by Sally Thornton, President, Flexperience
On June 24th, I had the privilege of co-hosting an event called “Flexibility: The Future of Work” with Foresight Management. More than 150 professionals showed up to hear the latest research and trends around flexible work from Ellen Galinsky, executive director of the Work and Life Institute. Following Ellen’s presentation, I moderated a content-rich dialog with a panel of senior practitioners from Fortune 100 companies who are involved with their own flexible work initiatives.
We touched on big picture ideas and practical, implementable innovations. I wanted to share with you five key take-aways that I gleaned from our session. I hope these ideas and statistics help you to communicate about and implement sustainable, flexible work arrangements for yourselves and your companies.
1. While flexibility programs have been around for over thirty years, the need for programs that support flexible work is gaining critical mass.
Ellen gave us incredible context for the history of this work. According to Ellen, now more then ever, both men and women are placing more emphasis on flexibility and quality of life than on advancing up the traditional career path. According to recent studies, the most valued characteristics of employment include a supportive workplace, opportunities to grow, and a good fit with life on and off the job. At the same time, employers are looking for ways to retain their employees and advance productivity. An increasing number of studies show the tremendous cost of losing experienced employees through rigid work demands.
These days many companies are exploring creative work arrangements to reduce the need for large real estate footprints and high transportation costs. According to the Work and Life Institute, we spend an average of 51 minutes commuting each day. With increasing fuel costs, what’s that costing us today in terms of real gas dollars and lost productivity time?
(See more data at http://familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/main.html)
2. A successful flexibility program means different things to different people.
Our esteemed panel demonstrated through each of their individual approaches that flexibility is not a “one size fits all” proposition. It has to work within the established culture, values and business requirements of the company. Marilyn Nagel from Cisco’s work/life program talked about how Cisco provides all employees with the core technologies they need to be productive anytime, anywhere. Armed with laptops, VPNs, PDAs, video cameras, high speed access, and an increasing use of telepresence (the next wave teleconferencing) each employee can focus on the work they need to get done from anywhere, at anytime, without being hindered by office-time logistics and excessive travel expenses.
Deloitte Consulting sees flexibility as a career-long conversation. Deloitte’s innovative Mass Career Customization (MCC) program has help shift their talent management model from a linear path to a more sophisticated “corporate lattice.” MCC allows Deloitte employees to talk about both present circumstances and future options throughout their career development lifecycle, reinforcing a sense of control over their career/life mix.
3. Flexibility programs do not need to start from a top-down mandate; they are often start through informal, organic experiments where there is learning to be done.
Most organizations have some kind of informal, as-needed flexible work options to keep key employees engaged. If these informal programs demonstrate anecdotal and measurable results, they often set the stage for a more formal flex program down the road. Nixon Peabody, for example, has been in the Fortune 100's "Top Places to Work” for the last three years, in part because of its employee retention and satisfaction ratings. After many years of offering a successful but informal, ad-hoc flexibility policy, Nixon launched a formal flexibility program in February. This is also how last year's panelist from Best Buy's Results-Only Work Environment approached their unconventional approach to instituting flexibility in the workplace.
For more info: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_50/b4013001.htm
4. Creating a formal flexible work program is an iterative process.
It’s easy to make generalized assumptions about what your employees want in a flexible work program, but it may be way off the mark. Sharon Klun from Accenture’s WorkLife Initiative talked about getting the pulse of what people want through different kinds of research efforts. According to Sharon, it’s not enough just to survey -- you’ve got to ask probing questions, run focus groups, and really watch how people behave to get the full picture.
When getting executive buy-in, it’s critical to start with a compelling business case for why flexible work makes sense. Use data and statistics to support your story, and make sure it reflects the pressing needs of your organization. Ideally, top management would set an overarching strategy within the first few steps of the process. Communicate your goals and learning objectives to whoever will listen – up, down, sideways and back again.
Tim Stephens, Ernst and Young’s Flexibility Officer for the Pacific NW, emphasized the need for internal champions to help lead the cause throughout the organization. E&Y provides ongoing training workshops, communication skill-building, and senior support throughout the organization to help champion their flexible work program. They see their flexible work arrangements as both an employee retention program and a strategic source of additional revenue. Their equation is simple: more engaged employees lead to better work leads to stronger client satisfaction which leads to more revenue. Good for the employees, good for the company.
5. Finally, if you don’t know where to begin, use pilots to help get you started.
“You can get away with so much more when you call it a pilot,” was one of my favorite quotes from the panel. Before you run your pilot, build a cross-functional flexibility “task force” to serve as the steering committee for the experiment. It’s especially important to have some legal representation on the team to cover any employment law issues that may come up, such as the obligations of exempt vs. nonexempt employees. Pilots also allow you to account for cultural differences between geographically diverse offices. What works in the Bay Area may not work in New York or an office in Asia. These mini-experiments allow you to roll up your learning into an enterprise-wise program.
In many ways, we’re just at the beginning stages of learning about how flexible work programs will shape the future of work. We have seen how professional service firms are leading this charge as they have run the numbers and see this is as a question of “how” you institute a flexible work, not “if”. With new technology advancements, the impending talent shortages of knowledge workers, new employment demands from the next generation of leaders, and the escalating costs of doing business, there’s no question that flexible work arrangements will become the “price of admission” (a quote from Tim Stephens of E&Y) for building a successful business.
At Flexperience, we believe passionately in the value of creating resiliency through flexible work arrangements. Our “Talent on Demand” solution is a fundamental tenet of creating a resilient “people” strategy.
I am grateful for all of the collaborative effort of my partners, colleagues, speakers and panelists who helped contribute to the dynamic dialog at our “Flexibility: Future of Work” event. I hope you will join us for the next event in spring of 2009!