APM perspectivesGenerational and Gender Perspectives on Career Flexibility: Ensuring the Faculty Workforce of the Future
Section snippets
Career Flexibility Policies at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine
The University of California, Davis and UCDSOM have long recognized the importance of career flexibility in faculty recruitment and retention and have been leaders in developing and implementing career flexibility policies. Flexible career policies to enhance work–life balance were first introduced at the University of California, Davis in 1988; however, health science schools, including UCDSOM, were excluded from these policies because of their unique differences in academic tracks,
Results
The demographics of the survey respondents were consistent with the overall demographics of our school. The majority of survey respondents held full-time appointments. As expected, the older respondent group had fewer women, more full professors, and longer periods of employment at UCDSOM (Table 2). By comparing the older and younger generations of both sexes, the majority of the younger respondents were in clinical tracks as clinician-investigators or clinician-educators. In contrast, the
Discussion
Our survey has provided a unique window into the faculty, bringing to light important similarities and differences in attitudes, awareness, and use of career flexibility policies, and how they are influenced by generation and sex. Many of these findings were not as we expected on the basis of previously published reports of generational differences and our own cultural assumptions. Our survey demonstrated a high level of support for career flexibility policies among all faculty groups, which
Conclusions
We have found that faculty of all ages value and need flexible career policies, and report that these policies enhance their own satisfaction in the workplace. Key differences between generations and sexes provide important insights into high-risk groups and highlight areas for improvement, including targeting faculty education to increase awareness and use. We recommend that other schools develop and enhance their own policies through consideration of generational perspectives. We also
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Cris Warford, BS, Kellie Wheeler, BS, and Kristin Dang, BS, for technical assistance in the conduct of these studies.
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2016, Academic PathologyCitation Excerpt :Faculty also reported reluctance to use our school’s flexibility policies due to perceived barriers, most notably concern that using the policies would lead to perception of being less committed to career or a burden to colleagues/teammates. Women reported these barriers more than men.27–28 We believe these barriers reflect face-time bias, a form of flexibility stigma and unconscious bias related to the amount of time one is observed in the workplace that can lead to quick and lasting impressions about commitment and other traits, adversely affecting perceptions of employees and influencing the performance appraisals of those utilizing flexibility options.29
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2014, Women's Health IssuesCitation Excerpt :Our findings suggest that policies are perceived to vary within institutions as well. Creating and widely disseminating faculty-friendly policies may increase both satisfaction (Rizvi et al., 2012) and retention in medical academia (Howell, Beckett, Nettiksimmons, & Villablanca, 2012). It may also aid individuals in overcoming barriers to advancement and promotion resulting from familial demands (Krener, 1994; Silver, 1995).
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Funding: National Institutes of Health award GM 088336 in partnership with the Office of Women's Health Research, with the goal of supporting “Research on Causal Factors and Interventions that Promote and Support the Careers of Women in Biomedical and Behavioral Science and Engineering,” and the Frances Lazda Endowment in Women's Cardiovascular Medicine to ACV. National Institutes of Health trial registry number: GM 088336.
Conflict of Interest: None.
Authorship: All authors had access to the data and played a role in writing this manuscript.