It is accepted practice to negotiate with vendors, allies and strategic partners outside your own company. And, increasingly, collaboration with external sources---customers, partners and strategic allies--willing to share information is being sought as managers wake up to the realization of the increased profitability resulting from greater collaboration and fine tuning of products and services. But many managers are just now grasping the importance of ongoing negotiation and improved collaboration within a company.

Today's workplace is changing. Not only are new job descriptions cropping up, many of them created by the Information Age and the opportunities offered online, but the way in which people work is also changing. Today's workers, particularly women with young children, are seeking more balance and better quality of life, so rigid work structures and schedules are giving way to flextime and greater choice.

Since change is a constant, one often finds oneself at a cross roads where needs have changed and one no longer wants or feels one can work in the same way, adhering to a strict 9-to-5 schedule. A triggering event might be the birth of a child, or the aging of parents, who suddenly need more attention and care; the onset of burn out at work; or a spouse who suddenly is thrust into a much more demanding job and becomes unable to pick up a portion of the child rearing or house hold duties at home.

Any of these events, or the simple desire to work at home, spend more time with one's family, pursue other interests or devote more time to community service, can cause a woman to reflect on the possibility of changing the way in which she works. Fortunately, there is a lot of choice today within the workplace.

Reduced Work Schedules

The popularity of "part time work" has surged by more than 50% in recent years, spurred by women who make up 97% of this category and who want to spend more time with their families. More than 6 million professionals in the U.S. now work part time with the opportunity for part time professional work growing more than 25 times faster than other full time or nonprofessional part-time jobs.

Sally Anderson, MBA, PhD author of Women in Career & Life Transitions quotes a Catalyst study documenting that part-time professional positions are paying very well: "One third of corporate part-timers earn salaries ranging from $35,000 to over $100,000 per year. Lawyers and accountants earn even more, with two-thirds in the $80,000 to over $100,000 salary range."

Even so, the part time trend dovetails nicely with corporate America's desire to maintain a leaner work force and to either staff out work on an as needed basis, or outsource some tasks altogether.

Part Time

Today, more than 57% of all employees work part time. It is a more accepted mode of working today as women continue to change the values in the workforce and more structure has been added to many part time jobs, putting them on a more professional level.

Offering part time work makes a company more competitive in recruiting and hiring. Technology has made part time work easier both because of the increasing automation of many tasks and by the increased capacity for workers to perform their tasks in different locations. The global nature of business today has also fed into this trend as companies need workers on non-standard workdays, able to respond to Asia or Australia at times of the day when U.S. workers are normally not at work.

There are trade-offs in working part time, and one has to decide which ones work for you, as an individual.

• Your scheduling is more flexible but you may earn less money.
• You have less interaction with your peers, but you may achieve greater work output with less distraction.
• You will have to expend greater effort to "stay in the loop", since you are not there full time.
• You may have to compensate to create opportunities to make your achievements visible to your supervisors.

Temp

Anderson notes "According to the National Association of Temporary Staffing Services (NATSS) there are 1.3 million temporary workers today, a population that has tripled over the past 10 years. Since 1982 the temporary worker population has risen $250%, while the nation's total workforce has increased by only 20%".

Clearly the need for and perceived value of temporary workers has increased. Once temporary workers were thought of as mostly clerical or administrative staff. Today, particularly in major metropolitan areas, there are temporary workers for almost every job description from engineer to computer programmer. There are even temps for high level management positions, such as chief financial officer, if you are, perhaps, a start up, who can not yet afford a top notch financial quarterback full time, or if a company needs an experienced CEO who will come in and run your company while you look for a permanent replacement.

The advantages of working as a temp are that you can pick and choose your jobs and schedules; you can get on the job training; you can sign on with an agency and not have to look for work, as it will come to you, and you can try out different companies to decide which is a good fit for you.

Although you probably won't receive employee benefits. some of the larger temp agencies, such as Kelly and Manpower, do offer basic benefits to replace those offered by employers to full time workers. Perhaps the greatest disadvantage is that you will not be building up job security but, in today's employment environment, many consider the job skills you build to be your only real security anyway, as workers tend to change jobs frequently and companies restructure or refocus in ways that cause frequent shifts in their workforce.


Job Sharing

Today in the U.S., more than a third of companies offer opportunities for job sharing, where two people, each working part time, share a single job position. One full time salary is also split, as are benefits, although with a cafeteria plan, each worker might be able to select the benefits she most needs.

The advantages of job sharing are that you may be able to get a higher level management position, since the job will, in effect, have a full time presence; team work can often produce better results; you can concentrate on those parts of the jobs which best suit your talents; you don't have to be as concerned when illness or emergencies keep you from work, since you have someone familiar with the job who can cover for you.

The disadvantages are the same you might experience by working in any team: you are dependent on someone else, sharing credit or blame; your work space may be infringed by another person; you will have to plan overlapping times in order to increase communication; you need to find someone with complementary skills, and, if that person resigns or moves, it may be a challenge to find a replacement so you can keep moving up the corporate ladder


Teleworking

As the nature of work itself changes and workers, particularly women, are demanding more flexibility in their work schedules, companies' have begun to realize much is to be gained from supporting flexible working models, including the teleworking model. Increased job satisfaction and retention of its female employees has a direct, positive impact on companies' bottom line.

Business itself has moved from local to global, which has contributed to breaking down barriers to employees working from different places, taking advantage of increased mobility or to meet worker's needs. The work model also is evolving from hierarchal to flat, from departments to cross functional, and from individuals to teams, who may no longer produce a widget, but develop an outcome through shared ideas and collaboration across cities or continents. Today, companies have the technology to allow workers to collaborate simultaneously and effectively from different locations.

Teleworking allows the worker flexibility and the opportunity for self management. Generally both productivity and job satisfaction increase. Some managers are still skeptical about workers they can't see, although they might not be able to see them in different parts of a building either. Meetings must be planned in advance and workers must work a little harder to compensate for lack of face time and visibility. But most women love teleworking as it allows them to take off to drop children at school, take them to dance class or attend parent teacher conferences or prepare dinner but still put in a full work day by making up those hours either very early in the morning, before their family wakes up or later in the evening after their children are in bed.

If you have a job in which you don't interact too intensely with others at work, such as being a writer, or if you interact mostly with people outside the company, such as a public relations professional might, you may be a good candidate for teleworking.

Rearranged Work Schedules

Other alternatives to the rigid 9 to 5 work week, include the following:

Flextime in which a company lets you set your own hours, as long as you are present during certain times, called core hours, so all employees are available at the same time for certain kinds of meetings or announcements or to facilitate scheduling.

Compressed workweek consists of working fewer days for longer hours such as working 4 day weeks of 10 hour days, rather than the more usual 5 day, eight hour work day.

It's Up to You

This, by no means, exhausts the subject of work arrangements specifically tailored to your needs. Companies, in general, have become more flexible as they've experienced the benefits of a more content, better performing workforce who are able to set their own hours and define their own work week and style.

With the array of choices before you, even if you don't choose to be an entrepreneur or start your own business, you can have a great deal of independence and flexibility while still continuing to report in and work for a contemporary, forward thinking company. You can change your style of working to fit your current life situation then switch to another style or return to a traditional 9 to 5 mode, if you choose. Work, as the famous Auntie Mame said about life, is a smorgasbord; don't be afraid to choose what you want.