For organizations to be successful, leaders must create abundance and help employees respond to work-life demands throughout their life course. My research with senior leaders shows there are a tremendous number of approaches to providing work-life supports. The approaches are as varied and individual as workers and their companies, but this chapter provides some ideas for executives who want to leverage work-life supports in their organizations.
Some Examples
One especially effective form of work-life support is flexible working options. These allow employees to choose when and where they work, as well as the projects on which they focus. As an example, an employee may have latitude in the way she solves a problem, or an engineer may have choices pertaining to which projects he works on during the year. In addition to providing autonomy and control over one’s work, flexible work schedules allow employees to meet work demands at the same time they meet the demands of family. A dad may need to drive car pool or pick up his children from school. A woman may need to take a break mid-workday in order to meet the furnace repair technician at her home.
Some companies also are increasing flexibility by providing the choice for a compressed workweek. With a compressed workweek, employees work a standard number of hours in a compressed fashion; for example, a worker might work four 10-hour days, taking the fifth day to meet family demands or continue education. Another option is seasonal long-term arrangements. These types of solutions take many forms, including work schedules that shift between summer months and school months. At some organizations, leaders are recommending policies that provide for extended breaks, sabbaticals, or job sharing in roles that traditionally would not have allowed for a job-sharing model. Telecommuting programs and work-at-home programs are familiar options that are gaining attention. Some organizations are experimenting with shortened workdays or workweeks. Other companies are attempting to find ways to limit mandatory overtime or even schedule working hours so they align with school days.
Flexible work schedules go hand in hand with control over one’s work because employers must have a degree of trust that employees are working and accomplishing results even when they are not in view of supervisors. A paradigm of trusting employees to do their best work without direct supervision and providing employees with more control over their work is in concert with overall self-determination. In all of these cases, the employee’s increased ownership and control over his work is intended to help integrate the demands of work and home. They typically also are aimed at reducing the negative spillover from work to home or vice versa. One notable fact is that the presence of greater proportions of women occupying top-ranking positions at a company is connected with a greater number of family-friendly options as compared with companies that have fewer women in top leader- ship positions and less family-friendly policies. Is the presence of women driving more family-friendly policies and practices? Or do companies with more family-friendly policies and practices simply attract more women to those top positions? More research is required to answer the question, but the trend remains toward companies increasingly providing options and choices to employees in order to enhance the support of work and life.
Comparing Companies
When I consult with management and Human Resource departments, they frequently request case studies and benchmark information concerning work-life support policies and implementation. They want to know whether they are keeping up with other companies, or, better yet, staying ahead of the curve. Companies vary widely in their policies and practices.
Whether companies are more conservative or progressive, they can offer a meaningful cocktail of work-life supports that matches their culture and business needs. The Goldilocks Rule is important here. Work-life supports must be right for any given company, and no two companies’ solutions will be the same. Companies that are most successful with work-life support implementation avoid having too few or too many work-life supports. Instead, they have a set of approaches and solutions that are just right—hence, the Goldilocks Rule. “As much as necessary, as little as possible,” is another way to think about establishing the right approach. Keep solutions as comprehensive as necessary for success, but also keep the solution set as straightforward and simple as possible.
Example: ElsaCo
ElsaCo is a leading manufacturing company that produces heavy equipment worldwide. The company has a bifurcated workforce in which the majority of employees are either quite senior and close to retirement or quite junior and new to the organization. This “barbell effect” is the result of ElsaCo having gone through a period when it wasn’t hiring. ElsaCo prides itself on taking care of its employees.
ElsaCo has formalized its work-life support options through a policy manual that provides detail on every specification for each solution. In addition, the company has a comprehensive benefits program including health insurance that focuses on rewards for well-behavior such as participation in health assessments and demonstration of healthy habits, generous maternity leave policies, and eldercare leave. In order to accommodate flexible work, ElsaCo offers a rigorous process for assessment, selection, and application for employees to be part of an alternative working program. ElsaCo allows any employee to develop and propose a flexible work arrangement. Most requests are honored, provided the employee has a good performance record and continues demonstrating positive performance after the alternative working arrangements are implemented.
ElsaCo also requires employees to track their time so leaders can see trends and ensure that employees have reasonable work hours. Some leaders within the organization are skeptical. They say the time tracking sounds like “Big Brother,” and sends a negative message regarding employees’ trustworthiness, but the company stands firm, insisting the time tracking is intended for the benefit of employees. The program, the company says, flags employees who are working too many hours, allowing management to help prioritize their projects and ensure a reasonable workload. ElsaCo also has rigorous standards for performance and checkpoints in the alternative working process. This organization provides an example of a process-oriented company, offering options for flexibility while also attending to a systematic approach for all the elements of the program.
Excerpted with permission from “Bring Work to Life by Bringing Life to Work: A Guide for Leaders and Organizations” by Tracy Brower, Ph.D., (Bibliomotion, 2014). For more information, visit https://bibliomotion.com/books/bring-work-life
Tracy Brower, Ph.D., is an expert in organizational effectiveness and the sociology of work—how humans affect their work-life and how their work-life affects them. Brower currently is the director of Performance Environments at Herman Miller, Inc. She leads teams specializing in helping companies create living offices. Brower’s career includes experience in a wide range of industries, nonprofits, higher education institutions, and health-care organizations. Her expertise spans HR, organizational development, real estate/facilities, workplace, change management, organizational culture, and organizational effectiveness.
