This year’s Telework Week, which ran March 3-7, drew 163,973 pledges, more than four times the 2011 number. The average Telework Week participant teleworked two days during the week, avoided a 45-mile round-trip commute into the office and saved 4.5 hours and $90 in commuting costs for the week.
We recommend that clients pilot a telecommuting program before they commit to a long-term program. Every business is different and flexible work arrangements should reflect that. Setting aside a week to test remote operations can also help test business continuity before the next winter storm or other natural hazard.
Stegmeier Consulting Group can assist with a wide range of challenges involved in implementing a workplace change initiative. Contact us to find out how our services can help your organization.
Attracting and retaining top talent is a challenge faced by nearly every organization. High performers are extremely valuable, and competition for them is stiff. Perhaps, more importantly, the cost to replace a top performer puts even more pressure on employers to focus on talent retention. An outdated work environment and an inflexible corporate culture are often the most common hindrances to this retention process.
Refreshing the workplace and your organizational policies may be just what your company needs. Imagine having the ability to tour potential new hires through a modern, comfortable facility with space for collaboration, innovation and relaxation. Picture their eyes light up as you inform them your organization possesses the technology and flexibility needed to make working remotely possible.
At Stegmeier Consulting Group, we believe that ignoring alternative workplace initiatives puts companies on a “fast track to 2nd place.” That edict may be most true when talking in terms of talent recruitment and retention. Don’t overlook how changing your work environment and corporate culture can impact attraction and retention–otherwise you run the risk the competition scooping up the future leaders of your workplace!
Stegmeier Consulting Group can assist with a wide range of challenges involved in implementing a workplace change initiative. Contact us to find out how our services can help your organization.
Working from home has its challenges. Five home office professionals share their secrets on making it work.
As a freelance writer, I spend the majority of my working time in my home office. While zero commuting hours, the ability to work in my pajamas, and flexibility over my schedule sound like a dream; working from home also has its challenges.
One suggested step in this article is “Create a Commute”. We all need time to ease into the work day, whether it is through an actual commute, or a work-at-home equivalent. The good news about the work-at-home equivalent is that you have more control about what you get done.
This article gives a good example of a work-at-home commute:
“Steve Cappoccia, account director at Warner Communications says he creates his own version of a commute by setting aside time at the beginning of the day to create a list of priorities for the day, update social media pages, and browse emails to allow for the smooth transition into work mode.”
Stegmeier Consulting Group can assist with a wide range of challenges involved in implementing a workplace change initiative. Contact us to find out how our services can help your organization.
Erin Wehmann, 28, can tell when she and her husband have been at work too long. They’ll come home to find Jake and Macey, their 7-year-old lab mixes, moping around the house.
While she doesn’t like leaving them for long stretches, she knows that during those occasional 10- to 12-hour work days, her dogs have plenty of food and water and access to the doggy door.
“But that’s not like a kid,” she said. “You can’t just leave them in your backyard.”
Is a lack of workplace flexibility resulting in a “Baby Bust”? For many Millenials, a flexible work arrangement is a deciding factor in whether or not they start families.
In 1969, couples ages 25-54 worked an average of 56 hours a week, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2000, couples together averaged 67 hours.
With fewer workers doing the same amount of work, it is not surprising that they feel it is impossible to strike a balance between work and family life— and be able to afford it. The United States is one of the very few countries in the world that doesn’t provide some type of paid family leave, and many young parents cannot afford to take unpaid maternity leave.
What do you think? Would flexible work arrangements be enough to curb an impending “Baby Bust”?
Stegmeier Consulting Group can assist with a wide range of challenges involved in implementing a workplace change initiative. Contact us to find out how our services can help your organization.
Mamta Soni still remembers the day last spring when she was trying to meet a work deadline before leaving on a four-week trip to India. That’s when her infant son started teething, got pink-eye and developed strep throat all at the same time.
After trying to juggle everything and realizing she couldn’t, she finally called her colleagues at KPMG’s Cleveland office and told them, “I know this needs to be done today, but I won’t be able to finish it. I just took my son to the doctor’s and I need to be home with him right now.”
When they agreed that she needed to stay with her baby and reassured her that they could finish the work without her, Soni said she got off the phone and thought, “I’m so happy I work here.”
Let’s talk numbers! Estimated costs of replacing an employee average out at 15-20% of their annual salary and some sources argue that when adding in indirect costs, total turnover costs end up being about 150% of annual salary.
