How Employees Can Partner with Employers: Work+Life Fit in 5 Days Series

Work+Life Flex “How to” in Pictures: #1 Don’t get stuck on the innovation curve

Work+Life Flex “How to” in Pictures: #3 Focus on fact that same flexibility keeps business open in snowstorm, cares for aging parent (and more)

Work+Life Flex “How to” in Pictures: #4 Making flexibility real takes more than traditional policy, toolkit and training

Thank you for tuning into HR Happy Hour and talking about the important topic of “Making Work/Life Work.”  As promised, here is a list of ways HR professionals can get started today advancing strategic work+life flexibility in their organizations.  Please add others you think are important and didn’t get a chance to share during the show.  I look forward to continuing this important conversation with you!

Define what you believe work+life flexibility is. The answer will determine HR’s role and response.  Is it a business strategy?  Is it a “perk” reserved for good times?  Or is it an annoying regulation to be tolerated and mitigated?  Assuming you decide, yes, work+life flexibility is a strategic lever that we want to help integrate into the day-to-day operating model of the business, then…

Start to change the way you talk and think about flexibility because according to our the WLF/BDO study of top CFOs, only 13 out of 100 felt their senior leadership saw flexibility as a strategy (the rest saw it as a perk), and had the process in place to target flexibility toward a problem or opportunity.

At FSG, we talk about work+life flexibility, as opposed to workplace flexibility, because flexibility in how, when and where work is done won’t succeed if there isn’t corresponding flexibility in the way life is managed, and vice versa.  So for example, a compressed workweek is only going to succeed for a parent that can flexibly move the pickup time at child care back.  Or telecommuting only works if there’s the appropriate equipment and space to work remotely.

We also use the term work+life fit, not balance as one of the outcomes of strategic flexibility.  By work+life fit, we mean actively and flexibly optimizing the way work fits into your life day-to-day and at major life and career transitions given your unique realities.   Everyone has a work+life fit they need to manage, from the CEO to the temp worker.  This normalize it throughout the culture.

Learn about what is already working and start to capture it. Success doesn’t require a complete overhaul of the way you do business.  No, in fact, there’s often a great deal of flexibility already happening that you can start to capture and leverage.   And chances are HR doesn’t know about most of these pockets of flex innovation because it’s usually just organically happening and might not even be called “flexibility.”  The intuitively flexible manager and team probably think of it simply as “getting the job” done.

Gather internal and external data to support the need for flexibility.  And to reinforce the business impact of the success stories you’ve identified internally.  Here are links to some of my favorites (others below):

• Sloan Center for Aging and Work–Workplace Flexibility Across the Generations (highlights business impacts and the need for a “fit” between the business and the type of flexibility offered)
• National Study of the Changing Workforce by Families and Work Institute
• WorkShifting Benefits: The Bottom Line by Citrix/Telework Research Network

Find a senior line leader who will be the champion and public face of the flexibility strategy. As much as possible from the beginning, position the strategy as business led and sponsored effort with HR as a partner.

Link impacts of flexibility to the business as directly and broadly as possible. Keep pulling all of those links together and building buy-in and awareness.  Find the “pain” points of opportunity or challenge within the business where being more flexible in how, when and where work is done and life is managed would make a big difference.  Start to share and build the business case.  Listen and join the conversation.  For example,

• Is the administration group trying to figure out how to seed new markets without taking on office space until a presence is established?  Telecommuting.
• Have revenue and earnings not rebounded as quickly as expected?  Are conversations starting about more reductions?  Furloughs, sabbaticals, reduced schedules.
• Are more and more of the company’s clients oversees requiring coverage outside of normal office hours?  Flexible scheduling.
• Are levels of stress and overwork causing a spike in health care costs?  Day-to-day flexibility to get to gym, leave early to see kids’ games etc.
• Are the investor and government relations groups struggling to complete the Corporate Social Responsibility/Environment and Social Governance Report for the SEC? Telecommuting.
• Can implementing a flexibility strategy in partnership with the technology group help improve utilization of what’s already being offered and identify gaps in tech resources that need to be filled?

