Employers must be more understanding to their employees' family needs, says Alan Mirabelli, the executive director of administration of the Vanier Institute.

The think tank aims to make families important to Canadian society.

The Vanier Institute is celebrating its 40th anniversary and decided to send Mirabelli on a cross-Canada tour to share its ideas on the family.

'We could have spent $60,000 on a conference in Ottawa where 400 people show up or we could travel across the country and reach 10,000 people,' said Mirabelli, who will be giving talks in more than 40 communities across the country.

Whitehorse is his only stop in the three territories. On Tuesday afternoon, Mirabelli gave a talk on the changing and aging workforce at a Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the High Country Inn.

Mirabelli told the small crowd that companies can spend a fortune on marketing data while forgetting to update their human resources policies.

Companies have to offer their employees flexible hours and job sharing opportunities, Mirabelli told local business representatives.

In particular, if women do not receive flexible hours, they will typically quit to spend more time with their young children, which is a lost investment for companies.

Mirabelli cited an example of women trained to take a management positions walking out on their jobs.

'Would you let an employee walk out with a Xerox machine?' he asked.

He said losing a Xerox machine is the same as losing employees that the company has invested in by training them, sending them to professional development coferences and giving them years of valuable experience.

That's why he said businesses should agree to time-sharing, as it would be beneficial to them.

In a time-share position, if one person gets sick, the other person would have to cover for him or her, working the whole day.

Mirabelli noted how, in a Vanier Institute study, 98 per cent of employees put their families first and time, second.

He said this becomes evident when you see how many companies have trouble getting their employees to relocate, 'no matter how much money they throw at them.'

People typically like their community and don't want to uproot their families nor make their spouses sacrifice their own jobs.

Mirabelli said companies have to be accommodating for sick children and grandparents, otherwise an employee's productivity can be reduced, as he or she is at work worrying about it.

'People take their business work to the kitchen table and they bring their personal problems to work,' said Mirabelli.

Often, whenever any new and flexible human resources are created, they are killed by middle management officials who have old-fashioned ideas about accountability being linked to how many hours people spend at their desks.

Mirabelli said employers are destroying families by requiring people to be available 24/7.

He asked how many people were on call, then said: 'I guarantee you, it will ruin your relationship with your spouse.'

People in their 20s and 30s are not having children because they get the message from employers that they have a family on their own time, something that people increasingly have less of these days.

Today, Mirabelli said, a single person has to work 65 to 80 hours a week to meet the same standard of living his father had 20 years ago working 40 to 45 hours weekly.

Fewer and fewer people are having children, said Mirabelli. That means over time, there will be fewer people entering the workforce.

Bigger cities, like Vancouver and Toronto, will be able to make up for it with immigration, he said, but smaller centres like Whitehorse will struggle.

Fewer children also mean there won't be anybody to take care of the baby boomers as they move into retirement.

Mirabelli said Freedom 55 is the biggest lie ever told to Canadians. The health care system is not adequate to take care of the number of seniors headed its way, he added.

And baby boomers' children are forced to leave their elderly parents behind to go to where the work is.

'The child could be in Montreal, the parents in Vancouver and the grandparents live in Winnipeg,' said Mirabelli.

He noted that people primarily work to 'put bread on the table,' and any career goals are secondary.

'Bread on the table' was the whole reason women entered the workforce in the '50s, he added.

'They wanted to provide better opportunities for their sons and daughters.'

And in 1979, North America was hit by a major recession, so even more women started to go back to work to help out with family expenses, he told his audience.

Mirabelli said at the present time, a company day care service isn't necessarily parents' first choice

He said if companies aren't prepared to deal with employees' family issues, they will lose them to more forward-thinking companies that offer their workers flexibility.

'We can look at what we used to and how we did it and maybe even figure out why, but we have no idea where we want to go,' said Mirabelli.

Earlier today, Mirabelli gave talks at Vanier Catholic Secondary School and Yukon College.

Tonight, he will be speaking at the MacBride Museum on 'Childcare Aspirations and Reality'. The talk will begin at 7 p.m.

Long-time Whitehorse resident Sue Edelman, who represents the institute in the Yukon, writes a monthly column for the Star on its findings and affairs.