According to a recent workplace benefits survey conducted by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), there has been an overall decrease in the number of employers offering general and fringe benefits in some areas. SHRM attributes these decreases to employers “focusing their resources more effectively.” Does this mean your dog Skip won’t be going to company-sponsored ice cream socials anymore? Maybe, but a tougher economic environment doesn’t mean the end of more important family benefits–dependent healthcare, family leave, paid vacations, and so on. You have to understand what employers offer, what the industry norms are, and find your way to a family-friendly company.

Knowing more about these benefits is the first step. Most of them, in general, are designed to maximize your workplace productivity and enrich your family life.

Family and Medical Leave
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 affects most private and public employers in the United States. The FMLA entitles eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period for specified family and medical reasons. Workers may request leaves for the birth of a child or for serious medical circumstances that impact the employee or an immediate family member. Some companies will offer additional maternity and/or paternity leaves beyond the 12-week minimum.

Flexibility
Increased diversity in the workplace has prompted many employers to be more flexible. Benefits such as flextime, compressed workweeks, job sharing, telecommuting, and custom health options are all designed to meet each employee’s specific preferences. For example, nearly 30 percent of Merrill Lynch’s 51,000 employees now use flexible work arrangements.

Dependent Care
Dependent care can take on many forms, including benefits for a child, elderly parent, or domestic partner. Some common dependent benefits include direct services–onsite/offsite daycare centers or financial services (dependent expense accounts and reimbursements). An employee’s parent may be classified as a dependent and offered similar benefits. Most recently, companies have begun to offer domestic partner benefits. This entitles a same-sex or opposite-sex unmarried partner to full “spouse-equivalent” benefits.

Other Family Benefits
A number of other benefits are not as prevalent, but they do exist: scholarships, tuition refunds, relocation assistance, home leave, cost-of-living allowances, transit subsidies, and so on. A company would rather retain its own workforce than go through expensive and time-consuming turnovers. For example, relocation reimbursements are common when a company asks an employee to move to another domestic or foreign office. In certain cases, as in management-level relocations, employers will include living allowances, reimbursement of a spouse’s lost income, and transit costs for home visits.

Finding Family-Friendly Companies
As with compensation, employee benefits vary dramatically by company size, job function, and industry standard. First, you should decide what’s most important to you. Companies may allow you to select the benefits that are most applicable to you. If you are a single mother, flextime and daycare may be critical to you, but paternal leave may not be at the top of your priorities. Also, pay attention to laws that apply to private, smaller businesses. For example, private employers with 50 employees or less are not covered under the FMLA and therefore not obligated to provide those benefits. So, do your research, talk to a company HR representative, and even arrange a meeting with a current employee before accepting any position.

In addition, publications such as Fortune and Working Woman publish annual rankings and surveys of the best companies to work for. Often, family benefits at top companies are profiled and compared in detail. Companies with the best family benefits are typically larger and more established; they’ve been around for years and can endure short-term economic downturns. Companies like IBM, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Southwest Airlines, and Charles Schwab are perennial fron-runners.

Finally, public agencies (the Bureau of Labor Statistics) and private consulting firms (Watson Wyatt Worldwide) both publish specific compensation and benefits surveys across different regions, industries, and job functions. Once you are armed with all this information, finding a company that caters to your family should be a breeze.

Taking ownership in a company and its successes, whether you’re actually an owner or not, can make long hours more palatable. “If you’re a stockholder,” says Rice, “you are, in fact, part-owner. In that case, it would probably behoove you to work as many hours as it takes to get the job done. Get involved in the success of the company and it becomes less of a chore.” The extra hours may also help you get ahead.

Rice stresses quality, not quantity, when it comes to overtime. “I believe there are three reasons why people are hired: to make money for a company, to save money for a company, or to solve a problem. People get hung up on the number of hours they put in, when it’s really one of those three issues they should be focused on.”

When Richard Needles defined his goals 22 years ago, he sought to become a human resources generalist for a major corporation. Another main objective: to retire at 55. Needles is now the senior vice president of global human resources for Sterling Commerce, a provider of e-commerce solutions in Ohio.

“When I first started out,” Needles says, “I saw that my cohorts were getting in at 8 a.m. and leaving at 5:15. So I started showing up at 7:30 and leaving at 5:30, and I worked for about three hours on Saturdays. Suddenly, I was better prepared on Monday mornings than they were. It got me a step ahead.”

Now Needles is in a position to communicate to Sterling Commerce employees his expectations regarding hours. “I think that it’s reasonable to expect most employees to work 37.5 to 43 hours each week.” Needles expects 45 to 47 hours from managers; 50 hours from directors; 55 hours from vice presidents; and top-level executives such as presidents are expected to put in 60-hour weeks. “No one can define balance for any other individual,” says Needles. “I have a very specific plan, so I went down a very specific career path to get there.”

Matching Expectations and Reality
Jobseekers should decide if a time commitment sounds feasible before jumping onboard at a new company. “The kind of company, the kind of business, and the cycle of that business all dictate what’s expected of employees,” says Joyce Leger, human resources manager for ePresence, a Web development and consulting firm in Westboro, MA. She notes that the e-commerce explosion is creating numerous jobs, most of which require numerous hours.

