Tess Taylor 
When an employee leaves your organization, this can take a large bite out of your staffing budget…and your bottom line profitability. While some industries typically suffer a larger percentage of employee turnover, there are ways of reducing this by taking into account what motivates employees to stay on board in the first place.
Why Flexible Work Improves Retention
More and more, employees are driven by the need to find work-life balance. Gone are the days of expecting employees to put in long work days while personal family lives were put on the backburner. Today’s employee needs to experience both professional satisfaction and downtime to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
A win-win strategy for fostering work-life balance, and retaining more talent is to offer flexible work schedules. By enabling employees to have more control over the actual hours and location where they work, oftentimes they become happier and more productive. In a recent Forbes magazine article, the benefits of offering flexible work schedules was highlighted by companies that were notably reducing their turnover rates as a result. A report published by the Families and Work Institute in partnership with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), verified these findings.
If your organization wants to offer flexible work options, where do you start?
Here are some guidelines on developing a flexible workplace policy, so that your organization can benefit from improved retention and higher levels of productivity.
- Step 1 – Evaluate the tasks by job type to determine what is suitable for flexible working arrangements.
- Step 2 – Allow a trial period with a test group of employees who best fit a flexible status.
- Step 3 – Review productivity levels of the test group to determine if objectives were met.
- Step 4 – Provide flexible work options to the types of jobs that best meet the requirements.
For more tips on making flexible work a positive benefit of your workplace, be sure to visit the US Department of Labor’s special section on Flexible Schedules.
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