Financial Effects of Work-Life Programs

Question 1

What is a work-life program?

Answer 1

• A work-life program includes any employer-sponsored benefit or working condition that helps an employee to enhance the fit between work and nonwork demands.

Question 2

What five broad areas are included in work-life programs?

Answer 2

• child and dependent-care benefits
• flexible working conditions
• leave options
• information services and HR policies
• organizational cultureal issues

Question 3

What is the logic of work-life fit and how it affects organizational outcomes?

Answer 3

1. Employer investments in work-life fit programs (benefits, conditions, flexibility, information, resources) that are effectively communicated and supported by supervisors leads to
2. Greater work and life fit for employees. This in turn leads to employees who experience reduced stress, reduced burnout, and less conflict. This leads to
3. Improved satisfaction, commitment, and engagement which leads to
4. Better recruiting, less absence, lower turnover, and better work and career behaviors.
5. This leads to improved staffing quality, reduced absenteeism and turnover costs, and increased performance and service.
6. This leads to overall lower costs and higher revenues which results in an improved bottom line.

Question 4

What is a good strategy to get senior leaders to buy-in to a work-life HR program initiative?

Answer 4

1. Start by discussing whether such initiatives will be
   part of a recruitment strategy (a) to help the organization become an employer of choice, (b) a diversity strategy to promote the advancement of women and minorities, (c) a total rewards strategy, (d) a strategy to retain top talent, or (e) a health and wellness strategy if the priority is stress reduction.
2. Use data to make your case.
   
   • Provide external data that describe trends in your organization’s own industry
   • Provide internal data that outline what employees want and how they describe their needs.
   • Provide internal data, perhaps based on pilot studies, that examine the financial and nonfinancial effects of work-life programs. As one executive noted, “Nothing beats a
     within-firm story.”
3. Be sure to communicate the high costs of employee absenteeism and turnover to employers
4. With these costs identified, communicate the benefits of work-life initiatives in reducing them.
   
   • Include stories from your own workers that describe how work-life programs have
     helped them.
   • Have quotes from people whom senior leaders know and care about.
   • In other words, use a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to make your case.