ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 9, 1996 TAG: 9606100003
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Workplace
SOURCE: CAROL KLEIMAN CHICAGO TRIBUNE
When Karen Swanson Murphy was pregnant with her first child, she wanted to take a three-month maternity leave.
But that was in 1988, five years before the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which guarantees qualified employees their jobs after being absent to take care of family responsibilities such as a new baby.
Murphy was a benefits manager for a major railroad and decided the wisest move she could make to preserve her job and to get the leave she wanted would be to find her own replacement.
And she had another reason: ``I knew I didn't want to come back to three months of work.''
So Murphy helped choose the person who would fill in for her, a smart decision even today with federal protections. If you're a caring worker and want to guarantee that things won't go haywire in your absence, filling the temporary slot yourself is a wise career move.
Murphy asked people inside the company if they could fill in for her. None could; each was too busy with his own work.
``But one of my colleagues had a friend outside the company who was between jobs and wanted to do the work,'' Murphy said.
She interviewed the potential replacement, recommended her to her bosses, her bosses approved the temporary worker and the temp - who was paid the same as Murphy during her absence - was hired to fill in.
Three months after her daughter was born, Murphy was back on the job and, happily, wasn't swamped with work left undone. And the company hadn't been let down.
The process of getting a replacement and Murphy's increasing awareness of the need for temporary, part-time and contract workers had another result.
``I became aware of the real need for such workers,'' Murphy said.
That's why, in 1990, she started a new business, Flex Execs Management Solutions, located in suburban Willowbrook, Ill. She's in partnership with her sister, Kris Swanson.
Murphy said she encourages women to help name their temporary replacements.
``By finding your own replacement, you come back to a situation with some consistency in it - if you make sure your replacement is as good as you are,'' Murphy said.
Caring about what happens when you're not there also shows the company your high level of professionalism and that productivity will not be reduced in your absence, according to the personnel expert.
Sometimes, things don't work out exactly as planned. Murphy said that one client, Mary Krentz-Smith, director of external affairs for Roosevelt University, contacted Flex Execs last year to find a replacement for her when she left for maternity leave.
``She had planned to work up till the last minute, but the baby came six weeks early - before she had a chance to bring in someone else,'' Murphy said.
Though Krentz-Smith had written the specs for her job and what she was looking for, she wasn't available to select her replacement. But she had set the wheels in motion, and the right substitute was found by Flex Execs.
``A nice outcome of her efforts was that when Krentz-Smith did return to work, she job-shared with her replacement for three months,'' Murphy said.
Picking your temporary replacement gets a big nod of approval from Barney Ohlmsted, co-director of New Ways to Work, a San Francisco consulting firm that specializes in work arrangements and public policy.
``If your company lets you do it, it's a win-win situation for everyone involved,'' said Ohlmsted, who shares the director's position with Suzanne Smith.
``After all, you know your job better than anyone else, so who is better than you to find a fill-in?'' Ohlmsted said. ``If your company is willing to partner with you in the process, you both are way ahead of the game.''
It's such a good idea, in fact, it's one I recommend to all workers - whether they're going on family leave, vacation or to work out of town on a special project.
It's an excellent method of succession planning, something executives - the smart ones - have done for a long time.
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