Nowadays, Ozzie likely to be the trailing spouse

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Nowadays, Ozzie likely to be the trailing spouse

An interview with our St. Louis member
January 10, 2006Author: Carol Kleiman
Source: Chicago Tribune

Nowadays, Ozzie likely to be the trailing spouse
Published January 10, 2006

Ozzie and Harriet no longer represent what is now the typical U.S. family: The days of a traditional family, consisting of a dad who is employed and his wife who stays home with the 2.8 kids and the dog, are long gone.

In fact, there no longer is a "traditional" family.

Instead, today when it comes to transferring employees a to a new job in a new location, families may be made up of single parents, unmarried couples who are straight or gay, elderly parents, and the husband as the trailing spouse.

That's where Mary Quigg comes in. Quigg is president of Vandover, a global career transition and human resource consulting firm based in St. Louis. It has 40 employees.

"In the Ozzie and Harriet days, it was assumed that people picked up and went where the employer said to go," said Quigg, who gave a talk recently on relocation of the modern family at the Worldwide ERC's global workforce symposium. ERC, based in Washington, is an association for workforce mobility and relocation.

"The belief was that there were no problems, because mom stayed home and took care of things," said Quigg, who has been a relocation consultant since 1969 and started her own firm in 1985. "The focus was on real estate. If you were asked to move, you said OK and figured it out. Help with family issues was not a consideration."

But in the early 1970s, that approach by employers began to change, Quigg said. Since not only Ozzie and Harriet but also Leave it to Beaver no longer reflect the true American family picture--if they ever did--employer attitudes involving relocation also have radically changed.

"Employers offer relocation support because it's a recruitment, retention and productivity issue," she said. "It's a financial investment on the part of the company to get the employee to the new location and to be able to produce as quickly as possible."

Quigg observes that "to relocate an employee domestically, it costs from $75,000 to $100,000 to the company, including support services." The executive, whose company does not handle real estate, says her firm handles "support on any family issue that employees and their families might need in a new location--and that includes everything to create a good lifestyle in the new community."

For instance, single parents might need help locating day care, Quigg said. "And unmarried partners are becoming more common and need help relocating. Employees need help in caring for elderly parents, to replace what they did for them and can no longer do at a distance. We're not an employment agency, but we also help the spouses find jobs."

Before 1991, the relocation expert said the husband as a trailing spouse wasn't much of a factor. "Today, 31 percent of the employees we are helping to move are women," Quigg said. "There's a difference when the spouse is the husband. For the trailing female spouse, it's a given that it's OK to get help, but for men it's harder--their egos are different. But once they begin to participate, they value the support they're getting as much as women."

Values also have changed since Ozzie and Harriet. "The younger population has a huge reluctance to relocate and often are not willing to go unless they can choose when or where," she said. "They're looking for work/life balance."

For employers who want to recruit their first-choice candidates and then ask them to relocate, Quigg suggests that they "have to meet the needs of employees if they want to retain them and have to be sure to help the entire family."

Overall, she observes, things haven't changed that much. "We really had many of the same issues in the past, but we didn't talk about them," she said. "But now we seek support and acceptance for every family structure."

And Quigg adds that even after a successful relocation, many employees should be aware of what may come next: "And guess what," she said, "you may be transferred again in three to five years."