Top Ranked Companies Promote Work-life Balance, says workplace thinktank

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Manufacturing News, Source : The Manufacturer US
Zone : Skills and productivity
Published : 05 Jul 2007 20:07

GREENSBORO, NC, June 25, 2007 — Contrary to conventional wisdom, encouraging employees to find time for their families and life outside of the office is good for business. According to Fortune Magazine’s latest ranking of the 100 Best Companies to Work For 2007, four of the best 25 companies also received high marks for promoting a healthy work-life balance.

Joan Gurvis, campus director of the Colorado Springs Center for Creative Leadership and co-author of Finding Your Balance, isn’t surprised.

“Having employees whose work and personal lives are balanced has tangible benefits – not only for the employees but for the organization overall – including an increased ability to attract and retain skilled people; higher levels of production, satisfaction, and morale. The best companies experience employees performing more effectively in teams and report decreased levels of burnout and absenteeism. Retaining employees is more desirable than recruiting for high turnover,” Gurvis said.

From spending time with the CEO outside of the office to reimbursing employees’ adoption and/or fertility treatment costs to paying for business school, the most common theme among the top balance performers was planning for and incorporating into their businesses employees’ priorities outside of the office. In short, the top companies listened to their employees.

Addressing employee retention issues is one of many topics addressed during one of the Center for Creative Leadership’s flagship programs: the Leadership Development Program.

Gurvis has been teaching the week-long program for nearly seven years, seeing about 2,800 corporate, non-profit and government executives annually. She consistently sees work-life balance play an integral role in an employee’s job satisfaction and happiness. The Center’s research supports Gurvis’ classroom experience: more than 50 percent of respondents to a recent online survey conducted by the Center said that “too little time for personal interests or relationships” contributed to feeling out of balance, followed by “pace of my job” (49%), “attempt to fulfill others expectation of me” (36%) and “financial pressures or goals” (31%).

“It’s very encouraging to see work-life balance being recognized as a defining characteristic for what makes a great company. It seems like common sense that low employee turnover is good for business. Happy employees want to help a company’s bottom line,” Gurvis said. “But many executives don’t see this connection initially. Additionally and more importantly, they don’t often realize that their own behavior and comments about life outside the office says more to an employee than anything stated in a company manual,” Gurvis added.

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