Corporate Voices’ Study Demonstrates Benefits of Workplace Flexibility to Hourly Employees and Businesses
Featured Guest Blogger June 8th, 2009
John Wilcox is the Vice President of Operations at Corporate Voices for Working Families. He manages Corporate Voices’ family economic security work, focusing on lower-wage working families. Please note that the views of our guest bloggers do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network.
When Michelle Obama attended the Corporate Voices for Working Families Annual Meeting in early May, she talked about the importance of work-life programs to working families and to the competitiveness of American business.
In conjunction with Mrs. Obama’s talk, Corporate Voices released a comprehensive study that looks at workplace flexibility options and programs involving hourly employees, Innovative Workplace Flexibility Options for Hourly Workers.
Recent research about the value of workplace flexibility has focused primarily on management and professional workers. This study finds that workplace flexibility initiatives, when available for hourly employees, are as successful as those designed for professional staff. It also demonstrates that businesses offering hourly employees flexible work options benefit through enhanced recruitment, retention, engagement, cost control, productivity and financial performance.
Equally important, we find that it is not only formal flexible arrangements that produce these impressive results, but progressive personnel policies and a work culture supportive of occasional flexibility that give workers access to a variety of time-off options and control over their work schedules. When companies provide employees with an array of flexibility and time-off options and an environment in which it is possible to access flexibility opportunities without barriers, employees develop their own strategies to use the options that best meet their individual needs and satisfy business requirements.
Highlights of the key findings of the report include:
- Managers and employees agree that flexibility has positive benefits and adds value for the business and for the individual employee in key areas involving productivity, customer service, employee work-life effectiveness, stress and well-being.
- For businesses, flexible schedules are an effective means of managing personnel costs, in particular overtime costs, which is a win-win for employees and employers.
- More than 80 percent of employers and employees surveyed say flexibility is important to recruitment and retention.
- In childcare, where there is a shortage of qualified early childhood teachers, flexible work options represents a key management strategy to recruit and retain individuals who are committed to their profession and to tap a wider labor pool than might be possible if the business offered a more limited work schedule.
- Companies have found that offering flexible schedules and innovative time-off policies contribute to being an “employer of choice” for younger workers in their competitive labor market.
- For positions in customer service and sales with typically high turnover, companies find that flexibility is a way to keep high-performing employees both in the short term and the long term. These companies use flexibility to respond to the changing needs of their workers at various stages of their lives and careers—going back to school, raising a family, or to retain mature workers.
- Flexible work options are being used in businesses with continuous operations that need weekend coverage or whose business hours extend beyond a 9 to 5 eight-hour day. This includes voluntary part-time positions as well as flextime and compressed work schedules.
Innovative Workplace Flexibility Options for Hourly Workers was researched and written by WFD Consulting and supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
It is a plus when you as much as possible you acquire yourself with the management skills that you need to enhanced your leadership skills in managing your own business.