Make Work More Flexible

CU360
March 3, 2009 | COMMENTS

As the U.S. population ages, so does the labor force. In the past 30 years, the median age of American workers increased from 35 to 41 as the growth rate of the labor force declined. In addition to the upward shift in age, the gender composition has moved toward equality. Women now comprise 46% of the workforce, and mothers with dependent children are much more likely to be employed than they were in the 1970s.

The need for workplace flexibility has increased, according to AARP, due to:

• The increase of two-income couples.
• Growing demand on families to manage increasingly complex health, retirement, and child-care arrangements.
• Older workers' desire to maintain some attachment to the labor force.

Employers will need to address the availability of flexible work policies. Multiple constituencies--politicians, business leaders, and labor organizations--have called for greater diversity in work arrangements to match the demands placed on an increasingly diverse workforce. A growing body of research demonstrates the advantages to both employers and employees from implementing flexible work policies.

Employer Benefits

Workplace flexibility can be an important business strategy. Employees in more effective and flexible workplaces are more likely to have greater job engagement, higher job satisfaction, more loyalty to their employers, lower stress levels, and better mental health, according to the National Study of the Changing Workforce. Flexible workplace policies can also help employers attract talented workers as well as retain valued employees, thereby reducing turnover and its associated costs.

But these positive results depend on how flexibility is implemented. When employed in a “team-based, results-focused” framework, employees could set team performance goals, identify specific flexibility needs, and develop work schedules to meet those needs, according to a Sloan Foundation study. When employees were free to develop work schedules that met management productivity goals and their own needs, they did so in a way that improved the overall work process and job performance, while at the same time reducing worker stress, absenteeism, and turnover.

Objections

Many employers continue to view workplace flexibility as an employee “benefit” that is a cost. And they see the only effective way to manage people as keeping a tight grip on rigid schedules, routines, and a standard work pace.

But as the organization of work has shifted away from manufacturing and assembly line approaches, productivity has become more difficult to measure, particularly in collaborative settings. If time spent in the office is equated with productivity, then many flex options will be seen as reductions in work effort and productivity.

Active investigation, however, can easily prove the more powerful, productive results that workplace flexibility can provide. The positive side-effects of flexibility—reduced stress, increased worked investment and identification with business success—can motivate employees to work better and smarter, thereby increasing productivity.