Home Renaissance Foundation and the International Center for Work and Family of the IESE Business School have carried out a study to understand the impact of housework on individuals, their family relationships and their well-being at work.

The results have yielded interesting data on how levels of well-being at work improve (psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, greater professional commitment or job crafting) when the attitude towards housework is positive. It is also observed that couple relationships and communication with children improve when there is good planning and disposition towards housework. The negative note: the misuse of technology, the lack of techno-references and phubbing threaten our mental health and family well-being.

On Tuesday 16 May at 19.00 at the Fundación Telefónica (C/Fuencarral, 3. Madrid) and as part of the Telos Cycle ‘The Future of Work’, we will analyse the results of the study with experts in a round table discussion. It’s free but registration is required. 

Participants:
Antonio Argandoña, Home Renaissance Foundation
Professor Emeritus of Economics and Business Ethics at IESE Business School. He is the holder of the CaixaBank Chair of Corporate Social Responsibility at IESE Business School. He is the author of numerous books and articles on economic theory, Spanish and international economics, general economics, ethics applied to economics and business, corporate social responsibility and corporate governance. Since 2017 he is one of the directors of the Home Renaissance Foundation for which he has edited four publications.

Begoña Pérez, La Ordenatriz
Known on social media as La Ordenatriz, Begoña Pérez is a professional home organiser, married and mother of seven children. She accumulates thousands and thousands of followers on the different platforms with whom she shares her tidying and cleaning tips. In September 2022 she published a book entitled ‘Cleanliness, order and happiness’.

Carmen del Campo, Mutua Madrileña
Director of Innovation at Mutua Madrileña where she has been working for 4 years, previously she was head of the Market Intelligence area for cities at Ferrovial, and did strategic consulting for the public sector at Deloitte. She holds a degree in Law and Business Administration from the University of Navarra and a Bachelor of Business Administration from IESE Business School.

José Miguel Cubillo, Expert in Family Therapy
Graduated in Psychology and Architecture, José Miguel Cubillo has combined professional practice with teaching throughout his career. He has been a guest lecturer at various international universities and is also an expert in family therapy. He was for years the president of the association Aula Familiar and, later, president of the International Federation for Family Development in Spain, an institution with General Consultative Status at the United Nations.

María Zabala, iWomanish
María Zabala is the Director of Society and Technology at Alabra. As a journalist has been working in communications for more than 20 years. After many years in news agencies, radio, press and television, she focused on the biomedical and scientific sectors from where she reflects on the impact of the digital society on our lives. As a consultant, she advises companies and institutions on digital education content.

María José Olesti, The Family Watch
She is a lawyer and managing director of The Family Watch, the international institute for the study of the family. Maria José has been working for the foundation since 2012. She holds a law degree from San Pablo CEU University and a Master’s degree in Social Leadership from IESE Business School. She is also a family advisor at IFFD.

LINK FOR REGISTRATION HERE

Understanding the power of home to transform societies in the face of Climate Emergency

28-29 September 2023 | Nottingham Conference Centre, Nottingham Trent University, UK
Academic Leaders: M. Gamal Abdelmonem and Antonio Argandoña

This Expert Meeting aims to explore the role home and family play in the transition towards a sustainable and carbon-neutral planet, where our Carbon footprint is neutralised by offsetting our consumption with the production of clean energy and a sustainable lifestyle. Building on the lessons learnt during COVID-19 Pandemic, and the global response to a universal emergency, this meeting will bring experts, scholars and scientists from diverse disciplines, professions, and research backgrounds to debate the challenges and opportunities facing the home as societal institutions to achieve that goal. It tries to respond to a key question, ‘how can we engage more effectively with the home and family as a resilient unit to help societies and economies compact Climate Change?’

See here the full Document

See the participants biographies

Key themes/ strands

 1. The Care of the Planet: Love and Care at the Heart of Climate Response

Our planet is our shared home. It is key to our survival and our perception of living. On the personal and cultural levels, we care for our planet because we truly understand that the planet is our home.  As we ought to take care of our individual and most intimate homes, it is also imperative to take care of the all-encompassing home, on which we live and the one that houses and shelters our nations. Under this strand, we will discuss the philosophical meaning of love and care within the context of care for the home and family.  It connects the universal home, the planet and its wellbeing, to the very personal and intimate home of the family.

2. Climate Change & Public Health: The Health and social care of the Home

This strand will discuss current and projected impact of global warming on family members and potential risks to essential support systems in healthcare, social care and wellbeing of individuals and vulnerable groups. Many studies reported the effects of extreme weather and heatwave on the health of older and more vulnerable people who need care. This covers variable factors that influence our health, from direct impact through excessive heatwave, torrential rains, wildfires, poor air quality, and enduring dry seasons to indirect ones that result from the limitation to our healthcare systems and their capacity to increasing demands. This strand will distil the multiple studies and evidence on such change on households and potential risks. It will then recommend a set of steps that enable future healthcare policy to counter those impact and prepare the state response mechanism in the context of adverse conditions.

3. Consumption & ecological footprint: Energy, Food and Transportation

This strand will focus on everyday lifestyle and consumption, through multiple examples of household consumptions in both developed and developing world. It will put into perspective the disparities of CO2 emissions and consumption of energy though work, food supply chain and transportation (essential and luxury). Whilst studying current patterns of societies, it will summarise best practice in active reduction of carbon emission in progressive states and cities to recommend practical steps in achieving sustainable lifestyle and consumption patterns.

4. Remote economy and home-based work: digital homes changing economic and Work/Life balance

This strand will pick on several studies that debate the critical role the redistribution of economy, job markets and trade in offsetting the carbon consumption through remote patterns of work and trade from home. It will look at recent change in economic operations, and digital infrastructure that are needed to support families working from home and connect them to wider network of trade and markets. It will gather evidence on how this model may or may not support a permanent shift in our life/work balance at home and how we can be active economically with minimum use of travel and public transportation. This strand will map effective economy and corporations that relied managed to remain active during the Pandemic, those new economies that emerged to compete with traditional sectors.

5. Connected Locality: Net-Zero Homes & Neighbourhoods

Under this strand, we aim to discuss the design of carbon neutral housing and the development of net-zero cities through multiple models around proximity of the family to essential services, markets, local supplies. It considers the effective and practical impact of the 20-minute neighbourhood model, where self-sufficiency of family needs and domestic network of supplies, services, and daily needs exist in walking distance of 10 minutes. It will investigate architecture, innovation and artificial Intelligence in the make-up of greener homes and developing new forms of construction to cope with periods of torrential rains and extreme temperatures.

6. Building Climate Resilience: Raising awareness through art and culture and education

Under this theme, we aim to explore what means of art and cultural education can help young individuals for developing awareness of the role of their homes and families in responding to climate emergencies and its consequences, like increased deprivation, displacement, and health risks. It will investigate our learning institutions consideration of the home, family practices and power of education to change societal attitudes towards the environment. It will study the influence of public art and culture in shaping the public knowledge and awareness of the centrality of the environmental concerns to every day’s life of the home and family. This will consider art and culture response to extreme weathers and natural disasters as a man-made catastrophe.

On behalf of HRF, I recently attended a round table on mental health as a Think Tank observer, at the invitation of the Spanish foundation “The Family Watch.” It is good that you always learn from those who know. And although I left the event a little disgruntled, I have been gradually putting my ideas in place. Let me explain why.

In the discussion on mental health families were criticised, particularly the parents. Although this is hard to hear, there is truth in this. With a cool head we must understand that, although babies do not come with an instruction manual, there are reliable resources available and established experience and wisdom to support us. We must not give in to discouragement or stop making the effort to be parents. We are aware that society is suffering from symptoms of sadness, insecurity and hopelessness. Many adults are worried about uncertainty but with education and prevention, this need not pass to the children. In what follows I am responding to these pressures and not to those suffering from severe psychiatric disorders.

Society is each and every one of us and it is on a one-to-one basis that we can make a difference. We know that what we call “society” does not make it easy, that the inputs our children receive are often contrary to what we think, that the school does not always accompany them when it should be an unconditional ally, that the Internet attracts many more resources than ours, stealing or replacing the figure of the parents… but nobody creates the same bond with a child as his or her parents. Let’s reinforce our advantages.

