A Family-Friendly Workplace
Working from home or being able to cart the kids to work are the hallmarks of what’s considered to be a flexible work environment. Yet how can a small-business owner with limited financial resources and an already overburdened staff expect to give employees the flexibility they crave without sapping productivity or cutting into already tight profits?
The answer isn’t providing on-site day care (although that would be nice) or giving employees carte blanche to bring their families—and family issues—to work. Rather, experts say, small-business owners should be open to working with employees to institute family-friendly work policies that work for both the individual and the business.
The need for work flexibility has never been more acute. According to a study by the Families and Work Institute (www.familiesandwork.org) in New York, employees with families report significantly higher levels of interference between their jobs and family lives than did employees 25 years ago (45 percent vs. 34 percent). Moreover, elder care is a growing issue with 35 percent of workers in 2002 saying they provide regular care for aging parents. Flexible work arrangements, the study found, provide significant benefits to both employees and employers. Workers who have access to flexible arrangements report better mental health than other employees, thus are more likely to be committed to their jobs.
Any kind of help employers can provide to minimize this work/home stress is important. “The number one issue for people these days is time,” notes Monica Roper, with WFD Consulting (www.wfd.com), a consultancy specializing in these issues based in Watertown, MA. “Whether it’s a big or small company, it doesn’t matter. We’ve all gone through the recession and layoffs, and our workloads have increased the past few years. It’s difficult to manage personal lives.”
Roper makes these suggestions for affording employees flexibility and time without putting any undo strain on the business:
- Help employees make better use of their time. Companies can work to streamline processes—for example, less meetings or less people involved in approvals—to cut back on how long it takes to get work done. Instituting technology to help automate different procedures is a big help, as is providing laptops so employees can get their work done from home.
- Establish formalized flex time. Employees and employers should sit down together to schedule specific days to work at home, for example, or time off for family-related issues. Times should be agreed to in advance, not just on an emergency basis, Roper says, and the onus should be on the employee to create a formal game plan for coverage to ensure their work gets done.
- Kid-free zone. While many bigger companies have the resources to provide on-site day care, most smaller businesses can not. Roper says companies should accommodate their employees’ need to bring children to work on an emergency basis—for snow days or sick days, for example— but never on a permanent basis. “Bringing kids to work happens, but it should be situation-specific,” she explains. “Flexible work options should not be instead of day care. That’s important to establish up front.”
- Team up. Roper suggests teaming up with other small businesses in the area to work together on flexible work benefits that a lone company might not be able to afford. By pooling resources, multiple small businesses could become eligible for day-care-center discounts or support programs that are otherwise out of their reach.
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