Understand the common characteristics of successful work+life flexibility.  Fifteen years of work with companies, leaders, and employees have shown us, time and again, that the best strategies have the following characteristics:

• They are NOT one-size-fits-all. They are tailored to the unique realities of the business and the people who work there.  Those (sometimes tough) business realities must be acknowledged for the solutions proposed to have credibility and staying power.
• They are process, not policy-based which makes them flexible enough to adapt and evolve with the changing realities of the business and the people who work there.
• They are built on a strong employee-employer partnership, not from the top-down. The employer/manager creates the space within which innovative work+life solutions are crafted as part of the day-to-day operating model.  And employees are prepared and know what they need to do to meet the company halfway. Most companies skip this important step.
• They achieve both business and individual personal objectives. The employer understands how to apply the same flexibility that helps individual employees manage their work+life fit to achieve other business objectives such as resource cost management (eg. labor, real estate, technology, and health care), global client service, sustainability, disaster preparedness, working better and smarter, etc.

Move beyond the five standard types formal flexible work arrangements.  Again, it’s process, not policies. Include in the process the ability to officially change how, when and/or where you work for a period of time.  Some people and the business will need a formal change, at some point in time.  But, build the strategy primarily around day-to-day flexibility or small, periodic, none recurring shifts in work and life.  Consider including in the flexibility toolkit any PTO and Leaves you offer.  You are providing a whole continuum of flexible tools in one package.

Any job and any industry can embrace some form of flexibility but not every type of flexibility. A process-based approach lets you adapt the flexibility to the business, whereas “check the box,” one size fits all formal flexible work arrangements don’t.  Flexibility is going to look different even within different businesses within the same company.  Important: The consistency comes in the access to the same process not in the promise of the same type of flexibility.

Measure at all points. Adapt what you measure to where you are in the process and what you want to learn.  An example is the case study of key metrics from our BDO Flex project. In the discovery phase we used quantitative and qualitative data to begin to identify what’s working and make links to the business.  In the visioning phase, we tested how well people understood this shared vision.  Then when we were building readiness of a key leadership group, we tested their buy-in.  And finally in the orientation and review phases we measured the following buckets of outcomes at set intervals:

• Personal Work+Life Fit and Understanding of Flexibility
• Employee Engagement
• Work Effectiveness
• Business Impact

Nothing is EVER going to be perfect, and you are always going to have to continually tweak and improve your flexibility strategy. Some employees will not live up to their end of the bargain.  If they don’t, then they don’t get flexibility.  As a very wise executive once said to us, “Chances are it’s not the flex, it’s the employee and maybe they should be gone.”  You will always have managers who won’t support it.  They need to be coached and penalized in the reward system.  But, at the end of the day, avoid the temptation to build a flexibility strategy geared toward the few who will abuse.   Build it for the many who will thrive…they will.

Great Resources (No particular order):

• Sloan Center for Aging and Work at Boston College
• Psychologically Health Workplaces
• Flex-Friendly
• Alliance for Work-Life Progress/World at Work
• Families and Work Institute–When Work Works
• Sloan Work and Family Network
• Boston College Center for Work and Family
• Institute for Workplace Innovation
• Telework Research Institute/ Undress for Success

I’m proud to announce that Work+Life Fit, Inc. is part of the first class of employers to be certified as Flex-Friendly!  If you visit my Work+Life Fit blog you will see this cool Flex-Friendly 2010 emblem.   So, what is the Flex-Friendly certification and why does it matter?  

Launched earlier this year, Flex-Friendly is a workplace flexibility directory of companies actively open to flexible ways of working.  Flex-Friendly, “celebrates organizations that meet the needs of our changing workforce.” And your organization can be part of this exciting effort.

First, I’ll share why the Flex-Friendly credential means so much to Work+Life Fit as an employer, and then the founders of Flex-Friendly, Jane Seibel, CEO, and Dr. Ann Farnsworth, CSO, will share why they created the Flex-Friendly directory and certification process, and what their goal are for the process.

For Work+Life Fit, it’s proof that we walk our Flex talk

At Work+Life Fit, Inc. and now with our new parent company, the Flex+Strategy Group, flexibility is not only what we do, it is who we are as an organization.  It’s how we operate.

