THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 26, 1995 TAG: 9502250414
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
Judy Thompson fits the description of a ``trailing spouse.'' Noland Co. offered her husband a promotion - if the Thompsons would relocate from Richmond to Newport News.
A great opportunity, but Judy Thompson didn't want to quit her job and move the family. She liked her job as employment manager with Carpenter Co. in Richmond and didn't want to ditch 13 years of seniority. She also regretted having to leave her friends at work.
Judy and Dave Thompson didn't know it at the time, but they weren't alone. Just five years ago, fewer than half of American households had two breadwinners. But by last year, the number of two-income households had swelled to 65 percent, according to a survey by Right Associates consultants and the University of Tennessee.
Now, as more couples like the Thompsons are faced with choosing between the stability of family roots and careers, some businesses are trying to make that choice more palatable by helping trailing spouses find new jobs.
It may be the ``new frontier'' in employee services, said Paul Wesman, who wrote a report for Right Associates called ``Valuing the Dual-Career Workforce.''
Before two-income families became the norm, companies promoted and moved workers from state to state without much thought about the upheaval it caused the employee and his family. The employee nearly always took the transfer, figuring turning it down would make the company question his ambition.
These days, promotions aren't the only reason workers are asked to move. Job security is now a prevailing motivator.
Since 1987, moves attributable to career advancement have dropped by one-third. Instead, companies ask workers to relocate to improve productivity at another facility, to cross-train them, to start up a new operation or to offset work force losses due to restructuring.
Without the carrot and stick of a better job, companies have to be more accommodating when they ask someone to move, workplace experts say. Twenty-nine percent of companies surveyed two years ago by the Employee Relocation Council had a policy of offering assistance to spouses of transferring workers; an additional 25 percent said they sometimes offered assistance.
More assistance is clearly needed, experts say.
``It's a management issue for the company,'' Wesman said. ``If it's a financial hardship for the employee and they can't move, the company has lost a valuable investment because they can't deploy the worker where they want to.''
It works to the company's advantage to do more than slap a resume together for spouses and offer them interview coaching, Wesman said.
Spouses of relocated employees told University of Tennessee researchers that they wanted help in putting resumes together. But more than 65 percent of those surveyed said they needed assistance with even the finer points of a job search, including long-distance job hunting and advice in negotiating an offer.
Employment assistance may be the next service companies have to offer when they ask someone to relocate. Four of five recently relocated spouses said the company's help in finding a job would be important to them next time.
Michele Adams considered her husband's offer to move to Franklin as a production supervisor with Union Camp ``one he couldn't pass up.'' Not that they didn't think about it. Michele had just opened a mail-order business selling educational computer software for children when Union Camp called.
``It was a major part of the decision,'' she said from her new Little Bytes computer store in Franklin. ``But we felt this area could support the store; then we would have the mail order end as well.''
In addition to the problems encountered by trailing spouses, there are also several intangibles to consider.
A family's move affects a worker's productivity and concentration. If an employee's spouse agrees to move but becomes disgruntled after taking a menial job, the employee can become distracted at home and unable to focus on the new job.
That's what had Dave Thompson concerned. Judy originally agreed to quit her job and move. The Thompsons made three trips to the Williamsburg area to look for a new home. Dave noticed his wife's reluctance.
``I had to come to the conclusion that her heart was not in it,'' he said. ``Had she really made a decision to leave a job she enjoyed? I had to make a decision as to what I was willing to do.''
The Thompsons never turned to Noland Co. to help find Judy a job. Even though companies are starting to think about employment help for spouses, many couples still find solutions on their own.
The Thompsons settled on a geographical compromise. They bought a house in Providence Forge, a 45-minute commute for Judy to Richmond and an hour drive for Dave to Newport News.
``I'm not saying it was real easy in the beginning,'' Judy Thompson said, ``but we worked it out.''
The Thompsons, who made their move a year ago, now say the relocation couldn't have worked out better.
``Occasionally, when I see the people I work with drive around the corner and they're home and I'm not, it's frustrating,'' said Dave Thompson. ``But in the long run, she's happier - and if she's happier, I'm going to be happier.'' ILLUSTRATION: JANET SHAUGHNESSY\Staff
Graphic
STAFF
DUAL-INCOME COUPLES
SOURCES: Right Associates consulting firm, University of Tennessee
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB