Women in the workplace, women business owners, women in government, women in the corporate world, and women who stay home and care for their families. This month we celebrate International Women's Day and Women's History Month. Let's recognize the many contributions women are making in their communities around the world.

Here at home there's a lot to celebrate. For the first time in our country's history, women outnumber men in the U.S. work force. Despite tough economic times, women business owners say they're optimistic about the future. When women in a recent study were asked what they thought of the current economic situation, 72.5 percent replied that they're charging ahead and keeping a positive outlook. Asked whether they felt this was a good time to grow their business, an overwhelming 73.8 percent said yes.

First Lady Michelle Obama has dubbed herself "Mom-in-Chief" and has made family and workplace issues a priority. Last week a congressional hearing, "Encouraging Family-Friendly Workplace Policies," was held on Capitol Hill. Increasing attention on these issues will provide us with a real opportunity to update our policies to help families achieve greater flexibility, portability and security in the workplace.

Here are a few ideas for Congress and the administration to consider as they update our laws for the 21st century work force:

1. Provide families with more flexible work arrangements. Companies should be able to offer flexible work arrangements to help working parents balance competing demands between care-giving responsibilities and their careers. However, government should take no part in this, other than getting out of the way.
   
   Solution: Employees in the private sector should be able to accumulate compensatory time off in lieu of overtime wages, a perk that government employees have enjoyed for 30 years. This would allow parents the flexibility to take off time they've earned to get a child to the doctor or to attend a soccer game. The Family-Friendly Workplace Act (HR 933) was introduced last month in Congress to give parents more flexibility in their jobs.
   
   
2. Make employee benefits more flexible. Working parents are often forced to make difficult choices about their careers. No doubt many mothers (and fathers) have had to turn down promotions knowing it would mean less time at home with the kids or with a sick parent. The choice often comes down to a full-time position with benefits and a 9-to-5 straightjacket schedule or a more flexible part-time position. For this reason, many primary caregivers (usually women) go without the benefits provided by full-time positions.
   
   Solution: Employers should be able to offer flexible benefits. A parent who needs a flexible schedule should be able to trade taxable wages for workplace benefits such as health or retirement benefits. The tax code currently makes this difficult.
   
   
3. Give employers and employees choices. Not every company is on solid ground-- especially in a deepening recession. Small businesses are struggling, and the administration should be talking more about helping them. The administration and congressional leadership plan to expand the Family and Medical Leave Act to include businesses with 25 or more employees (as opposed to 50 employees in current policy), which would put a strain on many struggling businesses.
   
   Solution: Government should avoid imposing costly mandates on our small businesses, especially at a time when they can least afford it. The last thing small businesses can afford right now is to invest time and money on costly paperwork the Family and Medical Leave Act requires. (FMLA compliance cost businesses $24 billion in 2004.) More important, the administration should avoid pushing any legislation that makes it less attractive for businesses to hire women.
   
   
4. Enable employees to carry their benefits from job to job. At a time when more people are moving from one job to the next, we need to make it easier for employees to take their benefits with them.
   
   Solution: Allow employers to purchase individually owned insurance for their employees that workers could carry with them from job to job. That would allow working parents the flexibility to make major decisions affecting their careers without worrying about health coverage in the process.

As Congress and the new administration begin to tackle these important issues, they should do so with a mind toward helping small businesses by resisting the temptation to impose new mandates. Instead, they need to make sure any policy change is flexible, personal, voluntary, portable and--above all--fair.