But would our model withstand the outside scrutiny of a flexibility certification process?  Do we really walk our talk?

Not only did the verdict come back, “Yes, you are indeed Flex-Friendly,” but it was rewarding to join other forward-thinking organizations both large—Accenture, Sara Lee and American Express—and small that feel it was important to reaffirm that flexibility is a powerful, valueable strategic lever.

How does flexibility in how, when and where work is done and life is managed help Work+Life Fit achieve it’s strategic business objectives? Here are just a few of the impacts: (Click here for more)

A year ago, the economic downturn was in full gear.   As layoffs gained momentum, I loudly promoted a more flexible approach to downsizing as an alternative to knee jerk job cuts.  If executed correctly and strategically, compressed workweeks, telecommuting, reduced schedules, furloughs and sabbaticals improve productivity and reduce costs in numerous areas (e.g labor costs, real estate overheads, operating costs), therefore, limiting or avoiding layoffs.  Additionally, this very same flexibility simultaneously achieves other business objectives, such as disaster preparedness in response to the H1N1 virus, or expanded global client coverage to generate new business.

Over the past 12 months many people have said, “Thank you.  You made me think of other options and as a result we were more creative and flexible in how we managed through the crisis.”   But about three months ago, I noticed a shift.

With glimmers of a recovery finally on the horizon, flexible downsizing entered a new post-crisis, pre-recovery phase.  In this gray zone, a flexible approach to managing productivity and costs in all areas remains critical but involves a new set of choices:

• What about businesses that did use flexible downsizing strategies, but a year later, aren’t starting to recover and may never recover?  Are more layoffs necessary?  If yes, how do you make those cuts without undoing the benefits realized from having taken a more flexible approach in the heat of the downturn?
• How do you compensate and retain top performers who were willing to sacrifice in the thick of the crisis, but now see a recovery and want to be rewarded at pre-recession levels, even if the business hasn’t recovered and the money isn’t there?

Before we address the “how to” in this next phase, let’s take stock of where we actually are a year later: (Click here for more)

We know that the HR community recognizes the importance of work+life flexibility, but what about the people who drive the financial decisions, and write the checks.  Is work+life flexibility on the radar screen of CFOs?  Is it a core strategic lever for responding rapidly to unexpected economic challenges, and for addressing future trends well in advance?  If not, why and how can that change?

To answer these questions, Work+Life Fit, Inc. partnered with BDO Seidman LLP to co-sponsor the first ever CFO Perspectives on Work-Life Flexibility study.  This national telephone survey of a random sample of 100 top CFOs at companies with at least 5,000 employees was conducted by an independent research firm in May, 2008.  I’m so pleased that the peer reviewed World at Work Journal chose to publish the article I wrote about the results and their implications entitled, “CFOs See Business Impacts of Work-Life Flexibility, But They Can’t Execute for Strategic Benefit,” in the most recent issue.

The publication of the article and the important insights the CFOs offered couldn’t come at a better time.  Eighteen months ago global corporate line leadership had a chance to use a broad range of work+life flexibility strategies to respond to the brewing economic crisis, and for the most part they didn’t.  Early on, they missed the opportunity to consider how they could reduce costs and sustain revenue by being more flexible in where, when and how the business and employees operated.  Specifically, they overlooked how to use a combination of flexible scheduling, compressed workweeks, furloughs, sabbaticals, telecommuting, reduced schedules, and job sharing to help employees become more productive, reduce labor costs while minimizing layoffs, cut real estate overhead, lower operating expenses, as well as improve and expand customer service.  This was a costly and unnecessary oversight that we can’t afford to repeat.

The key findings from the CFO survey outlined in the World at Work Journal article offer guidance into what we can leverage and do differently to make work+life flexibility a more integral part of both the short-term and long-term decision-making process:  (Click here for more)

In February, 2008, as the recession clouds started to gather, I posted a prediction of what would happen to work life flexibility when the storm broke.  I knew we’d arrived at the crossroad I envisioned last February, when I read this week’s Washington Post article, “As Cuts Loom, Will Working From Home Lead to a Layoff?”  The experts, employees, and managers interviewed (as well as people commenting online) recognize and express the knee-jerk response I feared then, “Forget flexibility, people are just luck to have jobs.” 

