The Foreign Service Journal, June 2004

generation —what Cavey refers to as “a tidal wave” — will help bring greater flexibility to the system. Succinctly summing up the opin- ions of many respondents, human resources officer Cassandra Hamblin writes: “To me, ‘family-friendly’ is a work/life balance supported by upper management with resources and programs targeted at all types of families.” Here are a few more comments on what new hires want family- friendly to mean: “Family-friendly to me means doing everything possible to ensure that one’s quality of life is enhanced by the ability to respond to family needs — regardless of how ‘family’ is defined,” says Douglas Sun, a part- nered political officer in Taipei. “Family-friendly means reason- able work hours of 50 hours or less per week,” says Deidra Avendasora, a married public diplomacy officer in London. “It means assistance with day care, adoption and maternity/ paternity leave. It means adequate schooling and spousal employment options. It means providing health and dental services. It means encouraging employees to attend important family events such as par- ent-teacher conferences or wed- dings.” “Family-friendly is the ability to quickly integrate family members into overseas settings, taking care of their health and safety, and ensuring that good schools and job and volun- teer opportunities are readily avail- able,” says Jennifer Schaming- Ronan. “The key to being family- friendly is simply being responsive to the needs and concerns of families. A little attention goes a long way.” “Family-friendly means being flexible,” says a male consular officer who joined in 2002. “My wife is on a two-year leave of absence from her job in D.C. Luckily her employer is flexible enough to allow for that. Unfortunately, it appears my employer won’t grant me the same chance and let me take a leave of absence so we can put her career first after this tour. It’s all about com- promise. If I put my career first for a few years, my spouse will want to put her career first for a few years. It’s only fair and natural.” Here is a sampling of the respons- es from single employees: “Coming from 20 years in the pri- vate sector, I feel State is disgusting- ly family-friendly,” says a single, male economic officer headed to Asia. “Maybe it’s because spouses are so much more vocal than spouses in the private sector, but I can’t believe how much attention is paid to family issues and how much complaining about it still goes on.” “State seems very family-friendly — perhaps too much so, as it is clear that family considerations trump all others in the bidding and assignment process,” says a male consular officer serving in the Middle East. “The fact that I’ll soon be married and benefit from the system does not make it good department policy.” “The FS does quite a bit to sup- port officers with families. What sur- prises me, given the fact that almost 70 percent of my A-100 class was sin- gle, is that posts do not do more to recruit single people. Every post profile I looked at in the Overseas Briefing Center contained a myriad of information about schools, spousal employment, family life at post — very few contained any information about what it would be like to serve as a single person,” says Mike Snyder, a single management officer heading to Moldova. “I think the department is very family-friendly,” says Danna Brenn- an, a single public diplomacy officer currently serving in Dhaka. “As a result, the department has a tenden- cy to neglect the needs of single FSOs. … In the bidding process, I have felt that people with family con- cerns often get first ‘dibs’ on the ‘nicest’ assignments.” “It’s always the married-with-kids people who get to go home for the holidays and the single person who is assigned duty,” writes Rachel Sch- neller from Skopje. “State is family-friendly to the point of being exclusively concerned with the nuclear family model. It should also put a greater focus on singles,” says a female officer with a partner. “It appears that families get prior- ity in almost every consideration over people without kids. ... I was told in orientation that childless people are expected to ‘deal with it’ so the department benefits as a whole,” says a management officer in Latin America. “USAID is much less family- friendly than we expected, especially after all the discussions we had on this back at orientation,” says a USAID officer serving in Egypt. “There are many differences in the benefits and compensation that we receive com- pared to what officers from State receive. I am referring to student loan repayments, FSI spousal lan- guage training, FSI spousal area stud- ies, business class travel and reim- bursement of new hire expenses — all benefits new hires at State get, but we do not get at USAID.” Do you expect your spouse/ partner to have a career? Will spouse employment options play a significant role in determining how long you stay in the Foreign Service? The issue of spouse employment is a key concern for new hires, many of whom come in with partners who are professionals expecting if not a traditional career, then at a mini- mum, a job that utilizes their training and experience. By about a 4-to-1 margin, employees of all types said J U N E 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 37