Water, Power and Daddies

FOR ALL THE TREND-SETTING, high-profile employers that call Southern California home, it’s probably the dowdy, old Los Angeles Department of Water and Power that pays the most attention to the demands that parenthood imposes on its male workers.

The DWP, which has a work force that is 77% male, partially subsidizes day care for employees’ children at two downtown centers and is building a child-care center of its own in the San Fernando Valley. A counselor in the department’s employee-assistance program specializes in child-rearing problems. Lunch-hour seminars for fathers cover such issues as fathering after divorce, discipline and preparing for the birth of a first child. A “parenting fair” this summer drew as many men as women to wander amid booths promoting day-care centers, child safety, referral services and educational toys.

A 1985 survey that indicated that employees’ child-care-related difficulties were costing the DWP $1 million annually in absences, tardiness and wasted time set the utility on the road to creating programs that would help employees better balance work and family responsibilities. To the surprise of officials who thought the work-family conflict was a women’s issue, 400 of the 1,000 DWP employees who take advantage of the programs are men. Because their employer, and not their wives’ employers, offers such assistance, many of the men have taken over responsibility for arranging their children’s day care.

DWP executives figure that the assistance pays for itself, not only by reducing lost time but by improving worker loyalty as well. “You don’t find steam-plant operators walking down the street,” says Beverly King, director of human resources. “It costs us a lot if we lose someone who’s highly skilled because we weren’t responsive to their needs.”

White-collar male employees seem more satisfied with the department’s efforts than blue-collar workers, whose schedules, department officials acknowledge, may prevent them from attending seminars and whose bosses may be less understanding of men’s evolving role in family life.

Still, compared to most jobs, “men here probably get more support,” says Rona Cohen, a nurse who provides counseling and leads parenting groups at the utility. “It’s a process,” she says. “It takes time.”