Throughout the world, companies are realizing that if they are
going to attract and retain the people they need to fuel global
growth ambitions, they are going to have to offer more than just
money. What people expect today is that the company they work for
respects that they have a life outside the workplace. They want
to be able to balance their personal and professional spheres.
Indeed, 104 CEOs interviewed by U.K. market research firm, MORI,
said they were “now less likely to sacrifice their own career
than five years ago.” And in the Netherlands, a survey of students
showed that 67 percent would like to work only four days a week.
Findings like these are having a dramatic effect on how work will
be organized in the future; at least by those companies that are
taking people shortages seriously.
However, as Lucy Daniels points out in her book, The Work-Life
Manual, “The long hours culture remains a serious obstacle
to implementing work/life balance strategy. A tension exists between
policies that are presented as family friendly and cultural practices
that assume that committed workers work long hours.”
But there are some companies that have implemented extremely successful
work/life balance initiatives and are reaping the rewards in terms
of highly motivated employees who don˙t consider working with anyone
else. According to cellular phone service provider, KPN Orange˙s
website, if you choose to work with them, you can, “keep fit
in our gym, let our masseur spoil you rotten, leave your laundry
with us in the morning and pick it up in the evening, let us also
deliver your shopping at work, and not worry if your child isn˙t
feeling well — our baby-sitter will take care of him at your house.”
Despite having no reputation in Belgium where they are based, they
found the staff they needed in record time and now have a waiting
list to work there. Other companies are introducing similar services,
including Texas Instruments (car repair teams), Autodesk (on-site
gourmet chefs), and Sun Microsystem (on-call lactation consultant).
Other measures to ensure that organizations hold onto the people
they need are relaxing anti-dating policies, extension of benefits
to live-in same sex partners, overlooking minor drug offenses, and
ignoring sexist workplace language, all in the chase for increasingly
scarcer talent. But sometimes it doesn˙t take a fancy new idea to
get people to stick as chemicals giant Hoescht Celanese discovered.
It was suffering from a larger than average turnover of employees
and simply took time to explain the massive benefit package that
many employees took for granted—retention rates improved by
40 percent.
What people fundamentally want today is to find a workplace that
matches their own values, that respects them as an individual, that
knows that they have a personal life and gives them time for it.
The new buzzword at Cisco Systems is “integration.” They
encourage their people to blend “work and personal life seamless
through the day.” But that may be different for different people.
Those who want “hip” will probably look for a high-tech
start-up. Those who want “sensitive” will seek, maybe,
a not-for-profit corporation. We˙ve had niche marketing; we˙re now
entering the era of the niche workplace. Companies will rise and
fall on their reputation for offering real work/life balance to
their employees.
It won˙t be easy for organizations. To make it more complicated
the work/life balance needs to differ by culture, by country, by
region, and by age group. The one-size work/life balance initiative
by no means fits all. Flexibility is, and will remain, the key.
Best practice is to build your own unique work/life balance culture
that meets your own requirements, but make sure it is tailored to
the people in your company that you want to keep and toward the
sort of people you want to attract.
Bodil Jones is a partner with the firm Jones & Johnson, communications
specialists located in Brussels.
