workers, and intentional about carving out space for them to live life as non-workers when they are off the clock.
Voluntarily restrict just-in-time scheduling. Some firms have adopted more predictable scheduling for their employees. Particularly in a tight labor market, where workers have more leverage in the types of jobs they will and won’t do, employers that make an affirmative commitment to schedules two or more weeks in advance will give more workers from all walks of life better ability to plan their life around work, rather than letting work dictate what the rest of their life will have room for.
Discourage, or ban, non-emergency e-mails at night or over the weekend. While some e-mails during personal hours will always be necessary, curbing non-essential e-mails outside of working hours can reduce the burdens on workers to feel “always on.” German companies like Volkswagen and Daimler have negotiated hours where non-essential e-mails are not delivered, and private companies could follow suit, instituting a rule that all non-emergency e-mails sent overnight will be delivered to the recipient the following morning.
“Return-ships” for parents who have left the labor force. For parents that take time out of the labor force to bear and raise children, returning to the office even five years later can be an adjustment, and some return a decade or more after their most recent professional experience. Companies should look at parents returning to the labor force after raising children as a potential asset, and offer specific programming and recruitment efforts tied to this population. Large companies, such as IBM, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo have been offering so-called “returnships,” which tend to attract women who took time off from their career to have kids and are looking to return to professional life.
Make new parents immediately eligible for unpaid leave. Currently, employers of 50 employees or more, schools, and public agencies are required to grant up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act to employees who have worked at least 1,250 hours over the previous 12 months. Employers who are able could waive that requirement for expectant mothers, give them a little more peace of mind, especially when facing an unexpected pregnancy.
Adopt a “bring your infant to work” policy. Child care benefits may be too expensive for some firms to consider, but other creative policies can help ease the burden on parents. 31% of businesses said they would allow their employees to bring their children to work with them in case of an emergency; for new parents, companies for whom it is appropriate might consider allowing employees to bring in their children (until they are able to crawl) to the office even in non-emergency situations.
Expand workplace flexibility and other benefits to contracted employees. In the era of the “fissured workplace,” subcontractors and other employees not under a firm’s direct purview do not benefit from generous benefits. If bringing those jobs fully back in-house is unrealistic, firms could seek to ensure low-wage or contracted- out employees under their indirect supervision are at least given access to some of the more generous fringe benefits available to professional staff.
OPTIONS FOR POLICYMAKERS
The focus of this paper has been on steps businesses could voluntarily take to become more family-friendly. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some steps policymakers could consider for laying the groundwork for more family-friendly workplaces and work practices. Some existing or current legislation that could be adopted across the aisle includes:
Improving the tax credit for employer-provided child care
Doubling the size of the credit’s capped amount from $150,000 to $300,000, or even more, could make it more appealing for larger firms, who would be expected to have the demand for and resources to provide on-site child care, to take advantage of it. Allowing multiple employers to jointly provide care and receive the credit, or making it refundable or apply against FICA taxes, could expand the pool of potential on-site care providers, including small business and non-profit organizations. And Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee have proposed increasing the value of the employer-provided child care credit from 25 to 50 percent for small businesses.
Taking steps to restrict just-in-time scheduling
In 2015, a bill restricting certain just-in-time scheduling practices took effect in San Francisco, and other large cities have followed suit. A bill that would require two- weeks advance scheduling has been introduced in Congress. Research into a Seattle scheduling ordinance found benefits for workers, but the Covid-19 pandemic has made it challenging to assess its impact on business outcomes.
Collect data for “family-friendly” social responsibility
The rise of environmental, social, and governance criteria in corporate finance and investment has led to a renewed emphasis on a broader definition of sustainability, and acknowledgment that short-term pursuit of profits may not always capture all externalities. The Department of Labor could collect data on firms’ metrics around certain family-friendly practices—the share of employees with access to paid leave or child care benefits, the share of employees scheduled with fewer than two weeks’ notice – to give researchers more data into what policies work best, and give employees more knowledge of the state of the labor market.
Provide a modest paid leave program to new parents
As Abby McCloskey has written in an earlier Social Capital Campaign report, policymakers can and should take steps to implement a national paid parental leave program so that all parents, regardless of their state of residence or occupation, are allowed some time away from the demands of the workplace after the birth of a child.
Work and family are two essential institutions for a healthy society, but the responsibilities owed to each can sometimes conflict. Better public policies have an important role to play, but run the risk of being heavy-handed or causing unintended consequences. Businesses have an obligation to be good stewards with the shareholders’ or owners’ resources, but also have an obligation to treat their workers fairly.
Making it more achievable and affordable to form a family, and to participate in associational life, should be a consideration in determining fair treatment of workers. Those opportunities should not be reserved for workers who have the social or financial capital
to be in a job that empowers them to do find space from the demands of the workplace. Employers have an obligation to be proactive about creating space for their workers to do so as well. As Putnam wrote two decades ago, “the workplace is a natural site for connection with others...[but it] is not the salvation for our fraying civil society.”
Creating space for more employees to build ties that are conducive to social capital, and engage in family and community life to a greater degree, require cultural changes that go beyond public policy’s ability to affect. Starting on the level of an individual business or firm can help address some of these problems, and recognize the potential of workplace to be a place of connection and support in fulfilling other, more important, responsibilities that are not done for pay.
Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His writing has been published in The New York Times, National Review, Politico, The Washington Post, and USA Today with research published by the Institute for Family Studies and American Compass. Patrick serves on the Advisory Boards of the Social Capital Campaign, Humanity Forward, and the Center on Child and Family Policy and was previously Senior Policy Advisor to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee ( JEC).
Patrick holds a B.A. in Political Science and Economics from the University of Notre Dame and an M.P.A from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