“If you’re talking about a dot-com or a start-up company,” says Leger, “the expectation is that you work a 60 to 80-hour week.” The trade-offs, such as valuable stock options and double-digit increases, offset the extra hours for many people. “But for someone who’s got family or other personal commitments and can only work 40 hours, it’s not going to be a good fit.”

Speak candidly about expectations before taking a position, Leger advises. “Most employers will bring this up in an interview because they want a good fit. But if the interviewer doesn’t bring it up, by all means, ask.”

The Balancing Act
Today, it seems that no occupation is exempt from overtime. Giving every endeavor 100 percent, whether it’s work- or pleasure-related, is one way to balance overtime with personal time. As the executive director of the Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum in Pennsylvania, self-described family man Cummins McNitt manages a staff of 30 and a budget in excess of $1 million. He also does more than his share of community volunteer work. McNitt tries to “stay centered on family life and spiritual life,” and home time means family time–at least while his son is awake.

“We spend our family time, we do homework, we go to basketball games,” McNitt says. But when his 10-year-old goes to bed, McNitt’s laptop often reappears so he can resume work on grant writing and correspondence.

Learning to Love the Stress
Sacrificing time off to take a job is commonplace for Spencer and Liz Kennard, co-owners of Kelsey-Kennard Studio in Chatham, MA. Whether they’re rising early on a Sunday morning to capture clear aerial photos (one of Spencer’s specialties) or spending New Year’s Eve on the job, the Kennards juggle hectic workdays with caring for two teenage sons.

“You don’t want area businesses calling someone else,” Liz says. “You don’t want to lose contact with your clients.” She admits forsaking housework to enjoy an evening off on the family boat. “Whenever we get a free moment, we snag it and go.”

The constant flux of vehicles, policies, and people at Best Ford and Cycle in Nashua, NH, keeps Holly McMillan busy 55 to 60 hours a week. “You almost have to enjoy a certain stress level to work at an auto dealership,” McMillan says. As business manager, every single purchase transaction eventually crosses her desk. She and the sales manager must wait until the last customer of the day is serviced, so indecisive and late-arriving patrons keep her hours unpredictable.

McMillan finds balance in family cookouts or walking with her dogs on the beach. After 14 years in the motorcycle and automobile industry, her time investment is sufficient incentive to work hard–and late. “Having gotten to where I want to be,” she says, “I want to do the best job I can.”

In that, she echoes the sentiments of thousands of other workers who have learned to live without their stopwatches.

Can great parents be great workers?

Rising to the Challenge
Many companies now recognize the value in supporting parental commitments. This is especially true since the Family and Medical Leave Act passed in 1993, prompting corporate America to offer working parents a certain amount of security. For smaller companies, a family-friendly environment means flexible hours, telecommuting options, and support for parents who need to attend to a sick child. Larger companies might provide onsite day care, extra days off for family time or maternity leave, and dependent child programs.

Parents can learn more about family-friendly companies online. One site, familyfriendly.com, features a searchable database of companies that provide specific programs for working parents. You can search by onsite childcare programs, for example, dependent care assistance, or special holiday and vacation plans. The site tells you which companies provide those benefits.

Other Web resources can help parents research and select a quality daycare program. Babycenter.com has a complete daycare section, including a chart that evaluates different centers, stay-at-home options, nannies, preschools, and relative caregivers. This site also provides a list of questions to ask during child caregiver interviews.

Case in Point
Parents know that the childcare arrangement they choose will impact the well being of their child and their own success at work. Parents who constantly worry about the quality of their child’s environment–or who rely on an unprepared caregiver–suffer from stress that may derail their careers.

One parent who knows a good daycare choice when she sees it is Stacy Sass, publishing professional and mother of two young children. After careful research, Sass found a center that provided a good environment and great teacher-to-child ratio. However, if one of her children had a fever or runny nose, Sass or her husband had to stay home from work. They were always able to work through such difficulties, but the daycare center eventually grew and raised the number of kids per teacher. The family opted for in-home care and hired a nanny.

The individual care option worked out well, but Sass points out the difficulty in finding a good nanny. Even if a candidate interviews well and has impressive references, there is still a chance that the person will spend too much time watching TV or talking on the phone.

New Technology, Old Concerns
Some parents are now opting to invest in a home Webcam system to keep tabs on their children while at work. Some daycare centers even offer an occasional peak into their daily activities via an interactive Web site. Working parents take a short break and watch their preschooler play with friends–or even check in on the nanny at home.

Parents have to deal with a sick child every now and then, and some companies have geared up to help. Eddie Bauer, for example, provides time off for parents to spend with an ill child. Another company, Lincoln Financial Group, has been frequently praised by Working Mother magazine for providing such benefits as child-care subsidies and back-up childcare assistance.

All in all, this just makes good business sense. Supporting parents as they try to balance dual roles ultimately pays off. Employees are more likely to stay loyal to the company–and stay focused on the job.