I heard again that, in mental health and life in general, we must strive for balance. Marc Masip proposed a balance between reason, emotions and will. Rafaela Santos suggested a balance between acceptance, adaptation and resilience as a mechanism for dealing with what happens to us. But there was one piece of advice that opened my eyes again because we always end up with the same message. It was the first “golden rule” that Dr López Ibor, remembered by his daughter, María Inés López-Ibor who is also a psychiatrist, gave his patients to take care of their mental health: “Forget about yourself and think about others“.

Depending on the situation, physical exercise, mindfulness, and medication may all have a role, but getting beyond yourself to give to others is key to mental and emotional well-being. We have ended many posts with this conclusion and it remains true. The other two rules are not to be missed either. Sense of humour: approaching life with real optimism, giving the right importance to problems and laughing a lot at oneself. And finally, transcendence, i.e. the meaning we give to life and how we choose to live it.

If you want to take care of your physical health, you will do sport; if you have cholesterol, you will control your diet. The same applies to maintaining mental health. Noticing there is a problem and seeking the right advice early is vital. The experts made it clear that, in medicine, prevention is always better than cure, and the more aware we are, the better.

And we cannot be alarmed by feeling sad or suffering because emotions, positive or negative, are part of the process of being alive, and we will all experience potentially traumatic events throughout our lives. The key will be prepared to deal together with the things that come our way.

En Home Renaissance Foundation hemos realizado un estudio con el Centro Internacional Trabajo y Familia del IESE Business School, para conocer cómo influye el trabajo del hogar en la persona, la familia y su bienestar laboral.

Organizamos una mesa redonda en el Espacio Telefónica para presentar los resultados el martes 16 de mayo.

Vídeo completo de la sesión aquí | Resumen en español aquí

Además, en estos enlaces podrás encontrar los resultados del estudio, las conclusiones, las infografías y las recomendaciones de los expertos:

1. El Phubbing amenaza nuestra salud mental y el bienestar familiar

Nota de Prensa | Infografías

2. El trabajo del hogar es el nuevo aliado para alcanzar mejores niveles de bienestar laboral

Nota de Prensa | Infografías

3. Una actitud positiva hacia las tareas del hogar influye positivamente en la relación de los padres con sus hijos

Nota de Prensa | Infografías

4. Continúa existiendo desigualdad de género en el cuidado de las tareas del hogar, ahora bien, cuando la pareja goza de buena relación la diferencia es mucho menor

Nota de Prensa | Infografías

Los expertos del ICWF/IESE que han realizado esta investigación son:

Mireia Las Heras | Profesora de Dirección de Personas en las Organizaciones en IESE Business School, Universidad de Navarra, España – donde ejerce como Directora del Centro Internacional Trabajo y Familia.

Yasin Rofcanin | Profesor de Psicología Organizacional y Gestión de Recursos Humanos en la Universidad de Bath y Doctor en Filosofía (Ph.D.), División de Organización y GRH, Doctor en Comportamiento Organizacional en la Universidad de Warwick -Warwick Business School.

Marc Grau | Profesor e Investigador de la Cátedra de Políticas de Atención a la Infancia y a la Familia de la Universitat Internacional de Catalunya y WAPPP Research Fellow de la Harvard Kennedy School.

Para cualquier entrevista o más detalles de la investigación, contactar con Ángela de Miguel

At Home Renaissance Foundation we have carried out a study with the International Work and Family Centre of the IESE Business School, in order to find out how the work of the home influences the person, the family and their well-being at work.

By clicking these links you can access the study`s results, the conclusions, the infographics and the recommendations from the experts:

1. Phubbing threatens our mental health and family wellbeing

2. The work of the home is the new ally for achieving better levels of employee wellbeing

3. A positive attitude towards housework has a positive influence on parents’ relationship with their children

The experts who have carried out this research are:

Mireia Las Heras | Professor of Managing People in Organizations at IESE Business School, University of Navarra, Spain – where she serves as the Director of the International Center for Work and Family.

Yasin Rofcanin | Professor in Organizational Psychology and Human Resource Management at the University of Bath and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Organisation and HRM Division, Ph.D. in Organisational Behaviour and HRM at the University of Warwick -Warwick Business School.

Marc Grau | Professor and a Researcher at the Childcare and Family Policies Chair at Universitat International Catalunya and a WAPPP Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School.