Featured Guest Blogger November 19th, 2008
Cali Williams Yost is the CEO and founder of Work + Life Fit, Inc., a consulting firm that brings together the best practices in work-life flexibility, change management and innovation to develop and implement breakthrough flexibility strategies tailored to the unique business goals and objectives of client organizations. She is also the author of the critically-acclaimed Work + Life: Finding the Fit That’s Right for You, the first guide to help individuals strategically manage their work-life fit in partnership with their employer, as well as an expert blogger for FastCompany. Please note that the views of our guest bloggers do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network.
These are indeed interesting times. Should we even talk about work-life flexibility as we move into what looks like a deep and long recession? Is it relevant? Not only should we continue talking about work-life flexibility, but we must recognize that it’s more relevant today than it was even six months ago.
Flexibility in where, when and how work is done is a strategic lever that can help leaders and employees adapt in the face of change. It also achieves a broad-range of bottom line impacts that are critical not only to surviving but thriving during the current economic downturn, and beyond.
Unfortunately, the response I’m hearing from leaders in this environment is not that work-life flexibility is a powerful strategy in their tool kit to address business challenges. Most see it as a “perk” or nice thing to do in good times, but something they perhaps can no longer afford.
This “informal perk” mindset is not surprising given our findings in the CFO Perceptions of Work Life Flexibility study, a survey that Work + Life Fit, Inc. recently co-sponsored with BDO Seidman, a national professional services firm. This survey of a random sample of the country’s top 100 CFOs tested their perceptions of work-life flexibility. Good news: a majority of CFOs recognized a broad range of potential bottom line impacts that flexibility could achieve, including recruitment and retention; improved employee productivity; differentiation from competitors; minimizing environmental impact and reducing health care cost.
The bad news is that only 13 out of the 100 had a formal approach to flexibility in place and had a senior leadership team that perceived it to be a strategy for managing work, resources and talent. In other words, only 13% of the CFOs worked for organizations with the leadership understanding and organizational infrastructure to translate that awareness into action for bottom line results. The remaining 87 CFOs, or 87%, had no formal approach to flexibility in place and/or had a leadership team that saw flexibility as an informal “perk.” Not a powerful recipe for seeing and executing flexibility as a strategic lever.
While this “it’s a perk we can’t afford right now,” reaction isn’t surprising, it’s the wrong response to flexibility at the wrong time. Again, the business challenges presented by the recession provide an important opportunity to, once and for all, position or rebrand work-life flexibility for what it is…it’s not a benefit, program or perk. It’s a core business strategy with broad applications and impacts. How do we take advantage of this moment in time? Raise awareness.
Flexibly rethinking the way work is done, how life is managed, and business is run addresses many challenges facing organizations in a world where rapid change is the only constant. The innovative use of telecommuting, flexible scheduling, reduced hours, compressed workweeks, and contract workers is an effective way to achieve diverse business outcomes, some of which are shown in the graphic below:
Numerous examples of work life flexibility as a strategic lever can be found in the 2008 Guide to Bold New Ideas for Making Work Work published by Families and Work Institute. The guide summarizes how the national When Work Works award winners, both big and small, apply flexibility for results:
- Improving Customer Service: 1-800-Contacts has installed a telephone switching system that allows customer service reps can handle orders from home as needed.
- Providing Non-monetary Rewards – Because of strict government salary guidelines, the Colorado Workforce Center offers flexibility to reward, attract talent.
- Working better/smarter – After implementing an organization-wide flexibility strategy, Capital One reduced by almost one-third the amount of time it takes to get information to peers, and cut by almost one-quarter the time it takes to get information to managers.
Other corporate examples include:
- Reducing Real Estate Overhead— Chorus, a software provider to the health care industry, shut down all of its offices and went virtual. The 35 employees and all of the full-time consultants work from home and the company saves an estimated $400,000 per year by getting rid of 15,000 square feet of office space.
- Creative Downsizing, Beyond Traditional Layoffs—Sigma Group, a full-service advertising agency is offering sabbaticals and reducing hours to avoid layoffs, and according the head of HR employees have been more than willing to have more personal time and a reduced salary if it means they have a job.
Many leaders and organizations believe that flexibility is an unaffordable “perk,” but the economic downturn offers a unique opportunity to change their minds. Work-life flexibility is much more than a “nice thing to do,” or the “right thing to do.” It’s a strategic lever that addresses a broad range of business challenges that are particularly relevant in the current environment. Today, it’s the recession. Two years from now, it will be something else. The most adaptable and flexible organizations and individuals will not only survive, but thrive. Let’s start now.
