Changing Workplace : Trend: More and more parents want jobs that offer flexibility, and more and more employers are trying to accommodate their needs.

Dave Blattenberg grew up in a traditional ‘60s family, where mom tended to the children’s every need while dad worked 12 hours a day.

“My mother was always the one to take me to the doctor, pick me up from school, all those things,” Blattenberg recalled.

But his generation would see radical changes both at home and in the workplace.

Blattenberg’s wife, Kathy, is a flight attendant who spends much of her week in distant cities. So the Irvine couple often must rely on dad to shoulder the unpredictable logistics of child care.

Fortunately for Blattenberg, his employer ranks among the many companies that have changed with the times--implementing in recent years “family-friendly” policies that allow for the potholes of child rearing.

On a recent afternoon, Blattenberg’s 2-year-old daughter’s day-care provider telephoned him at work to report the child had measles. The Allstate Insurance casualty claims manager scurried out the door, raising nary an eyebrow.

And no longer must Allstate employees fudge when they need to stay home with a sick child.

“It used to be that there wasn’t much of an option except to call in sick yourself,” Blattenberg said. “Now you don’t have to feel self-conscious about saying, ‘I’m using one of my sick days because my kid is sick.’ The response you get is, ‘Gosh, I hope she gets better.’ ”

Aside from an enlightened attitude regarding parental responsibilities, Allstate offers a number of family oriented programs--including six-month leaves of absence to care for an ailing relative, job sharing and flexible work schedules, also called “flex-time.”

“It demonstrates to me that Allstate feels that parenting is just as important as working,” Blattenberg said.

His family-friendly job environment is what many people long for in today’s world of two-career couples and single working parents. In a recent Times Orange County Poll, 81% of parents surveyed said they would like to see employers “offer working parents more flexible work schedules and opportunities to do more of their work at home.”

Companies are bending with the modern dynamics of family life as much for pragmatic as humanitarian reasons, said New York economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of the just-released book “When the Bough Breaks: The Cost of Neglecting Our Children.”

“These aren’t just handouts, but basic cost-effective policies,” Hewlett said. “In the past, the labor turnover among women typically has been much higher than among men, essentially because of child-care demands. The economy has tilted to a work force made up largely of women, and firms increasingly are finding that they can’t afford this revolving door of overburdened workers.”

Such bonuses as flex-time “involve so little money up front,” she said, yet provide the company a competitive edge in the hiring market--a growing concern among employers because it is projected that 2 million fewer people will enter the work force during the ‘90s than did during the ‘80s. And with much of the current work force composed of baby boomers in their prime childbearing years, Hewlett said, “companies’ survival is wrapped up in support for working parents.”

AT&T; spokesman Burke Stinson agrees that his company’s “replacement of rigidity with flexibility since the mid-’80s” has served as “a good way to keep good people.”

“Our premise now is that there is life before and after office hours,” he said.

Stinson attributes the new mind set in part to the transformation of employee demographics.

“Many people in decision-making jobs today are women and minorities,” he said. “They are not as likely to say that the white-male approach of the past need guide future actions.”

The telephone company now offers a liberal leave-of-absence policy and flex-time.

“A worker can get two hours off at a moment’s notice if the school nurse calls and says his or her child is sick,” Stinson said.

However, he admitted, many male employees still feel uncomfortable taking advantage of family-friendly policies.

“It’s with trepidation that men take time off,” Stinson said. “But they are getting more accustomed to the idea. In 1979, one in 400 men took paternity leaves after childbirth; the ratio is still nothing to brag about, but in 1989, it was one in 40 men.”

Carol Barreras is an AT&T; employee who chose to take extended time off for her children. The Irvine technical consultant is on a two-year, unpaid leave to be with her 5- and 11-year-old sons.

The experience of staying home with her preschooler is a breath of fresh air, Barreras said, after raising her older boy on the run.

“Now I’m very active in my kids’ schools and all the other things I’ve missed out on,” she said. “I lived a lot with a feeling of guilt that I wasn’t spending enough time with my kids.”

In its family-friendly benefits package, Pacific Bell awards employees $2,000 for adopting a child.

“Adoption can be very expensive, and this is our way of offsetting some of that expense--just as medical benefits help pay for the cost of childbirth,” spokesman Russell Ho said.

A Pacific Bell marketing manager, who requested anonymity, said she viewed the financial compensation as an acknowledgment by her employer that adoptive and natural parents are equals.

“I was thrilled that Pacific Bell thought about people like me and my husband,” the Orange County woman said. “It is a recognition that we are doing the same thing as any other parents.”

The philosophy at IBM, said spokesman Bill Fenton, is that its innovative family-friendly policies increase productivity.

“We try to alleviate the stresses of the fast pace of modern life,” he said.

As well as flex-time and a child-care referral service, IBM provides employees an unpaid leave of up to three years--with full medical benefits--to attend to children or elderly parents. Corona del Mar resident Michelle Murphy opted for the generous leave after having her first baby last year.

“I miss the people at work and the mental stimulation,” said Murphy, who worked for 14 years as a marketing representative. “But I’d rather be at home raising my baby.”

She verbalized a widespread backlash against the workaholism of the ‘80s, said Judy Rosener, a professor in the the Graduate School of Management at UC Irvine and author of the book “Work Force America: Managing Employee Diversity as a Vital Resource.”

“Both men and women have begun to notice that those long hours at the office didn’t buy them happiness, just things,” Rosener said. “They want more time to play with the kids or to just read a book. A lot of people are saying, ‘We need to change the work environment to find a balance between work and family.’ ”

David Blankenhorn, president of the New York-based think tank Institute for American Values, ventured a prediction:

“I think employees in the ‘90s increasingly are going to want the gift of time rather than money. There will be less of a concern for on-site day-care centers (at workplaces), and more of a demand for flexible working hours, parental leaves and compressed work weeks so that parents can spend time with the kids.”

Casey Opsteegh, an engineer at Hughes Aircraft in Fullerton, now goes to work at 6 in the morning instead of 8, so that he can arrive home in time to play ball with his sons before dinner. He admits that during his 10 years at Hughes, his priorities have shifted more in the direction of family than toward climbing the corporate ladder.

“Whenever you want promotions, you have to be more dedicated to the job than the next guy, you have to put in double time,” Opsteegh said. “I don’t want to own Hughes Aircraft when I retire; I just want to do a good job.”

What Families Want

Orange County parents responding to the Times Family Poll were given a list of solutions that have been suggested for the problems American families face. This is how they randed the solutions:

Having the government pay for school-based health care centers: 84%

Requiring employers to offer working parents more flexible work schedules: 81%

Expanding government funding for child care programs: 82%

Providing tax credits to mothers who stay at home with their children: 72%

Expanding the financial aid to poor families from federal government programs: 66%

Source: Times Orange County Family Poll