Who asks for work/life balance? Who benefits from it? When we think of programs to help implement work/life balance, do we assume it's only for women, or more specifically, for women who are mothers? Why? How does this affect the conversation and advancements in this area?

These are the questions that we wanted to answer at our third roundtable discussion, “Work/Life Balance: Not Just for Women”. In this podcast episode we recap what we heard at the event. If you weren’t able to make it we encourage you to read our report we put together to help lead the conversation. It is available at www.hellerehrman.com/optin/.

We asked Noni Allwood, Senior Director of Worldwide Diversity and Inclusion at Cisco Systems, of Cisco Systems and Eric Drattell, Vice President and General Counsel at Risk Management Solutions to lead the conversation to speak with us about these questions because even in this male dominated business environment, high tech companies have been able to make extraordinary advances in offering flexibility to highly demanding professionals.

The tech industry seems to have recognized that the employees who benefit from flexible programs are not just women. Rather,this industry has found that to attract and retain the employees they want and to make their business run efficiently, they have to make the workplace accessible and acceptable to all employees. As a result, they have embraced and fostered a work environment that accommodates all types of schedules and all types of needs.  And their employees, both men and women, have taken advantage of this “alternative” work style.