The next chance you get, take a good look around your workplace and at the people staffing it. More likely than not, there is a mix of young adults just starting out and older adults nearing retirement. There are mothers and fathers of toddlers and teenagers as well as sons and daughters of aging seniors.
They each bring a unique set of skills and talents to the job they perform, and they each have their own unique set of responsibilities — both inside and outside of the office. How can employers keep such a diverse group motivated and energized on the job?
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau has one word for businesses: flexibility, as in creating workplace flexibility that enables workers to succeed in work and in life. Flexibility can come from job sharing or telecommuting, compressed workweeks or flextime schedules, part-time options or any number of other, individualized options.
“It is the most important strategic tool in today’s workplace because of the fact that there are four generations working in the workplace today, and there have never been that many generations working together,” said Jenny Erwin, regional administrator for the Women’s Bureau.
In 2003, the bureau developed the Flex-Options for Women project to help employers establish flexible work opportunities as a means of attracting and retaining employees. The project at first focused on women business owners but grew to include all business owners in small to midsize organizations, according to the bureau.
That expansion can be attributed, in part, to five major trends having an impact on all businesses, Erwin said. Among them are:
The changing family structure, with fathers more involved in child rearing and adult children dealing with elder care issues for their parents and other senior family members.
– The increasing number of age groups in the workplace.
– The impact of technology and the global workplace.
– The shrinking pool of skilled labor. According to the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the growth of the labor force will be less than 1 percent by 2012, with workers between the ages of 35 and 44 shrinking by nearly 3 million, or 6.8 percent.
– The retirement of baby boomers, with 50 percent of 1.6 million federal workers eligible to retire by 2008 and 50 percent of registered nurses retiring within 15 years, according to research by Dr. David DeLong, a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab.
For Erwin and the Women’s Bureau, the goal of the Flex-Options project is to build national awareness of the benefits of a flexible workplace, benefits that include fewer employee absences and more active engagement by employees in their work, Erwin said. The project also aims to encourage business owners to develop and expand their own flexibility programs.
“What is unique about our program is that our focus is to connect business owners who are interested in flexibility with other entrepreneurs, executives and business owners who already have experience in creating a flexible workplace, so there is a mentoring opportunity,” Erwin said.
To connect interested businesses to the resources they need, the Flex-Options project offers a combination of tools, including one-on-one mentoring; national teleconferences; discussion groups; Web resources, found online at www.we-inc.org; as well as local and regional events with networking, panel presentations, case-study workshops and best-practices sharing.
The companies that have implemented a flexible workplace most successfully have started with a communication process, Erwin said. Depending on the size of the company, this might mean a survey on flexible options or simply having a couple of employees voicing a need to have their schedule rearranged a bit.
When it comes to putting the theory into practice, all levels of management have to be on the same page, she said. “Managers are really key. If I’m a CEO of the company and I believe in it and support it wholeheartedly, but the managers have not been trained, there is a disconnect.”
For more information on the Flex-Options program, go online to www.we-inc.org.
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