Employees underutilize work/life programs
Study blames corporate culture, rigid managers
A company's culture and the way employees feel about their employer are directly linked to their utilization of work/life benefits like flex-time or elder care programs, a new survey by Philadelphia-based Intracorp shows.
Intracorp, which helps clients manage their medical, disability, and lost productivity costs through consumer-focused managed care and work/life services, commissioned The Gallup Organization to study over 1,000 employees and managers. They found that employees in work environments perceived as supportive not only used work/life benefits more but were also significantly more satisfied with their jobs and experienced lower levels of stress in balancing work, family, and personal lives. (See chart, above.)
The study also showed that a sizable portion of those employees who need work/life benefits the most - "sandwich generation" individuals with elder caregiving or child and elder caregiving, responsibilities - are not using them. (See chart, p. 54, for stresses created by elder care responsibilities.) This is despite the fact that nine out of 10 employees ranked work/life benefits as at least as important as health care insurance.
Why this apparent disconnect? "I would say the two highlight responses would be a lack of detailed information about the availability and use of programs and the lack of a corporate culture to support the utilization," says Ken Ross, senior vice president of Life Management Services at Intracorp.
Nearly three out of 10 of the respondents (28%) cited three major corporate culture issues as their reasons for low utilization: confidentiality, a non-supportive company atmosphere, and a stigma attached to using work/life benefits.
These issues can manifest themselves in the workplace in a number of ways, Ross notes. First, there's confidentiality. "Information about the consumption of work/life benefits may work against an employee's ability to get ahead and to take on new assignments," he explains. "For example, if an employee has an older parent and needs to go home to take care of him or her, that may be taken into consideration when workloads or assignments are given. In a less than ideal culture, such responsibilities may not be favorably considered."
A non-supportive company atmosphere most often manifests itself in the employee's relationship with their direct manager, notes Ross. "We've heard of instances where company [work/life] policies that are in effect are ignored in day-to-day operations of the business," he says. "We've even heard of instances where resource/referral services that require follow-up may be discouraged."
Attaching a stigma to using work/life benefits somewhat overlaps the confidentiality issue, says Ross. "An employee who is known as having an issue related to work/life balance may sometimes have a label that seems to follow them through assignments and may influence how they are perceived even apart from their performance - and it may follow them for years," he says.
Turning it aroundIf your corporate culture is not as "work/life-friendly" as it ought to be, what can you do to improve the environment?
"There are a couple of things you can do to overcome manager discomfort with giving employees the flexibility they need," Ross advises. "First, institute management training and education about the programs and their viability. You also need reinforcement from the senior management level about the culture they are seeking to create."
But if there's a single linchpin, says Ross, "it's the ability to create a business reason or a clear linkage between the offering of that program and an organizational goal."
Flex-time is an example of this. "If the frontline manager can clearly see a linkage between the more satisfied employee and how productive he is on the job, that will be the litmus test to really win that manager over."
Recruitment is another key issue. "If a key objective of the organization is to be more effective at recruiting and retaining staff, and links can be drawn [to the work/life benefits], that's the kind of stuff that will also impress the front-line manager," he says.
How can employers measure the connections, outcomes, and return on investment of their work/life programs? "Part of that responsibility lies with the vendor," says Ross. "They need to build their service in such a way that they can clearly quantify how that service lines up with the company's objectives."
Direct link to employee healthThe increased satisfaction employees feel when offered work/life benefits can be directly linked to their overall health, Ross asserts. "How employees feel about their company is absolutely linked to their health," he insists. "The whole picture is really an integration between employee health and feeling good about their job - there's a clear connection between the health and wellness model and the work/balance model."
That being the case, the most logical place to start with a work/life benefit program is the area that, according to the survey, most seriously affects employee stress: caregiving.
"If you're looking for a correlation between the greatest source of employee discomfort and the highest levels of severe imbalance, it's that 'sandwich' combination of elder and childcare," he says. "Its impact on the corporate performance dictates this would be an important first step to take."
[Editor's Note: For more information on the work/life study, contact: Intracorp, Two Liberty Place, TLP-11, 1601 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19192-2115. Telephone: (800) 345-1075. Or, visit Intracorp's Web site at: www.Intracorp.com and fill out the order form located in the Newsroom section (Publications and Reports).]
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