Work Life Flexibility Impacts Corporate Growth
A recent study by BDO Seidman (BDO), LLP, a professional services firm, and Work+Life Fit, Inc., suggest that chief financial officers (CFOs) understand work life flexibility could positively impact their companies beyond employee issues, but say if flexibility is managed solely by human resources it won’t succeed. “In order to grow and compete in today’s complex, global business environment, companies have to move beyond viewing flexibility solely as a tool for talent retention or employee satisfaction, and make flexibility matter to all aspects of their business,” says Jack Weisbaum, BDO Chief Executive Officer. “We work smarter,” says Weisbaum, who regularly telecommutes. “Flexibility helps us better plan engagements, service clients across geographies and time zones, maximize our investments in technology and support our talent. It also helps our partners and employees achieve a work life fit to meet their needs as well as the needs of the business.” CFOs clearly understand the benefits of work life flexibility to manage talent and have begun to see that flexibility can also positively impact non-talent related bottom-line issues. A majority of CFOs say such flexibility can have a high to moderate impact on their company’s ability to differentiate itself from competitors, minimize environmental issues and reduce health care costs. When asked to rate the impact of work life flexibility as either “high” or “Moderate”, 90% of CFOs claim it improves employee retention; 88% believe it improves recruitment efforts; 75% suggest it improves productivity; 72% state it differentiates the company from its competitors; 68% claim a reduction on environmental impact, and an additional 53% indicate a reduction in healthcare costs. But, surprisingly, 39% of the CFOs surveyed in the 2008 CFO Perspectives on Work Life Flexibility study, work for companies that offer formal flexibility policies or programs. Additionally, while 75% of the CFOs at those companies say flexibility is “very important” or “somewhat important” to the future profitability of their organizations, 62% think that their management teams see flexibility only as an employee perk or human resources policy. And despite the current economic downturn, 87% of CFOs of companies with formal flexibility policies or programs believe use of flexibility will either increase or remain the same. Indeed 38% of CFOs report their organizations had reduced their workforce in recent years. While employee lay-offs were most common, 30% did report that innovatively using flexibility to stay connected to employees through contract-project based work (24%), reduced hours with full benefits (3%) and unpaid sabbaticals with full benefits (3%). When asked what they viewed as significant flexibility obstacles, 76% of CFOs say “face time” and 72% claim “demands in workload of job,” followed by 62% revealing “concerns about other employees perceptions”, and more than half said “it could hurt my career” (58%).
Article courtesy of Kennedy Information Recruiting Trends providing leading edge insights and strategies for the recruiting professional
