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Flexible Work Arrangements: Why Should You Offer Them?

Written by: Kirsten Ross

Article Overview: As a business owner you are interested in helping your employees succeed. But, behind many decisions, whether we admit it or not is always, "what's in it for me?" Read here to see what just SOME of the advantages are to providing flexible work arrangements as a benefit to your employees and candidates.

Flexible Work Arrangements: Why Should You Offer Them?

In any economy, organizations must be very creative in order to attract and retain top quality employees.

What can set you apart from other organizations? How can you become the “Employer of Choice”?

Candidates across the country are telling us what it takes. And overwhelmingly what they are saying in many forums is that they want more life balance.

Most individuals that I have communicated with regarding flexible work arrangements, even those working for the most conservative or traditional organizations, are aware of flexible work arrangements that exist in pockets within their organizations. Employers have responded to individual employee requests to change work schedules or locations so that those employees can better balance familial and work obligations.

Perhaps they had a top-notch employee go out on maternity leave or maybe an employee’s parent became ill and needed additional care. The employee made a request to someone within the organization and was granted the opportunity to change his or her work arrangement. After all, the organization didn’t want to risk losing that quality employee, right?

And, without fail, I hear that the arrangements are working well. The employee has continued to work, is loyal and happy with the organization. Often, the organization is experiencing increased productivity from that individual.

If your organization is offering these informal arrangements to internal employees only, they are missing out on a powerful tool for attracting high quality external candidates.

If you work for a larger organization, you may not even realize all of the informal arrangements that are taking place. We can help you take an inventory to find best practices within your organization. If you are already offering the arrangements it’s just a matter of formalizing them with policies, packaging them and marketing them to potential candidates.

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Article Tags: best practices, economy, employee requests, employer of choice, external candidates, flexible work arrangements, life balance, maternity, pockets, productivity, quality employee, quality employees, top notch, top quality, traditional organizations, work arrangement, work obligations, work schedules



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