On Thursday, the House Committee on Education and Labor held a subcommittee hearing on the Work-Life Balance Award Act (H.R. 4855), legislation introduced by Reps. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and George Miller (D-CA) that would establish an award for employers that develop and implement work-life balance policies, defined in the bill as workplace practices “designed to enable employees to achieve a satisfactory work-life balance.” The measure would direct the Department of Labor (DOL) to create a work-life balance advisory board to develop criteria that employers would need to meet in order to qualify and apply for the award.

In her opening statement, (pdf) Rep. Woolsey said that the “effort to bring balance between home and the workplace must be waged on all fronts, and many in the business world are leading the way.” She also used the opportunity to promote the Balancing Act of 2009 (H.R. 3047), a bill she introduced in 2009 that combines a number of provisions from previously introduced family and medical leave legislation. According to Woolsey, this bill “lays out a blueprint for balancing work and family.”

Also testifying at this hearing were Carol Evans, President of Working Mother Media; China Miner Gorman, Chief Global Member Engagement Officer for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM); Victoria Lipnic, Commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC); and Portia Wu, Vice-President of the National Partnership for Women.

Lipnic, who emphasized that she was not testifying in her official capacity with the EEOC, explained (pdf) that she deemed worthwhile “any initiative that encourages voluntary efforts for employers to offer work-life policies that work best for their employees and meet their operational needs at the same time.” She did not, however, see the need for the Secretary of Labor to issue regulations to implement this award: “Regulations are about controlling behaviors and specifying outcomes for enforcement purposes. In the case of this award, I do not see a reason for the Secretary to be regulating.”

The other witnesses offered similar praise of the bill’s intent. China Miner Gorman, testifying on behalf of SHRM, said that her organization “and its members support the Work-Life Balance Award Act, a common-sense bill to recognize and showcase those public and private organizations delivering benefit plans and policies that truly help their employees better balance their work and personal life obligations.” Her written testimony (pdf) also provides a set of five principles SHRM has developed “to help guide the creation of a new workplace flexibility public policy.”

Speaking on behalf of the National Partnership for Women, Portia Wu recommended (pdf) that the proposed Work-Life Balance Award recognize the importance of work-family policies that provide paid sick days. She also suggested that the award process involve the “collection and dissemination of data about companies’ work-family policies” in order to inform policymakers, businesses, and the general public about the type and scope of family-friendly policies being adopted in the private sector.