Wellness Programs A to Z

For a lot of workers, telecommuting and flex-time are highly desired work-life benefits. But a growing number of organizations are reluctant to offer these programs.

Demand for these benefits remains high.  One study found that 87 percent of job applicants are familiar with the idea behind telecommuting and flex-time, and the majority express a desire to have at least periodic access to such programs.

Environmental interest groups have pushed the feds for years to develop incentives for businesss to encourage telecommuting.  The pressure has risen as gas prices have continued to soar.

Notwithstanding, flex-time programs have leveled off in some sectors, and there’s been a decrease in telecommuting.

Today, about half of all corporations where telecommuting is feasible permit employees to work from home on a case-by-case basis. But the percentage of businesss offering full-time telecommuting has dropped in recent years.  Nowadays, only about 20% to 25% of businesss offer the benefit year-round.

Even some national employers that are well-known for their telecommuting programs have scaled back. AT&T, for example, lately asked several thousand home-based staff to come back into the office.

Hewlett-Packard and Intel have done the same thing.  and the federal government recently noted a 7.3% drop in telecommuting workforce. Why the cutbacks?

Employee Assistance Program – Pros and cons

Offering workers telecommuting or flex-time could be a good recruiting and morale-boosting tool, as well as a way to retain workers who need to relocate, would otherwise have a need to quit or take leave or commute long distances to work.

But the programs are not without their drawbacks. Some of the main reasons companys give for scaling back or eliminating them –

• Business culture – It’s easier to build a sense of organizational stability and an individual connection between workers, colleagues and supervisors when individuals  interact face-to-face on a daily basis.

• Security – One of the hidden costs of authorizing employees to telecommute (or else come in early or stay late) is keeping sensistive information safe. Some the cutbacks are being driven by companies’ IT departments.

Particularly, managers have raised concerns about stolen laptops, identity theft or other crimes driven by hackers gaining access to information via workers’ home Internet connections.

• Productivity – Many supervisors find it easier to ensure high productivity when everybody is working under one roof at the same time.  There’s also a widespread view that most employees get things done faster and more accurately when they’re not distracted by things at home.

The bottom line on the bottom line

Work-life programs like flex-time and telecommuting remain a useful benefit to offer employees, and a lot of businesses still provide these benefits for economic reasons.

But once the potential hidden costs are weighed, it’s often better for the bottom line to limit the scope of these programs.

Organizations that are thinking about starting a telecommuting program ought to look closely at job descriptions and telecommuting candidates. Some positions are poorly suited for remote work, and some staff members are more up to the challenge than others.

But unless the corporation creates objective criteria for permitting or denying flex/telecommuting requests, such programs can actually damage morale.

The last thing any company wants is to open supervisors(and the company) up to accustations of favoritism or discrimination because of seemingly random decisions on which workforce in their department can and can’t flex their schedules or work from home.