Cathy Engelbert Quotes

I have a supportive family and an outstanding team, but I also have a flexible work schedule that allows me, at least some of the time, to get to the kids' school program or the doctor visits when I need to. So family-friendly work schedules have become more of a passion of mine, and the cost of childcare is also a huge issue.

You shouldn't have to win the boss lottery in order to have a little bit of flexibility at work. Raising and supporting a family isn't just a financial obligation. What's important isn't just being able to put food on the dinner table - we want you to be at the dinner table, too.

More and more companies are updating their leave policies to reflect an understanding that being family-friendly is a smart investment in their workforce and America's future.

Employee fathers need to step up to the plate and put their family needs on the table.

You have got to attract the brightest and the best, but the brightest and best won't stay unless they see real career options.

'Job Killer.' Those are the two words you are most likely to hear uttered by most American CEOs when confronted with proposals to enact family-friendly work policies.

I'm particularly fortunate to be in a position where I can bring my child to work and be able to get good child care. Not a lot of women have that.

The best way to have your people be happy and satisfied is to earn the right to have them come back to work for you the next day, knowing that there are tons of other places.

The employee relationships are important, investment in our people is important, and the ability to do work at multiple sites is important.

If workplaces that enlist happiness consultants really care about worker satisfaction, why not offer better maternity and paternity policies? Daycare options? They could advise managers to stop calling workers to come in on weekends or expect them to answer emails late on weeknights.

Publishing parental pay benefits will let employers show that they're family-friendly and enable them to better attract talent, potentially spurring on some very healthy competition.

Employees, especially young people, want more than a paycheck.

When you read about the best places to work, it's never about salary; it's about catered lunches, the daycare - it's the cool stuff that matters.

The workplace should have a place where the kids can visit. They should have places at the mother's or the father's work where professionals can have their kids visit them whenever they feel like it.

Work/life benefits allow companies meaningful ways for responding to their employees' needs; they can be a powerful tool for transforming a workforce and driving a business' success.

Young men keep telling me they don't 'have it all' either. And they may have a point. But if you define 'having it all' as the opportunity to have a successful career and a family, I'd say this. When a man tells his coworkers he's going to have a child, no one asks him how he'll manage or if he'll be coming back to work.

We want to take care of our employees, because they take care of our family.

Meetings, clearly, can take place anywhere, and wouldn't it be nice to see your coworkers lounging on the grass with their shoes off?

If we are to create a new agenda for family/work policies, employers and employees have to take a seat at the same table and recognize their mutual gains.

I'm proud to be Secretary of Labor. But I'm even prouder of two more important titles: dad and husband. I've been able to be all three. I want all working people, no matter what their jobs are, to be able to meet their obligations both at work and at home.

The most important thing executives can do is send a very clear message to their employees that they care about each person's overall wellbeing and that they want to be a part of helping it improve over time.

Working moms, and increasingly working dads, don't want a government handout, but they do need a hand up.

The Chili Peppers have a real strict two-week on/two-week off policy - aside from me, everybody has families.

If tomorrow all of America were to become paternalistic, we would beat the Japanese every day of the week. I think that the concept of accusing someone of running a paternalistic company, that's not an accusation. One should compliment someone on that.

The strategy we need to pursue is one of recovering our time - to push back on our hours of work. We need to form a new alliance between feminist groups, labor unions, child advocates, progressive corporations, and the federal government insofar as it's willing to pursue a family-friendly agenda.