By Donna Klein, President and CEO, Corporate Voices for Working Families

As flex hours, flexible workplaces, and compressed work weeks have become more commonplace in the workplace of the 21st century, many managers and workers still believe these flexibility programs are a special benefit or exception for an employee. But in a new study released by Corporate Voices for Working Families, 28 large American businesses reported that flexibility is far from being an employee accommodation and is widely recognized as a key management strategy that positively affects employee performance and can improve an organization’s financial performance.

The study, “Business Impacts of Flexibility: An Imperative for Expansion,” for the first time assembles quantitative data from independently-conducted studies in corporate America to demonstrate the impact of flexibility on business outcomes. Using data from employee and customer surveys, profitability studies, flexibility studies and pilot programs, the study proves that flexibility does have a significant impact on critical business outcomes such as employee productivity, customer satisfaction, cycle time, and employee turnover. In addition, the study consistently found that employees with access to flexibility have significantly higher engagement and retention with lower burnout and stress than employees without access to flexibility.

In the past, flexibility has been seen by many in corporate America as a reward or accommodation for working parents or superior performers, but Business Impacts of Flexibility challenges that misconception and shows more and more organizations are discovering through internal documentation that flexibility can have multiple impacts on a variety of business outcomes.

This study from Corporate Voices for Working Families was researched by WFD Consulting with funding from the Program on the Workplace, Workforce and Working Families at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York City under the direction of Kathleen Christensen.

Companies that participated in the study include: Abbott, Accenture, Allstate, AOL, AstraZeneca, Baxter, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ceridian, Deloitte, Discovery, Eli Lilly, Ernst & Young, GlaxoSmithKline, IBM, JP Morgan Chase, Knowledge Learning Corporation, KPMG, Lucent, Marriott, Mellon, Merck, MetLife, PNC, Save-A-Lot Division of Supervalue, Sodexho, TJX, Texas Instruments, Work Options Group.

If you would like to learn more about the study or to obtain a copy of the study please visit our website at http://www.cvworkingfamilies.com or call Susan Holbrook at 202-775-0259.