January 8, 2010

Companies to emulate in 2010

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Seems like I've been writing about employee satisfaction a lot lately. (Here's one post on the topic. Here's another.)

Happily, I've seen a number of recent stories about companies using innovative work/life balance initiatives to boost employee morale, and thus retention and productivity. As an added bonus, such policies can save employers money, which in turn keeps more people employed.

Here's a quick list of companies that have made great strides in boosting employee balance. If you'd like to add a company to the list (perhaps yours?), feel free to do so in the comments below.

KPMG. As economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett recently wrote in the New York Times, accounting firm KPMG developed a program called Flexible Futures in early 2009. Under the program, 11,000 of the firm's British workers were offered some new flexibility options: They could reduce their schedule to a four-day workweek and take a 20 percent reduction in pay. They could take a brief sabbatical while still earning 30 percent of their base salary. They could accept both options, or they could decline both.

More than 80 percent of KPMG employees offered these flexible work options accepted at least one of them, reported Hewlett, author of "Top Talent: Keeping Performance Up When Business Is Down." Suffice it to say, numerous jobs were saved, which was KPMG's impetus for instituting the plan in the first place.

As Hewlett wrote in the New York Times, "Because Flexible Futures positioned shorter workweeks and mini-sabbaticals as a strategic response to the [economic] downturn rather than a 'benefit' for working mothers, it has gone some distance to legitimizing flex time. Taking this option has become an honored choice -- a way to save jobs. As a result, overloaded men as well as overloaded women have felt free to vary their schedules."

Gap Outlet. Perhaps you've heard about Best Buy's adoption of ROWE (short for Results-Only Work Environment) several years back. Under ROWE, employees can set their own hours and work from home (or anywhere else they please) at any time, so long as they get their work done. In addition, meetings are optional. (Yes, really.)

In 2008, Gap Outlet became the second company to take the ROWE plunge. As the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reported, "The pilot program included 137 headquarters employees and executives in merchandising, design, production, finance, HR, and IT. Retail store employees are not eligible to participate."

The result of Gap Outlet's ROWE pilot program? Fifty percent less turnover among production staff, 18 percent less turnover across all participating departments, and significantly higher employee satisfaction and productivity. Not surprisingly, employees reported a substantial increase in their work/life balance.

Netflix. Like proponents of ROWE, online movie rental company Netflix also believes that getting one's work done trumps putting in face time at the office. As the Oakland Tribune reported in 2007, "...at Netflix, it's estimated that most employees take off about 25 to 30 days per year, using the time to stay at home with the kids, travel to Cambodia, or visit relatives in India. It's 'estimated' because Netflix does not record vacation time..."

By contrast, the Oakland Tribune reported that the average U.S. worker gets two weeks paid vacation after a year on the job, three weeks after five years. (Keep in mind this was before the recession hit hard in late 2008, along with the ensuing pay and benefit cuts.)

With any luck, we'll see more companies following in the footsteps of groundbreakers like KPMG, Best Buy, Gap Outlet, and Netflix this decade. Show an employee you appreciate that they have a life outside the office, and you'll not only win their respect but their loyalty.

Michelle Goodman is the author of "My So-Called Freelance Life" and "The Anti 9-to-5 Guide." E-mail Michelle at mgoodman@nwjobs.com

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