Capital Region Business Journal

Lori Ross picks up her two daughters from school most days even though she has a demanding, full-time job managing study coordination teams for the chemistry units at Covance Inc. in Madison.

She and her husband, Danny, also were able to largely avoid the high cost of day care; the Sun Prairie couple didn't need it, thanks to Ross' employer.

After Ross, 42, gave birth to the couple's second child, she approached her supervisors at Covance, a drug development services company, about an alternative schedule she believed would allow her to do her job and still be there for her family.

So for the past eight years, she arrives at work by 6 a.m. and leaves by 3 p.m., allowing more time with Mackenzie, now 11, and Bobbi, 9. Her husband, who works second shift, handles parental responsibilities while she's at work.

"Having this flexibility has given me real balance in my life. It allows me to come into work every day fueled and motivated and not feel so drained or stressed," Ross said. "I feel very loyal because they've been willing to provide this, and keeping me charged has allowed me to continue to perform and produce for the company."

Covance has hundreds of employees with alternative schedules, including some with a compressed week of four 10-hour days or four nine-hour days and one four-hour day.

The results ? reduced turnover and a tool for recruiting new employees ? have prompted many companies to offer similar options.

"It's really important to us that our employees are really happy here while they're at work and can focus on the job," said Sue Tessmann, senior manager for human resources at Covance.

Companies that don't offer employees flexible scheduling appear to be in the minority. According to a survey by Catalyst, a New York-based research and advisory group that focuses on women's issues, nearly 75 percent of employers offered flexible work arrangements in 2003-2004.

The push for more options in the workplace has been made mostly by women working full time and trying to balance the demands of job and family.

But schedule flexibility has also emerged as a recruiting tool in industries where competition is tough for hiring and keeping skilled workers of both genders.

"One of the things that I think got this really kick-started was in the tech boom," said Larry "Chip" Hunter, an associate professor of management and human resources in the UW-Madison Business School. "Very young workers who had technology skills were extremely valuable and they started to make these demands and, much to their surprise, have them be met."

Policies promoting flexibility are more common at companies that have higher numbers of female workers, Hunter said. At Covance, for example, women make up more than 50 percent of its 1,200-person work force.

A survey released by Catalyst in June 2004 found that more women than men ? 44 percent versus 36 percent ? take advantage of flexible arrival and departure times. The survey also found that women are more likely than men to telecommute, take a leave or sabbatical, or change their work schedules informally.

Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, who heads Wisconsin Women Equal Prosperity, a public/private effort to improve the economic status of women in the state, said flexibility is critical but often not a reality for those in lower-wage industries.

"A very high percentage of women are one sick kid day away from losing their job," Lawton said.

"Every day that the woman is at work, where the family is at work, is another day where the husband potentially has to put some flexibility into his schedule," he said.

While employees reap the benefits of flexible scheduling, companies also can profit from being willing to change hours or compress work weeks.

More than two-thirds of women are in the work force, which means that in many households, neither parent is solely focused on family responsibilities, said Susan Seitel, president of Work & Family Connection Inc. The Minnesota company provides online resources and works with employers to set up work/life balance programs.

"People must have that flexibility but some companies are still treating their employees as if it was the 'Leave it to Beaver' days. The result is that employees are having very short tenure at companies like that, especially young people," she said. "You put in a lot of money to train people and then they leave."

Stiff competition to replace those employees can force companies without work/life balance options to take a second look.

At Scot Forge, a steel forging company in Clinton, as much as 10 percent of its manufacturing work force is expected to retire in the next five to 10 years, said Jacqueline Swanson, who works in human resources for the company.

"We're going to have to, as employers, be as flexible as possible in order to even recruit people," said Swanson, who is also president of the Blackhawk chapter of the Wisconsin Society for Human Resource Management.

Several Wisconsin companies have recognized the benefits of offering flexibility; SC Johnson, GE Healthcare and Harley-Davidson have received awards for their efforts to make the workplace family-friendly.

And a recent project that had small numbers of employees create their own flexible schedules at 10 companies found improvements in productivity or service among all of the groups. The project ? developed by a nonprofit group called The BOLD Initiative, which promotes a diverse workplace ? included PepsiCo, Prudential Financial and Johnson & Johnson.

When employers implement work/life balance options, it's important to make sure employees aren't penalized for taking advantage of those options.

