Idea of the Day: Require Federal Contractors to Provide Work-Family Benefits

When the federal government has greater information about the availability of family-friendly policies, Congress and the administration should explore requiring all federal contractors to offer benefits at least as good as those offered to federal government employees. In the interim, the government should follow the recent recommendation made by Workplace Flexibility 2010 to adopt a pilot project requiring federal contractors that have hourly workers working on federal contracts to provide at least two types of flexible, family-friendly work arrangements.

This final set of concluding recommendations would ensure that family-friendly workplace policies are incorporated into our federal contracting workforce. President Barack Obama’s commitment to reviewing and updating the federal contractor process and improving policies for women and girls provides an important opportunity to achieve long-term goals. Doing so will mean greater stability for our families and our economy and a greater return on our investment in federally contracted goods and services.

For more of this topic, please see:

• Making Government Work for Families, by Ann O’Leary.