Gary Boyd
Rachel Feintzeig, writing for the Wall Street Journal, discusses the influence of marital harmony on productivity in the workplace, and what some companies are doing support their employees and employees’ spouses.
Each marriage, of course, comes with assorted dynamics and challenges. The exclusive nature of marriage may limit the effect of salutary influences from outside of the marriage. However, when conditions imposed by the employment itself become a point of discord, it appears that there is much that might be done by companies to mitigate misunderstanding and perceived inconveniences.
Upper level executives, such as Todd Pedersen of Vivint Inc., understand Vivint’s employees’ connubial happiness directly impacts the employees’ contributions to company. Because of this, Vivint, as well as other companies, have commenced activities and clubs for spouses of employees. Through Vivint’s efforts, spouses have found support among others whose marriages may be strained by the demands of employment at Vivint.
The cost to companies, at least in the case of Vivint, seems a small price to pay when weighed against the potential benefits. According to Pedersen, Vivint incurs expenses amounting to approximately 100,000 dollars per year, spent on workshops for spouses of 60 percent of Vivint employees.
One question that may be raised considers whether Vivint or other companies that are following suit are doing so out of true concern for the family, or in the interest of boosting employee productivity. The answer is that it does not really matter, the point being that the bedrock institution of society, marriage, produces an influence so ubiquitous, that it is felt at home, at work, at play, as well as in any other aspect of a spouse’s life, and that some companies are beginning to realized this.
Companies like Vivint Inc., Riot Games Inc., and Davita HealthCare Partners Inc. are discovering a valuable gem of truth: It does not matter that these companies could be saving money by ignoring the marriages of their employees as private affairs that do not concern the companies, and getting more time out of their employees by placing more burdensome demands upon them; the individual success of the employee will be inexorably linked to the success of the collective, and success on the individual level will be achieved through the fulfillment of natural law, at least one of which places happiness in marriage as a high-level need.