Small firms and balance: Firms with 50 or fewer employees often struggle with the issue of work/life accommodations for their employees. But it is possible to offer flexibility to workers without lowering productivity – or going broke.
Take Mann, Weitz & Associates, for instance, a certified public accounting firm based in Deerfield, Ill. It has 23 employees, and of that number, 10 women and two men with school-age children are allowed to vary their work schedules according to need.
At the CPA firm, one employee, a mother of three, works 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. four days a week during tax season and three days a week the rest of the year. A male employee with two children also works four days a week, but from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., which allows him to be home when his children leave for and return from school. Another working parent has a schedule of one to two days a week but is available to work more hours when necessary.
Parents aren’t the only ones to benefit from flexibility: A full-time employee takes “significant” time off to take his elderly parent to doctors’ appointments or to fill in when his caretaker has time off.
Employer benefits, too
The payoff from these policies to employees is apparent. What is the payoff for the firm? According to Leonard Weitz, a founder of the firm, the retention rate is 95 percent.
Give and take: “A network functions precisely because there’s recognition of mutual need … an implicit understanding that investing time and energy in building personal relationships with the right people will pay dividends,” according to Keith Ferrazzi, co-author with Tahl Raz of “Never Eat Alone, And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time” (Currency/Doubleday, $24.95). “But to do so, first you have to stop keeping score. You can’t amass a network of connections without introducing such connections to others with equal fervor.”
The juggling act: Trying to take care of your family responsibilities, holding a job and going to school all at the same time can be daunting to working parents. And what this adds up to is that colleges and universities have to be just as aware as employers that employed students with children need some extra services to make it.
Penalties for seeking flexibility?
Even the media worries about work/life balance, according to a recent survey of 750 journalists by The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. These issues are “real and troubling” to the media, said Poynter’s Jill Geisler.
The study uncovered an aspect of requests for flexibility that doesn’t come up in most surveys: Are people who ask for work/life accommodations passed over for promotion?
In response, 58 percent said yes. And if they were just working stiffs – not managers – 62 percent predicted there would be trouble if they asked. It was even higher for newspaper employees: 64 percent said asking for flexibility could be perilous.
Carol Kleiman is the author of “Winning the Job Game: The New Rules for Finding and Keeping the Job You Want” (Wiley, $16.95). Send e-mail to [email protected]
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