If your work life and personal life are out of balance, your stress may be running high. Here’s how to reclaim control. - by Mayo Clinic

Get to know these companies — they’re among the 100 best companies for working mothers….The take-away message, according to the magazine’s editors, is that “how, when, and where you work” is not as important as the quality of the work produced. In fact, a full 100% offer some sort of telecommuting or flextime schedule; 98% offer job-sharing; and 94% offer compressed workweeks.

A groundbreaking four-year study, set for publication in the October issue of Harvard Business Review, seems to confirm that getting away from work can yield unexpected on-the-job benefits….But the point of the experiment wasn’t to eliminate the “good intensity” in work—the “buzz” from constant learning and “being in the thick of things,” Harvard’s Dr. Perlow says. Instead, researchers targeted “bad intensity”—a feeling of having no time truly free from work, no control over work and no opportunity to ask questions to clarify foggy priorities, she says. Ms. Lovich adds: “We wanted to teach people that you can tune out completely” for a while and still turn out good work. The work itself became the focus, “because if you know a night off is coming up, you’re not going to let things spike out of control,” she says.  After five months of predictable time off, internal surveys showed consultants were more satisfied with their jobs and work-life balance, and more likely to stay with the firm, compared with consultants who weren’t part of the experiment. As word spread, other consultants began asking to join the study, Ms. Lovich says. And some clients told researchers the teams’ work had improved, partly because improved communication among team members kept junior consultants better informed about the big picture.

AARP said Acuity is committed to helping employees have a positive work-life balance.

The workplace is facing a generational adjustment of values, learning and working styles that will have a huge impact on how leaders think and act. Generation X and Generation Y will transform the nature of the workplace.

The results-oriented workplace model — where employees set their own schedules according to what they get done, rather than simply follow the clock — is said to be a hit with businesses eager to focus on tasks done rather than hours worked.  But is it good enough for government work? Hennepin County plans to find out.

Approximately one in four households in the United States is involved in caring for an aging adult. Kentucky statistics reveal that 1 in 6 adults provide care for an older or disabled adult. Two-thirds of these adults work, and trends suggest this percentage will increase in years to come.

Apparently students still value work-life balance above all else when listing top characteristics of an ideal entry-level employer, placing it well above other factors such as salary and meaningful work.  This according to Tracy Lynn Drye, the Senior VP of Employer Branding & University Relations at Universum USA, the research firm BusinessWeek partners with for the student data portion of our Best Places to Launch a Career rankings.

There are many ways to study the quality of work/life for employees at your company, and it is well worth the effort. Satisfaction with work/life is highly correlated with employee engagement, which in turn boosts productivity and retention. We recommend a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to study work/life.

Findings by Deloitte show business leaders are increasingly focusing on staff turnover. Two-thirds are fearful of losing outstanding employees after the recession.  Work-life balance has become a deciding factor in employee job selection. More than half of the respondents surveyed by HR agency Robert Half and ACCA said they would take a job that paid less but had better work-life balance.

The 2009 Guide to Bold New Ideas for Making Work Work, just published by the Families and Work Institute (FWI), reveals that even in the midst of a turbulent economy, employers across the country are creating imaginative workplace approaches for improving the work environment and for helping employees navigate the shifting demands of their work and personal lives. They are offering assistance, for example, on how to manage job stress and overwork, welcome a new baby, or cope when a spouse loses a job. What is key (and perhaps surprising) is that these strategies help these companies achieve business results and respond to fluctuations in the economy. They help companies create effective and flexible workplaces, where work “works” for both the employer and employees.

It was clear then that flexible work practices and the issue of work-life balance were no longer marginal but had entered the mainstream.  In the US, with less than 20% of families having single earner breadwinners, at least one member in over 80% of US families is likely to have to juggle childcare or eldercare with their work.  In the UK, some 14 million people already work flexibly according to the UK government.

Flexible work arrangements traditionally have been the domain of exempt, salaried employees, but now more companies are using them for nonexempt, hourly workers, experts say.  According to a recent study by WorldatWork and Work Design Collaborative, 45 percent of survey respondents report they include nonexempt employees in their flexible work arrangements. The researchers expected to find that only about 15 percent did so, according to the study, which surveyed 135 employers.

According to strategic planning consultant Leigh Branham, SPHR, 88% of employees leave their jobs for reasons other than pay: However, 70% of managers think employees leave mainly for pay-related reasons. Branham says there are seven main reasons why employees leave a company:

  1. Employees feel the job or workplace is not what they expected.
  2. There is a mismatch between the job and person.
  3. There is too little coaching and feedback.
  4. There are too few growth and advancement opportunities.
  5. Employees feel devalued and unrecognized.
  6. Employees feel stress from overwork and have a work/life imbalance.
  7. There is a loss of trust and confidence in senior leaders.

The Office of Personnel Management is launching a series of programs to improve work/life balance for its 5,000 employees, a move that, if successful, many say will cascade throughout the federal government and into the private sector.

In an historic first, three federal department and agency heads met to discuss the creation of a model Work-Life campus that would include more than 6,000 Federal employees on multiple acres.

In a survey of 400 employers released Thursday, July 23, the Families and Work Institute in New York found that 81 percent have maintained flexible work arrangements such as telecommuting, compressed workweeks, phased retirement and voluntary reduced hours. An additional 13 percent have increased flexibility programs, while 6 percent have eliminated them.

Katty Kay and Claire Shipman are here.  Kay is the Washington
correspondent and anchor of “BBC World News America.”  Shipman is a
correspondent for ABC’s “Good Morning America” and a regular on “This Week
With George Stephanopoulos.”  Their new book explores the struggle many
women live, balancing their jobs and their families.  The book is called
“Womanomics.”

Great Good Morning America TV piece about workplace flexibility for women and how some women still feel they can’t talk openly without fear of retribution while others work for employers who understand that flex is good for your businesses bottom line as well as for attracting and retaining great talent.  There is also a discussion about the new book “Womenomics.”