Category 1: Caring for Dependents (Children and Aging Parents)
The business impact of providing dependent care has been widely researched:
■ A wide array of child care benefits enhanced retention at 94 percent of companies offering them
■ A 2003 study by Circadian Technologies found that, when child care is offered, absenteeism, turnover, and overtime are reduced
■ A 2001 General Services Administration study found that child care subsidies offered to low-income workers helped more than half (55 percent) to better concentrate on work, a fifth (19 percent) experienced lower rates of absenteeism and 75 percent of recipients felt the subsidy program had
need. Some of the more innovative policies in this category include paid family leave for new fathers as well as mothers, sabbaticals, paid or release time for com- munity service, responsive shift-work policies, paid time off leave banks, extreme travel compensatory time, and after-hours email policies.
Business Implications. The “vanishing vacation” means less productivity and more stress, according to the results of a Hudson survey.
■ More than half of employees do not use all of their vacation time; 30 percent use less than half of it and 20 percent take only two or three days off in a year. Vacation deprivation is one reason workers make more mistakes and exhibit more anger and resentment toward coworkers. On the flip side, NASA scientists found that vacationers showed an 82 percent increase in job
performance upon returning from vacation, and that two or three days did not result in the same benefits.
■ A 2000 study by the Radcliffe Public Policy Center surveyed 1,008 male workers between the ages of 20 and 39 who reported that spending more time with their families was more important to them than challenging work or earning a high salary. In fact, 70 percent of respondents indicated that they would be willing to give up some pay in exchange for more family time.
■ Aetna’s extended maternity leave for new mothers resulted in an annual savings of approximately $1 million.
■ A cross-industry study by WFD Consulting demonstrated that managers who work more than 60 hours a week are not more committed to their organiza- tions than those who work only 45 hours. But there was one significant difference. The group working over 60 hours experienced a 230 percent increase in burnout.
■ At a 24-hour command center of a pharmaceutical company, the staff moni- toring a hazardous manufacturing process developed a schedule with more concentrated time off for each of the 30 individuals directly involved. After two years, the group had eliminated seven shifts, reduced error rates and overtime, and reduced shutdown time, in spite of an increase in the number of monitoring “hot spots” from 10,000 to 20,000 during the same timeframe.
Productivity increased and the center became a magnet for transfers and new hires, given the availability of regular and predictable time off.
Category 3: Proactive Approaches to Health and Well-being
Reduction of stress is the central promise of work–life effectiveness. Since the negative impact of stress-related illness has been shown to eclipse the combined annual profits of the Fortune 100 companies, a focus on this category of work–life support holds the most promise of contributing to the reduction in the escalating WORK–LIFEEFFECTIVENESS ANDTOTALREWARDSSTRATEGY 591
cost of health care. The work–life practitioner adds distinctive value because of a focus on the family and knowledge of family systems theory. Today, many employ- ers are trying to encourage individual employees to engage in behavioral change that includes healthier options. Most of this is done with (or to) the employee at the workplace, with minimal attention paid to the influence of the family or sig- nificant others. However, if the major influencers in any individual’s life are not also changing their habits, the employee does not stand much chance of sustaining their own behavior change.
■ A long-term evaluation of the financial and health impact of a large-scale corporate health and wellness program at Johnson & Johnson showed that participating employees had significantly lower medical expenses and achieved overall improvements in several health risk categories. The reduc- tion in medical care costs averaged $225 per employee, resulting in an overall savings of $8.5 million annually.
■ As the result of a workplace health promotion effort, DuPont experienced a 14 percent decline in days lost to disability claims over a two-year period.
The resulting savings offset the program’s cost during the first year, and resulted in an overall return of $2.05 for every dollar invested.
■ A 2003 study of hospital workers in Finland found “attention to interpersonal treatment” decreased the risk of ill health. Male employees who felt they were treated unfairly were 41 percent more likely to take sick leave, and women were 12 percent more likely to take sick leave than those who felt respected.
Category 4: Community Involvement
This is one domain where employers’ and employees’ interests are spontaneously in close alignment, since both the labor force and customers come from the com- munity in which the organization operates.
Business Impact. Companies that help their employees volunteer their skills to nonprofits could have an advantage in recruiting younger talent, according to a Deloitte & Touche survey of 18- to 26-year-olds. However, only 26 percent said that idea was mentioned during their recruitment.2
■ In an internal study at General Mills, supervisors reported an improvement in teamwork and other interpersonal skills for employees who participated in
■ A 1997 NYU Stern School of Business study of 216 socially responsible companies revealed that Fortune 500 companies with a good reputation are more profitable and enjoy higher stock prices.
Category 5: Financial Support (Self and Family)
Providing financially for oneself and family from career entry through retirement is basic to work–life effectiveness. In this arena, benefits, compensation, and work–life professionals collaborate closely to create relevant policies where appropriate, and find compelling ways to communicate the value of financial offerings. Some examples of programs and services of value to employees today include personal financial planning, adoption reimbursement, dependent and health care flexible spending accounts, discounted pet/auto/home insurance, mort- gage assistance, group discounts on a variety of retail products, and workplace convenience services (dry cleaning, parking lot oil changes, etc.).
Business Impact. CF Industries (Long Grove, IL manufacturer) has been offer- ing financial planning classes and counseling for many years. They have found that employees who gain the ability to make personal financial choices are more pro- ductive, have a greater sense of ownership, and engage in minimal absenteeism.
Category 6: Workplace Flexibility
Workplace flexibility refers to a leadership practice that facilitates the customiza- tion over when, where and how work gets done by individuals and teams. This practice has been empirically shown to increase engagement, retention, productiv- ity and even wellness, and is thus the keystone of the work–life portfolio.
Workplace flexibility holds the promise of creating a work environment char- acterized by quick and efficient decision-making, short cycle times, high levels of employee engagement and empowerment, flexible leadership and management practices, high-performance teams and individual contributors that work well from anywhere in response to market demands. Thus, its implementation has as much impact on business outcomes as it does on the quality of life of employees—the ultimate win–win situation.
Flexibility practices are proving to be the most powerful single motivator in the work–life effectiveness portfolio, in large part because they fulfill a psycho- logical need for what Robert Karasek (specialist in the psychosocial aspects of work and stress) describes as job autonomy—an optimal sense of control over one’s job and working conditions. Karasek’s research has shown that job control lowers stress and even health risks, while increasing job performance. This is shap- ing up to be the next frontier in management training—helping supervisors learn how to optimize the level of job control for teams and/or individuals in order to increase engagement.
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Business Impact. In 29 corporate examples in Corporate Voices for Working Families & WFD Consulting flexibility research study, 2006, work–life balance (40 percent) topped the list when 1,000financial services, law, IT, HR, sales, and marketing professionals were asked what would make them regard their place of work as a “great employer.” Next in priority came a transparent career path (22 percent), followed by employer brand and corporate culture (15 percent), and in last place at a close 14 percent came benefits and salary package.3
Category 7: Managing Cultural Challenges
In order to implement some of the more culturally sensitive elements of the work–life portfolio (such as flexible scheduling), it is sometimes necessary to engage in specific culture change interventions to eliminate preexisting barriers to the full productivity of everyone in the workforce. Thus, there is a strong link between work–life effectiveness, diversity initiatives, women’s advancement, multigenerational issues, mentoring, and networking.