This report describes how a woman’s nation changes everything about how we live and work today. Now for the first time in our nation’s history, women are half of all U.S. workers and mothers are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families…It fundamentally changes how we all work and live, not just women but also their families, their co-workers, their bosses, their faith institutions, and their communities. Quite simply, women as half of all workers changes everything…

Most women around the world are over-extended, over-worked, over-stressed and under-served by consumer providers. They want time leverage, more value and suppliers that specifically understand them.

Those are key findings of a major, just-released global survey conducted by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

The poll of 1677 people by Workingmums.co.uk found that 85% felt that offering flexible working on full-time jobs signified a family-friendly employer, with opportunity to work from home in full-time work coming a close second.  By contrast, only 31% felt that extended paid maternity leave was important in a family-friendly employer.

...the nonprofit Families and Work Institute’s free, downloadable 2009 Guide to Bold New Ideas for Making Work Work concludes that 81% of U.S. employers are maintaining and 13% are increasing the work flexibility they offer employees. Only 6% acknowledge reduced flexibility.

Nonexempt employees participate in flexible work programs to a much larger extent than researchers had anticipated. 45% of survey respondents (61 out of 135 organizations) report they include nonexempt employees in those programs. 

A powerpoint presentation showing the results of a study by Corporate Voices for Working Families. 

Workplace flexibility is good for employee retention:  In the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce, 73% of employees with high availability of flexible work arrangements reported a high likelihood that they would stay with their current employer for the next year. Retaining employees translates to saving money on turnover-related costs

Several studies have discussed the return on investment that can result from flexible work options and other family-friendly benefits. A 2000 study by the Boston College Center for Work & Family surveyed 6 large corporations and found that 70% of managers and 87% of employees reported that working a flexible arrangement had a positive impact on productivity. Similar percentages reported positive impacts on quality of work and employee retention.

In 2008, PricewaterhouseCoopers surveyed over 4,200 recent university graduates from around the world who either worked for or were about to work for them. They found that while only 3% of respondents expected to work mainly at home, 66% expected to work regular office hours with some flexible working. Keep in mind that presumably most of these workers do not yet have family responsibilities competing with their work responsibilities; they see flexible work as the way in which they want to conduct their working lives from the beginnings of their careers.

According to a study published by the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College, access to flexibility is one of the main drivers of engagement among Gen Y workers. Engagement refers to an employee’s connection with work that motivates them to work with “excellence,” as opposed to just getting the job done.

78% of the workers who expressed interest in a phased retirement program said the ability of this benefit would encourage them to work past retirement age. This is not just a “nice thing to do” for older workers; it cuts down on turnover costs and facilitates knowledge transfer from seasoned employees to younger workers.

31.2% of workers aged 65 and up used flexible schedules for their primary jobs, which is nearly identical to the percentage of workers aged 25 to 34 using flexible schedules, and greater than the number of Older Gen X and Boomers using them. That data is nearly 8 years old now; older workers have been working flexibly for several years now along with workers of all ages.

Workplace Flexibility is Multi-generational: 76% of the Mature workers surveyed, born between 1900 and 1945, agreed that “Freedom to set own hours if work gets done” was appealing to them. In this survey, 74% of Boomers, 73% of Gen X, and 63% of Gen Y agreed, making Mature workers the most enthusiastic about flexible work

According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of manager level temporary/flexible workers grew 78% from 1996-2006.  They tend to fall into 3 groups:

• The older, highly experienced executive who doesn’t want a full-time job.
• The experienced professional who is between jobs and wants to focus on a project while deciding what to do next.
• The consultant type, generally younger but experienced and preferring to work from project to project to maintain flexibility.

Read more in the July 2008 Issue of HR Magazine

“In 2004 nearly 30 percent of the full-time and salaried work force was taking advantage of flexible work schedules, according to government figures.”

Check out the entire CNN article that highlights real world examples of flexible solutions including alternative scheduling, leave policies, part-time work/job sharing, and telecommuting.

According to the 2008 National Study of Employers, those most likely to be flexible are employers that:

• are nonprofits;
• are in the finance and in professional services sectors;
• operate in more than one location;
• have fewer union members;
• have fewer hourly employees;
• have more women and more minorities in top positions or who report directly to those in top
• positions; and
• have more part-timers.

Interestingly, more flexible employers report less difficulty hiring hardworking self-starters and less difficulty dealing with the retirement of highly valued employees. It is impossible to separate the cause and effect here. Does seeing one’s employees in a positive light (as hardworking, self-starters) and managing human resource issues well (such as the retirement of key staff) lead to or result from providing greater flexibility?

Taken from a survey of senior Fortune 500 male executives (Miller & Miller, 2005)

• Fully 84% say they’d like job options that let them realize their professional aspirations while having more time for things outside of work.
• 55% say they’re willing to sacrifice their income.
• Half say they wonder if the sacrifices they have made for their careers are worth it.
• In addition, 73% believe it’s possible to restructure senior management jobs in ways that would both increase productivity and make more time available for life outside the office.
• 87% believe that companies that enable such changes will have a competitive advantage in attracting talent.
• Other interviews suggest that the younger a male executive is, the more likely he is to say he cares about all of this.

Check out this quote from a recent Boston College research study Work Life Evolution

According to the Pew Research Center, Fewer Mothers Prefer Full-Time Work:

“Among working mothers with minor children (ages 17 and under), just one-in-five (21%) say full-time work is the ideal situation for them, down from the 32% who said this back in 1997, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Fully six-in-ten (up from 48% in 1997) of today’s working mothers say part-time work would be their ideal, and another one-in-five (19%) say she would prefer not working at all outside the home.”

“Millennials are entering the workforce as quickly as boomers are retiring, and they’ve brought with them a set of ideals and skills that differ greatly from those of previous generations. Needless to say, they’re really shaking things up.

This generation, which most experts define as those born in the 1980s and 1990s, has grown up immersed in a technological world where their friends, families, and almost any piece of information are a click away. They are unabashedly self-confident; they believe they deserve respect; and they value work/life balance even more than financial rewards.”

- William Pisano at ERE.net