Businesses Trying to Help Workers Balance Lives
From: San Antonio Express-News Date: May 5, 2007
May 5--After being kicked to the back burner in the first half of this decade, flexible
workplaces appear to be regaining popularity.
In March, JPMorgan Chase relaunched its 15-year-old flexible workplace program. Best
Buy announced it is rolling out a program to allow employees to work anywhere,
anytime.
About 75 percent of American workers have access to flexible work arrangements, up
from 67 percent in 1995, according to the Hewitt Associates consulting firm.
Interest in flexible work -- usually as flexible start-stop times, telecommuting, part-time
work, two people sharing a single job and compressed workweeks -- is being driven by
the rise of a global economy, technology and the nesting urges of working families.
Trial lawyer Kirsta W. Melton says flexible work was a godsend after several months of
leaving her first child at in-home day care.
"We feel really blessed," said Melton, who arranged to share a job at the Bexar County
district attorney's office with another lawyer who had a child. "We wanted to be good
moms and to take care of our kids. I would have had to continue to work full time
otherwise because financially my family could not afford for me to quit to care for the
kids." Most significantly, new workers expect flexibility. Employees under 35 value
flexibility more than older workers, according to a 2006 survey conducted by the Society
for Human Resource Management.
"Generation Y is much more proactive in assuming they can have flexibility," said Betty
Purkey, manager of work-life strategies at Texas Instruments, where 60 percent to 70
percent of its U.S. tech workers and managers telecommute using PDAs, laptop
computers and remote access to the company's network. "They've been raised with the
technology and so know you can do the work anywhere." Companies increasingly see
flexibility as a necessity if they hope to fill vacancies as baby boomers begin to retire en
masse.
This time around, rather than jumping on the bandwagon of those offering work options,
companies are trying to get more employees to use the benefit. Just 35 percent of U.S.
employees have used flexible work options, according to a report sponsored by the Alfred
P. Sloan Foundation. "It may not be growing in numbers, but companies are much more
serious about making it work," said Kathie Lingle, director of the Alliance for Work-life
Progress.
American employers are getting serious in part because flexibility has enhanced the
bottom line.
For instance, Deloitte estimates that offering flexible work options saved it $41.5 million
in turnover costs in a year, according to the Sloan Foundation report.
Similarly, the Watson Wyatt consulting firm documented a 9 percent increase in share
price among public companies that offered flexible work arrangements.
Companies often find that employees on flexible work arrangements put in more hours
than they would working traditional hours in the office.
For instance, trial lawyers Melton and Lori Valenzuela share one job prosecuting child
and sexual abuse cases for the Bexar County district attorney's office. They split one
salary and the accompanying benefits. In exchange, they alternate home and work
schedules every four weeks.
Valenzuela is currently at home with her 2- and 4-year-old children. But she also is
making calls between gymnastics classes and soccer games to prepare for a murder trial
that starts May 14.
"The office is getting 50 to 60 hours a week, which would be hard to get with a fulltimer," said Valenzuela, 36.
Moreover, employers have learned that they can tailor flexible work in ways that aren't
possible with other benefits.
Because of minimal government oversight, flexible options don't have to be offered or
disclosed to all employees -- unlike retirement benefits or medical insurance, said Cyndi
Benedict, a partner and employer lawyer with Fulbright & Jaworski's San Antonio office.
"So you can make it available to the sales department but not to the production
department, or it could be based on years of service, ratings on performance reviews or
just for one special case," Benedict said.
In 2004, CPS Energy began allowing employees to work compressed workweeks that
offer three days off in a row. It already allowed some call-center employees to work from
home and provided flexible start times to many of its 3,800 employees.
But CPS has scaled back the program to require that some sales staff and its purchasing
department be available for traditional eight-hour shifts.
"If it's a support role, they have to be here when our clients expect us to be here -- which
is 24 hours a day," said Otis Scott Jr., a human resource business unit adviser at CPS and
president of the San Antonio Human Resource Management Association.
Workplace flexibility drives employee satisfaction. Fifty-eight percent of employees said
it was "very important" in the Society for Human Resource Management survey.
JPMorgan Chase noted increased employee loyalty after it began offering flexible work
options in 1992.
The financial service company relaunched its program in March with new online training
for managers, a Web site that features case studies of how flexibility affects performance
and tips for making flexible work successful.
Now 24 percent of its U.S. work force -- which includes 2,500 workers in a call center in
San Antonio -- uses some flexible work option, said Dee Dee Guzman, vice president and
flexibility initiative manager at JPMorgan Chase.
"People on alternate work options are more committed, and they have a tendency to stay
longer with the organization," Guzman said.
That's often because flexible work arrangements give back some of what many working
parents miss -- time with their children.
Diana Gill, a business analyst attached to the San Antonio call center, works from 5 a.m.
to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday rather than the standard 9 a.m.-to-6 p.m. five-day
workweek.
With a compressed schedule that starts earlier than normal, Gill avoids having to arrange
after-school care for her 9-year-old, Mikaela. Gill's husband drops her off each morning
at fourth grade, and Gill finishes work in time to pick her up each afternoon.
"It allows me to be a better parent because I'm there for her," Gill said. To protect that
time together, Gill relinquished a promotion that required her to work a five-day
workweek.
The future of workplace flexibility will hinge on overcoming several employee,
managerial and legal obstacles.
To date, flexibility has spread the fastest in health-care companies and service positions,
according to the Society for Human Resource Management.
But only about 3 percent of American workers are on job-share arrangements.
For many families, loss of income and medical benefits makes part-time work and job
sharing off-limits.
To keep medical coverage under her job share, Melton must pay the regular medical
insurance premiums charged to full-time workers plus half of what the county pays to
insure her family. "We don't do a lot of shopping or take vacations like colleagues," she
said. "It's been tight. We've used up savings, and it's a question of going as long as we
can go." Much more common are telecommuting and flexible start times.
But when full-time employees request them, they frequently run into middle managers
who deny their requests because they think employees will become slackers without
constant oversight.
Employees looking to climb the corporate ladder often fear that their career paths will be
derailed if they aren't in the office for long hours each day.
"I pretty much decided from the beginning that I would not try to climb the corporate
ladder," said Malaina Jefko, 40, a systems analyst who telecommutes to test and to install
software at Texas Instruments. "I know a few managers who work at home one to two
days a week. For me, it's a little risky because you are not seen." Jefko says her
performance reviews have stayed positive because she worked in the Dallas office for a
few years with most of her supervisors before beginning to telecommute when her
husband got a new job in Cherokee near Austin. Her boss regularly schedules her to make
presentations during conference calls so colleagues don't forget her.
Some amenable employers have run into conflict with existing employment law. For
instance, workers' compensation insurance and business taxes are often based on the
number of employees on staff.
"It makes it difficult for employers to justify hiring two part-time employees if it will cost
them more than having one full-time employee," said Kelly Watson, founder and
president of Los Angeles-based CareerPartners that screens executives for job-share
arrangements.
Still, workplace flexibility appears here to stay. Companies are experimenting with new
models, such as the guaranteed three-month sabbaticals offered at Accenture. Best Buy's
"Results Only Work Environment" lets corporate employees pick how, when and where
to work and will be rolled out to retail stores later.
Clamor is building at Texas Instruments and other companies for phased returns from
maternity leave.
Similarly, phased retirement to allow an orderly transfer of knowledge and seasonal
employment for baby boomers isn't far on the horizon, experts say.
"With four generations in the workplace now, you need flexibility," said Scott of the San
Antonio Human Resource Management Association.
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