W e're so b usy that even the White House has noticed.

President Clinton has proposed legislation allowing workers to take comp time in lieu of overtime pay. And there are attempts to legislate free time for teacher-parent meetings and personal care of sick family members.

It's more and more difficult to juggle our personal and business lives.

"No 'life' in my lifestyle," one reader tells us.

A Virginia design engineer says that "pressure is mounting across the industry to pay more, but [they] expect more and more time from the employee."

How bad is it for design engineers and managers?

On the whole, engineers are satisfied with the balance between work and family: 65 percent say they've achieved a proper balance, while 35 percent say they've not.

"I work as a government employee, and have sacrificed salary and some career advancement for the great benefits and 40-hour work week," a Virginia systems engineer acknowledges.

Jerry Cashman, who oversees the work/life programs a t Hewlett-Packard Co., said the 65 percent satisfaction rating doesn't surprise him. HP has done surveys of its employees and comes in with even higher satisfaction numbers.

Not everyone objects to longer hours. A Los Angeles principal engineer writes: "It's OK for me to work harder when you expect a big return in the future."

As noted earlier in our report, more engineers' compensation packages include incentives or bonuses, pay for performance, stock options. If you join a startup, you expect to kill yourself in the first year in the belief that an IPO (initial public offering) will make it worthwhile.

Readers say that striking a balance between work and family is their responsibility-not the company's.

"I've had to insist on it and enforce it," a California project engineer notes, a sentiment echoed by this New York senior engineer. "I have to force it. If it were up to the company, I would be working 100-hour weeks for months on end to get the job done."

Engineers report that making these choices comes at some sacrifice.

"I am made to feel like a 'slacker' for only putting in 10 hours a week OT," the New Yorker adds.

"Company expectations create high stress levels," a reader writes. If he attempts to cut back on his 50- to 54-hour work week, "it may be perceived as not committed."

"Career suffers at the expense of family life, but that is what Ihave chosen," says a production engineer, who puts in 45 to 49 hours a week.

A Midwest engineer apparently hasn't suffered from his philosophy: "I have always kept the work in perspective. I work to live. I do not live to work." He works one to two nights a week, but get this: he's a group leader.

"Even though my company expects OT I rarely give it," says an Arizona senior engineer. "My family is a higher priority. What good is it if I spend all my time providing and no time interacting with my family? Good parenting and loyal spouses can turn this decaying society around."

Others have different prioritie s. "I put in OT when I can," one software engineer says. "January through March, I was working 60 to 70 hours per week. But the time was available. When sailing season starts, OT gets reduced significantly. Nothing gets in the way of sailing."

The mean number of hours worked is nothing special: 46.5 hours a week. That's consistent with past surveys; and it's a better showing than for the 516 Japanese respondents to our survey, who clock an average of about 51 hours a week.

Nearly 60 percent of the Americans work one to two nights in an average week, accounting for most of the extra 6.5 hours the respondents clock.

We've all heard of the 80-hour work weeks that EEs in Silicon Valley-especially in startups and during peak production periods-allegedly put in, but it's simply not the case for most engineers responding to our survey.

To be sure, some U.S. respondents work hard. More than a quarter put in a rough three to five nights a week. Add to that the 28 percent who work Saturda ys as a sixth day, and 5.8 percent who clock in on Sunday. However, a mere 1 percent of respondents said their companies require them to work weekends, while 12 percent admit the company does ask once in a while.

We broke down those numbers further.

Though work/life balance is sometimes perceived as a "women's issue," little difference shows up between the men and women engineers and managers in our survey on whether they've achieved a balance.

Engineers and managers between the ages of 40 and 44 were the least enthusiastic, with 56 percent reporting themselves satisfied at the balance they had achieved, vs. 65 percent for the total sample. That age bracket, of course, tends to have active children in preteen and early-teenaged years.

At 53 percent, design and development managers fell below the 65 percent mean in declaring a balance between work and family life. That's not a surprise, considering that D&D managers work three and a half more hours a week than engineering-level r espondents, and work more nights.

One solution to the problem is flex time. "Flexible hours are acceptable as long as projects are completed on time," a Texas group leader writes.

Hewlett-Packard, which dedicates a small staff to handling work/life issues, is finding that the ideal balance is a moving target. "This is a new work world," Cashman observes. "New and different issues come out that were not out there before."

Employees-especially engineers as they go to customer sites-are traveling more.

Many HP teams are now global in scope, forcing managers to juggle their hours or schedules. New technology tools enable engineers to telecommute more often, said Cashman. But the company has had to issue new guidelines to managers about how to handle remotely located, mobile workers.

Among the options offered at HP:

• Job sharing: For example, two general managers, both women, divide the duties of one executive position.
  
• Compressed work weeks: Employees may wo rk four 10-hour days instead of the standard five-day week.
  
• Telecommuting: Especially valuable for engineers, who may indeed clock an 80-hour week at the end of a development cycle but then ease up once the deadline is met.
  

Why should employers be concerned about their employees finding a balance between work and family?

Well, at a time when employers are screaming for engineers with analog-, digital- and ASIC-design experience, there's one Massachusetts employer out there who's about to lose an engineer with all those skills. "The company expects engineers to sacrifice personal life for the good of the company and short-term gain," the respondent writes. "That's why I'm looking for another job." That Massachusetts company not only faces the prospect of spending thousands of dollars trying to replace this employee-but also the loss of time on the project.

"I changed employers last year," a senior engineer writes. "One of the reasons was not wanting to work uncompensated overtime."

Managers find juggling home and work lives a challenge as well. One vice president works three to five nights a week and some Saturdays and Sundays, yet insists his company is "good to work for." Why does he put in the effort? "As a single parent I regret the overtime I spend to help my teammates. [But] I can't expect them to do any more than I am willing to do myself."

Readers give their companies generally good marks on work/life balance (see "Readers Rank Their Companies," Opinion chapter of this report), though only 10 percent rate them "excellent."

Reducing work hours isn't a major goal overall. Asked which factors rank highest in switching jobs, readers picked a promise of "less working hours" fifth out of seven possible choices.

Free Subscription to EE Times First Name Last Name Company Name Title Email address   Click here for your Free Subscription to EETimes Europe