A survey conducted by the Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit research organization in New York, found 43 percent of employed parents worried that using flexibility might jeopardize their jobs or advancement prospects.

"The most important thing is the culture that allows people to take advantage of the flexibility that's offered without the penalty," said Seitel of Work & Family Connection.

She said that while some companies offer flexibility, there can be "cultural penalties" unless managers send a clear message that employees can and should take advantage of those policies.

That's what happened at Madison Valuation Associates in 1999, when Cathy Durham, 47, became co-owner of the six-member firm after having worked there earlier in her career.

"It was more of a hierarchical type of workplace," she said. "We wanted to flatten that out and have it be a team of professionals."

The company, which works mostly with attorneys to determine the value of businesses or damages, now has flexible scheduling and did away with sick days and vacation days. They were replaced with personal time that can be used for anything from getting a haircut to making a doctor's appointment.

"If you need a day off, you need a day off and you don't have to pretend you're sick," Durham said. "If people are lying, it's because you put them in a position where they can't tell the truth."

For Durham ? whose children are 11, 13 and 15 ? the flexibility allows her to be in the office from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and work from home on Mondays. Another of the firm's employees was able to take time off for doctor appointments after his wife gave birth to twins.

"People do have personal lives and they need time. ... The more ... you can flex with them, the more they can give back," she said.

At Oakwood Lutheran Homes in Madison, certified nursing assistants recently used contract negotiations to bargain for more flexibility.

"The workers we represent are low-wage workers, mostly women," said Debbie Timko, president of Service Employees International Union Local 150, which has 350 members working in the retirement sector. "Anything we can do in terms of giving people control over their working lives reduces the amount of stress that they're under."

Under the new contract, CNAs can choose the days they are scheduled and must work as a team to cover for one another if they need a replacement for a shift.

"They're not in a rigid system anymore where they've got to get the supervisor's approval and the super-supervisor's approval," said John Noreika, Oakwood's executive director.

In Janesville, the 200 employees for Sanford Business-to-Business, which puts company logos and graphics on pens, have summer hours that permit them to take every other Friday off if they put in 80 hours over a two-week period.

Sanford human resources manager Darcy Wilson said the company's corporate parent, Newell Rubbermaid, is working to create more work/life balance options to keep and attract employees. Wilson is part of a team of HR personnel charged with developing formal proposals for such programs for the entire corporation.

"We don't have anything ... that says it's OK to allow employees to have flex time. Therefore, managers think it's probably not OK," she said. "We're kind of behind the times as a company."

Not every company is leaping at the chance to let employees arrive late, leave early or dial in to important meetings from the comfort of their living-room couches.

Seitel of Work & Family Connection said concerns about the bottom line often keep employers from allowing more flexibility.

"Rather than taking a long view, they're looking at quarterly returns and still trying to squeeze more productivity out of fewer workers and not realizing that that's not going to work and, in the end, there's going to be a cost," she said.

Hunter said some employers find it hard to determine the cost benefits of offering flexible schedules or other work alternatives.

"There's an asymmetry between measuring what things cost and what they bring in," he said. "Firms can be conservative about these things."

There is some evidence that corporate support for alternative-scheduling options has waned. A recent U.S. Labor Department report showed the number of full-time workers 16 and older on flexible schedules dropped from 29 million in May 2001 to 27.4 million in 2004.

But those numbers may not show the whole picture. Hunter said some employers offer flexibility on a more unofficial basis to retain their most talented and trusted employees.

"I think there's a huge amount of that stuff that goes on off-the-books for workers whose employers believe they are valuable," he said.

At Covance, Ross not only works an alternative schedule but also oversees a number of employees who do.

"I have a vested interest in this, in making it work not only within my teams but certainly for myself," Ross said. "Certainly there's that pressure that I have to continue to make it work at my level so that it's viewed positively."

Seitel said the key to success when it comes to flexibility is a clear understanding between manager and employee about expectations and results. Some arrangements, like telecommuting, may be a harder sell for employees.

"It's that old mentality, 'If I can't see them, how do I know they're working?'" Seitel said.

But she points out several companies that make the situation work. JetBlue Airways has its entire call-center staff working from home, and a large percentage of workers for Sun Microsystems Inc. do the same.

"Set clear goals. Make sure you work with all stakeholders, know what success is going to look like and then step back and let people do what they do best," Seitel said. "Trust, but verify, as Ronald Reagan used to say."

Employer flexibility

By Jenny Price

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