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Flexible Work Arrangements - Why should you offer them?
by Kirsten Ross, SPHR
In any economy, organizations must be very creative
in order to attract and retain top quality employees.
What can set
you apart from other organizations? How
can you become the “Employer of Choice”?
Candidates across the country are telling us what it takes.
And overwhelmingly what they are saying in many forums is that they want
more life balance.
Most individuals that I have communicated with regarding
flexible work arrangements, even those working for the most conservative or
traditional organizations, are aware of flexible work arrangements that exist in
pockets within their organizations. Employers
have responded to individual employee requests to change work schedules or
locations so that those employees can better balance familial and work
obligations.
Perhaps they had a top-notch employee go out on maternity
leave or maybe an employee’s parent became ill and needed additional care.
The employee made a request to someone within the organization and was
granted the opportunity to change his or her work arrangement.
After all, the organization didn’t want to risk losing that quality
employee, right?
And, without fail, I hear that the arrangements are working
well. The employee has continued to
work, is loyal and happy with the organization. Often, the organization is experiencing increased
productivity from that individual.
If your organization is offering these informal
arrangements to internal employees only, they are missing out on a powerful tool
for attracting high quality external candidates.
If you work for a larger organization, you may not even
realize all of the informal arrangements that are taking place.
We can help you take an inventory to find best practices within your
organization. If you are already
offering the arrangements it’s just a matter of formalizing them with
policies, packaging them and marketing them to potential candidates.
If you need help formalizing these arrangements see our
sample policies at http://www.womans-work.com/sample_policies.htm
to assist you in the implementation process.
They can provide you with the beginning framework.
Kirsten Ross is mother of two sons and is
a Certified Human Resource Professional (SPHR) dedicated to helping women
achieve more life balance and to transforming the design of work.
Visit Womans-Work.com at http://www.womans-work.com
to search our revolutionary flexible work job board featuring more than 35,000
fresh work from home, part time, job share, flex time and telecommuting
opportunities, search for a job share partner or
read valuable career, life balance and family articles. You may also email
her at mailto:KRoss@Womans-Work.com
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