The question becomes whether this backward-looking response will prevail, or will the wisdom of the organizations that recognize there’s no going back on workplace flexibility if their businesses and the people who work for them are to succeed?  Instead of a “policy,” “benefit,” “program,” or “arrangement” reserved for good times,  will flexibility take its rightful place as a way of operating, as part of the culture and core strategy?  For more information on what using work+life flexibility as a business strategy means, check out video highlights from speeches I gave recently on the subject. 

In a nutshell, flexibility helps an organization manage costs and resources (e.g. real estate), service clients, helps employees manage their work+life fit, improves environmental sustainability and creates an environment of innovation:

• Many companies are actively using flexibility to reduce labor costs and minimize layoffs in the recession.  And, as CV Harquail points out in the Authentic Organizations blog, there are important leadership opportunities in flexible alternatives to layoffs that go beyond the labor cost savings. 
• Just this week I learned that Johnson Space Center incorporates work+life fit into their Inclusion and Innovation Initiative.
• Astellas Pharma reduced employee schedules on Friday without reducing salaries so they can have a better “balance.” 

Not every organization is turning back the clock to 1985.  Many are moving flexibly into 2009 and beyond.  As we decide which path to take—to go forward or go back—here’s my Fastcompany.com post from February 1, 2008 that outlines the choices.  There’s still time. 

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been repeatedly asked: “What do you think will happen to work+life fit and flexibility if the economy experiences a recession?”

I think two things will happen. Unfortunately, too many leaders and organizations will default to a shortsighted fall back position, “Forget flexibility. People are just lucky to have jobs.” But the smart leaders and organizations won’t. They will continue to move forward integrating flexibility into the way they do business because they understand that there is no turning back. To use a recession as an excuse to stop developing news ways of flexibly managing work and life will only put them further behind in terms of growth potential when a recession ends.

What do these smart leaders and organizations know that the less enlightened overlook? They understand that flexibility is key to their businesses success in a 24/7, high tech, global work reality. They know that:

• Even in a recession talent will still be a scare commodity (see the results from PriceWaterhouse Cooper’s recent Global CEO Survey). If organizations hope to hold on to valuable talent (especially employees under the age of 30) once a recession ends they better do all they can now to win employee loyalty and be the employer of choice. And finding a better work+life fit is very important to a majority of the workforce. As a leader in a professional services firm recently said to me, “Back in 1975, there were 30 resumes for every job. Now there are 10 jobs for every qualified resume.” That ratio isn’t going to change drastically with a recession (Update: I obviously didn’t foresee the growth in layoffs as the recession unfolded. I would have moved the last two bullets up to the beginning);

• You can’t effectively service global clients and manage global teams without flexibility that considers impact on work+life fit. Domestic employees can’t be on the phone all night with Singapore and then haul themselves into work the next day 8-to-6. Clients and teams in other countries can’t always be expected to be the ones to make the early morning/late night concessions. Organizations aren’t going to stop operating globally because of a recession;

• In a recession, more needs to be done with fewer resources. It’s even more critical that your employees are at their most productive and your workflow and communication management is at its most efficient. Studies show that flexibility to help employees manage their work+life fit results in increased productivity, more efficiency, and better communication.

• Finally, companies that need to cutback will use flex to creatively downsize. By offering to reduce schedules or a transition people to project-based, consulting work, employees who otherwise would lose their tie to the organization can stay. When business turns around, those companies then have the option of offering those employees a return to a full-time schedule.

So which direction do you think the leaders of your organization will choose as we move further into the recession? Will they follow the knee-jerk retrenchment where all innovation related to work+life fit and flexibility not only halts but reverses as people fear for their jobs? Or will the recognition that flexibility is more important that ever to manage time, talent, and workflow prevail?

In August, my husband and I attended a speech given by Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and author of the new book, “Hot, Flat and Crowded.”   While we have always been aware of the need to go green, we left his speech convinced of the dire consequences if individuals, businesses and governments don’t radically change the way we use our resources. 

