Flexibility Is Critical to Retention

As reported by HRI, to retain their top employees, organizations should invest in more comprehensive benefits aimed at work/life balance; this was the overall recommendation of a 2006 report from Washington, DC-based nonprofit New America Foundation and Workplace Flexibility 2010, a program of the Georgetown University Law School. Specific suggestions in Promoting Children's Well Being: The Need for Workplace Flexibility included employers' offering short periods of leave that would enable workers to handle unexpected obligations, extending telecommuting and other flexible work arrangements, offering longer periods of leave to employees who face caregiving responsibilities and providing an option for less than full-time hours to accommodate workers with health or other issues that prove unmanageable on a full-time work schedule. In addition, the report recommends that employers take action to help employees who take leave time transition in and out of the workplace more seamlessly. (Bulletin to Management, October 31, 2006, p. 347)