Call to Apply and Nominate Begins Sept. 15
Showcase your organization's best work-life programs with the Innovative Excellence Award, or nominate the up-and-coming leaders at your company for the Rising Star award.
Work-Life Rising Star
Alliance for Work-Life Progress (AWLP) needs your help in identifying stellar, up-and-coming professionals who embody passion for change, for work and for life as a Work-Life Rising Star. Recognition is given to innovative, high potential career starters or individual mid-career contributors who exhibit a combination of professional and personal attributes that demonstrate emerging leadership and growing contributions to the work-life community. The Work-Life Rising Star encourages professionals to remain engaged in the work-life profession and ultimately advance work-life effectiveness.
Nominations will be sought for innovative, high potential career starters or individual mid-career contributors who exhibit a combination of professional and personal attributes that demonstrate emerging leadership and growing contributions to the work-life community.
Eligibility
Others who are familiar with their work and can describe and verify their achievement(s) must nominate candidates. There are no specific age or tenure limits for nominees. Nominees may be affiliated with any type of organization or industry sector. They do not have to be nominated by their employer. Self-nominations will not be accepted. There are no nomination fees.
Selection
The Work-Life Rising Star Selection Committee will evaluate nominations. The committee is composed of work-life leaders and representatives from several major work-life institutions. No single accomplishment will automatically qualify a candidate for recognition. A pattern of high achievement and future potential is desired. You may nominate a candidate whose qualifications do not specifically match Nomination Form criteria, if they excel in other areas that you can describe from first-hand experience.
Recognition
It is expected that multiple nominees will be selected as Work-Life Rising Stars. Recipients will be notified in February 2009. Recipients will be presented the opportunity to be mentored by work-life professionals and to enhance their careers in the work-life field through exclusive professional development opportunities. Recipients will also be involved in the following year’s selection of Work-Life Rising Stars. Recognition will be acknowledged publicly at the WorldatWork Total Rewards Conference & Exhibition 2009 in May 2009.
Work-Life Innovative Excellence Award As the highest honor offered by AWLP, the Work-Life innovative Excellence Award was created in 1996 to showcase programs and policies that demonstrate excellence in enhancing and promoting work-life effectiveness while achieving organizational goals. Past recipients have exemplified forward-thinking organizations that look beyond their own cultural, demographic, and organizational boundaries to continue their work-life efforts.
Eligibility
The Call for Applications is open to all. There is no application fees. Eligible entities may submit a program/initiative that has been in effect for at least one year. Exceptions to this prerequisite include individual, one-time events (such as a summer camp program) that have completed development, implementation and evaluation phases. Overall work-life strategies may not be nominated for the award. The following national and international organizations will be considered:
Corporation
Labor organizations
Collaboration between service providers or consultants and employers
Government agencies
Work-life service providers
Non-profits and community- based organizations.
Academic institutions
Consultants
You should apply if your organization has a work-life program intended to:
Create a more engaged and productive workforce
Enable employees to feel more successful in all aspects of their life
Attract, motivate and retain talented people.
Criteria
Potential applicants should first review the following award criteria to select a work-life program/initiative to enter.
Description of Program or Initiative
Summary description of the program or initiative along with the following components:
Date of roll-out or pilot
Target audience and scope of project
Department or area to which the program reports
Rationale and Vision
What is the vision of the work-life program or initiative?
What are the short- and long-term goals?
How does the rationale and vision of this program support your organization’s mission, business, or work-life strategy?
Responsiveness to Need
How does the nominated program address overall business or organization needs?
How were these needs identified? Please supply internal and external data and input from the target population.
How does the program respond to employees' or target population's work-life needs?
Quality Enhancement
How do you measure the quality and effectiveness of the program? Please provide an overview of metrics related to this program.
How did these measures or standards impact the development and roll out of the program?
How is the ongoing evaluation and continuous improvement achieved?
Innovation
What new ideas or processes have been considered or implemented? Were there any barriers and/or challenges faced? If so, how were they addressed?
What internal and external partnerships or collaboration have been fostered?
How may this program or initiative be shared with the work-life and human resources field in general?
Effectiveness
How has this initiative contributed to the benefit and well being of employees in its target population? Please provide examples and testimonials.
How has the initiative contributed to your organizational goals? Please provide examples.
What are the measurable benefits? Please provide both quantitative and anecdotal information.
The award is named for Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who has been identified by leading scholars as the person having the most influence on the modern research literature on work and family. The proposals contained in her 1977 monograph “Work and Family in the United States: A Critical Review and Agenda for Research and Policy” remain timely almost a quarter-century later.
The Kanter Award is given to the authors of the best piece of work-family research published during a calendar year. No external nominations are accepted for the award. Instead, every article published in a large number of scientific journals is scrutinized by a large committee of esteemed scholars who generate a list of candidates for the award. For more information about the Kanter Award and its winners, please visit the official Kanter Award Web site.
“Pursuing Preferences: The Creation and Resolution of Work Hour Mismatches.”
Mismatches between the number of hours people actually work and the hours they prefer to work are common. With data from Australia, the authors show a fluid labor market in which many mismatches are created and resolved as well as market imperfections. Many mismatches (especially the desire for fewer hours) appear to persist for more than a year, and although a change of employers can resolve mismatches, it can also create them.
Jeremy Reynolds, an associate professor in the University of Georgia’s sociology department, and Lydia Aletraris, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Georgia, co-authored “Pursuing Preferences: The Creation and Resolution of Work Hour Mismatches.” The research was published in the August 2006 issue of American Sociological Review, the flagship journal of the American Sociological Association.