One of the points Friedman emphasized was that for innovation in alternative energy sources to continue, the price of gas and other fuels needed to rise.  Otherwise, the economic return would not be enough to justify the increased costs for companies to invest in development.   At that time, gas was inching toward $4 a gallon, and the economic collapse seemed to be isolated and contained. 

Oh what a difference four months makes.  A recent article by Elizabeth Rosenthal in the New York Times confirmed my fears:  Economic Slump May Limit Moves on Clean Energy.  Because of the global economic downturn, doubts are growing about commitments to cap emissions or phase out polluting factories.   With gas at $2 a gallon, Americans will be less likely to stop driving their SUVs, and Europeans argue they can’t afford to address the financial crisis and reduce emissions. 

Let’s assume that 50% of the hot, flat and crowded future scenarios that Friedman presented in his lecture are valid.  We don’t have the luxury of putting our efforts to improve environmental sustainability on hold while we sort out our finances.  And the good news is that we don’t have to.  Unfortunately, none of the proposals related to reducing emissions that Rosenthal cited in the New York Times included the one strategy that will cost the least amount of money: increasing flexibility in where, when, and how work is done.  

Rosenthal wrote about the environmental proposal presented by President-elect Obama.  It called for “the country to build wind farms, and solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and alternative energy technologies.”  Nowhere did it mention reducing emissions and consumption of fossil fuels by implementing a broad-reaching work+life flexibility strategy.  So what would that look like?

I originally wrote about a national work+life flexibility strategy back in May 2008 in response to predictions that gas could reach $10 a gallon.  It’s an approach that would allow us to make progress on environmental sustainability without incurring the costs related to expensive carbon caps or factory conversions and closures:

There is one powerful solution that leaders could implement today.  It would have a guaranteed positive impact, not only on the environment but also on the people and organizations using it—work+life flexibility.  Isolated efforts have started such as the UK’s Work from Home Day on May 15th, Houston’s Flex in the City, and the state of Georgia letting employees work from home one day a week.  But to have a meaningful impact, it needs to be broader.  It needs to be national. Therefore, if I were the President of the United States, I would propose that starting June 1, 2008: 

1)  Everyone with a job that could be done from home would coordinate with their leader and team to determine one day of the week to telecommute.
 
Impact: Because people are still working full-time there would be no decrease in productivity, and fewer people commuting.   The group undress4success just released an interesting review of research on the estimated energy savings from telecommuting and it is truly astounding. 

2) Everyone who sets up a home office would be able to write off the cost on their taxes. 
Impact:  Shifting costs from the individual and employer to the government would provide a strong incentive to get the proper equipment for telecommuting.

3) For those who don’t have jobs that can be done remotely or who would prefer not to work from home (believe it or not there are many people for whom this is the case), set up three staggered shifts. This would reduce the number of people commuting at the same time.  These shifts could run from 5:00 am to 1:00 pm, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm; and then 2:00 pm to 10:00 pm.  As I have written before, there is no longer any reason we all need to commute at the same time (here).
 
Impact: Reduces energy consumed sitting in traffic; increases the efficient use of roads and public transportation by spreading it more evenly throughout the day; provides more global coverage across time zones for businesses, and allows people to work when they are at their best, e.g. morning people in the earliest shift, and night owls in the later shift.

Implementing strategic work+life flexibility will require organizations, leaders and individuals to fundamentally rethink the way they work, live, and manage their businesses.  As I have often written (here, here and here), the bottom-line payoffs go far beyond environmental sustainability, and are critical for not just surviving, but thriving during this economic downturn. 

As Thomas Friedman so clearly and eloquently points out, we can not let the challenges of this recession keep us from making headway with the environment.  If we do, the future will make what we are going through right now look like a vacation.  So, spread the word about work+life flexibility as a low-cost way to keep the environmental momentum going.

What do you think?  Do you hear people talking about work+life flexibility, or flexibility in where, when and how work is done, as part of a comprehensive approach to environmental sustainability?

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:   (Click here for more…)