Favoring Flexibility

At a time when skilled workers are getting harder to find and retain, how can a company make itself an employer of choice? Are there human-resources policy decisions you can make in order to keep your best and brightest from defecting to your competitor . . . or dropping out altogether?

Yes, there are. In the last decade, American professionals have been working longer hours, taking fewer vacations, and (unsurprisingly) feeling their stress levels shoot through the roof. They’re beginning to realize the importance of work-life balance—and they’d like to work for an employer who recognizes it, too.

The best way to show employees you’re serious about their quality of life is by creating flexible work policies that make their lives easier. We’re not talking about anarchy: Depending on your business and its needs, the changes can be either dramatic or subtle.

Here, Twin Cities HR professionals offer five smart strategies for inspiring employee loyalty.

Recently, Minneapolis public accounting firm LarsonAllen put in place a new human resources plan called Flexforce. The concept is simple: Employees can, within reason, choose the optimal work schedules to fit their lives. Andrea Schilling, human resources principal at the firm, says it works well in her industry because there is a peak season and the work is project-oriented. As long as the job gets done and the clients are satisfied, the day-to-day details of how it all happens are unimportant.

“If it would help me to come in early and leave early, or to come in late and I stay late, I have the ability to do that,” she says. “Or we may have people who work nine months out of the year and take three months off. With a shortage of workers in the accounting market in particular, we need to be willing to be more flexible.”