Employers increase flexibility time

Flexible work schedules are becoming important recruiting tools.
MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL STAR TRIBUNE
More American workers want to be like Christina Bilotta.
A senior audit manager at KPMG in Minneapolis, Bilotta negotiated a part-time schedule about a year ago with her supervisors, after her son, Tyler, was born.
"I'm 30, I've worked hard at my career, and I want to keep working, but I also wanted time with my son," Bilotta said. She works about 70 percent of the time and plans to stick to that while she and her husband, Michael, have young children.
"It has made a major change in my life," she said. "It's important to me to be a good career woman, and a good mother and wife, and this helps."
What study says
There's a growing appetite for flex time among U.S. workers. And flexible work schedules are among the most important forces behind productive and happy workplaces, according to a study, "When Work Works," released by the Families and Work Institute, a research agency based in New York.
For companies, flexible work schedules will become one of the most potent recruitment tools to attract and retain talent as a recovering economy bids up demand for workers.
"I think we will increasingly work flexibly for a variety of reasons, including commuting times, office space and costs, family situations and just because technology makes it so much easier to do," said Ellen Galinsky, institute president and co-author of the report.
"I don't think it will necessarily be a smooth path; old management assumptions -- presence equals productivity -- die hard," Galinsky said. "But if it's well done, it is win-win."
The versatility of flexible scheduling suits the many interests of a diverse work force, from younger employees with family demands to older veterans who wish to taper their workloads heading into retirement, Galinsky said.
It costs employers little, once they have learned how to institute the options and manage flexibly. Paying two sets of benefits for employees who job-share, or covering an employee on leave, will cost money, Galinsky said. But it can cost less than the alternatives, which could include recruiting and retraining new hires.
Also, while employees still rank health care as the most important benefit, flexibility is among the top predictors of a satisfied and productive work force, workplace surveys regularly show.
Galinsky said institute research shows, for example, that 28 percent of younger workers plan to take time off for children and 57 percent of older workers want to work part time. Challenging stereotypes, the survey showed that 70 percent of men want flex time; so do 68 percent of the nonparents.
The state of flexibility in today's workplaces is less clear.
In the institute's survey, 43 percent of 3,500 workers polled said their places of employment are flexible: up from 29 percent from 1992 to 2002. But it also said that two in every five people with flexibility options are afraid that using them would jeopardize their careers.
Survey results
On the other hand, a survey of 600 employers shows they have cut their flexibility offerings during the past two years: a drop in flex time from 64 percent to 55 percent, and compressed work weeks from 33 percent to 31 percent. That annual benefits survey by the Society for Human Resource Management shows the 2003 levels were about the same as in 1999.
The big differences show up when comparing jobs, a 2001 Bureau of Labor Statistics report indicates. Almost half of managers and professionals said they have schedule flexibility, compared with 18 percent for production workers and 20 percent for mechanics. Most of the flexibility they reported was informal, not part of an employer-sponsored program.