Flexibility
More than a buzzword
By: Dorothy Witherspoon

As the workplace evolves to include more women, single-parent families, and dual-income households, flexibility has become more than just a buzzword. Instead, it’s an essential tool businesses can use to attract and retain quality employees who often have commitments that fall outside the traditional 9 to 5 workday. Now Kansas City area businesses can get help with developing workplace flexibility from the new Flexible Options mentoring program implemented by the U. S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau, in partnership with the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and Working Solutions. The Flexible Options program is designed for businesses interested in starting or enhancing flexible workplace options for employees.

“Flexible workplace policies includes a multitude of options that employers might want to consider based on the culture of their business and the needs of their employees,” said Rose Kemp, Regional Administrator of the Women’s Bureau. These could range from flextime, compressed work week, part-time work, and time off for education, job-sharing, and telecommuting. In addition, it includes personal flexibility like personal days off and leaves of absences; and shift, vacation and holiday flexibility. The idea is not to promote or advocate one type of flexibility program over the other, but rather to bring together business owners and business leaders in the community to discuss workplace flexibility.

One of the first businesses in the Kansas City area to join the Flexible Options program as a mentor was KPMG. Latoria Carroll, Workplace Solutions Manager at KPMG, and Christy Schliesman, Human Resource Manager, both have experience in policy development, and in implementing and monitoring flexible work options. Companies involved as mentors in the program value work/life programs that successfully balance on-the-job and at-home commitments. Mentors in the Flexible Options Program share their expertise and provide information and advice on flexibility options and work/life best practices to interested business owners (mentees) in the program.

In addition to mentorship, the Flexible Options program offers roundtable discussions and national virtual conference calls focusing on topics such as trends in workplace flexibility, challenges to flexible work arrangements and best practices. A series of local roundtable forums on flexible work options are being planned in the near future.

For more information about the Flexible Options program, contact Rose Kemp, Women’s Bureau Regional Administrator, at kemp.rose@dol.gov, or Janet W. Watson, Director of Workforce Solutions/Minority Business Development at the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, at watson@kcchamber.com, or Barbara Ross, Executive Director of Working Solutions at bross@workingsolutionskc.org.