KPMG is wise to offer their employees flexible hours and family-friendly policies. Not only will they have more loyal and happy employees, their clients won’t be constantly met with a different lineup of consultants.
While some may argue that this flexibility is disruptive, it is clear that the long-term costs of lower loyalty and greater turnover far outweigh any short-term costs. How does your organization help lower turnover?
Stegmeier Consulting Group can assist with a wide range of challenges involved in implementing a workplace change initiative. Contact us to find out how our services can help your organization.
Telework is slowly gaining a foothold in the federal government, but changing the attitudes of managers and supervisors who want to see their employees face-to-face remains a constant struggle.
A report by Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released in December found that a total of 301,372 federal employees teleworked at least once during fiscal 2012, the most recent data available. This represents about 14 percent of all federal employees and about one-third of those who have been designated as eligible to work remotely.
The benefits of teleworking have been well chronicled. For employees, it means avoiding long commutes, saving time, improving work-life balance, having greater job satisfaction and gaining a sense of empowerment. For the government, it can save money on overhead, provide better citizen services by extending hours, ensure continuity of operations during regional and national emergencies and snow storms, and lead to improved worker performance and greater productivity.
Stegmeier Consulting Group can assist with a wide range of challenges involved in implementing a workplace change initiative. Contact us to find out how our services can help your organization.
More bad weather headed your way? Take a tip from the government. Sound strange? Take a look at this: At the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, where 73 percent of the 11,000 employees telework between one and five days a week, it was business as usual during recent weather-related closings.
The government has become one of the biggest proponents for telework recently and we are not surprised. From their trial period during “Telework Week” to having 73% of an office formally telecommuting, they are making sure to introduce telecommuting to their employees- and effectively.
We remind our clients that they should not see or treat telecommuting as an immediate cost-saving measure. Building an effective, long-term program is an investment. Training, communication, support, technology, and protocols come together to make a telecommuting program successful in the long run. The best advice? Don’t cut corners!
Stegmeier Consulting Group can assist with a wide range of challenges involved in implementing a workplace change initiative. Contact us to find out how our services can help your organization.
I wrote the first draft of this column before 8 a.m. on a Sunday, working in my pajamas at the standing desk in my home office.
A new study says I have good company in that kind of work flexibility, and not just among entrepreneurs and those who work for themselves. Nearly one-third of full-time employees do most of their work in homes, coffee shops, and other remote places, according to the Flex+Strategy Group report.
After extensive study, here are the best ways I’ve learned to make this arrangement work….
Let’s add #10: Own your remote job. Too often remote workers apologize and it is far from necessary. Successful remote workers take their work seriously and become experts in allocating resources- especially time! Workers that invest and allocate resources wisely are a great asset to any company, regardless of location.
For example: An hour-long morning commute could become 15 minutes spent mapping out the day’s work plan and 45 minutes of heads-down thinking work without the distraction of 8:00 AM emails from co-workers. Nobody loses!
Stegmeier Consulting Group can assist with a wide range of challenges involved in implementing a workplace change initiative. Contact us to find out how our services can help your organization.
A ubiquitous culture of presenteeism is damaging productivity in UK offices, according to new research by fit out and refurbishment specialist Overbury. This is despite 77% of office workers having more flexible working options open to them than five years ago and expecting this trend to continue into 2014.
Four in five (80%) claim those who spend more hours in the office are thought by bosses to be working harder, while two thirds (66%) say being seen to work late increases an employee’s chance of promotion. More than two thirds (67%) of those who sometimes work from home admit to sending emails early in the morning to stop colleagues thinking they’re having a lie-in.
Companies are willing to invest millions building collaborative work settings. However, many of those same companies forget to focus on establishing and consistently supporting an appropriate workplace culture that leverages collaborative settings. Presenteeism is one of the culture “roadblocks” that can keep that investment from paying off.
From the article: “More businesses need to realise that great ideas don’t arise from sitting at the same desk all day. Instead we must enable people to work in different environments depending on what they’re doing at any one time to push productivity through the roof.”
Stegmeier Consulting Group can assist with a wide range of challenges involved in implementing a workplace change initiative. Contact us to find out how our services can help your organization.
“The whole program is a mock snowstorm, and most agencies will use it as a COOP exercise,” Auten said, referring to continuity of operations or the effort to keep government open in inclement weather or other adverse conditions. “It also provides a type of low-risk approach to measuring employee engagement.”
This week-long pledge has been embraced by federal agencies as a way to test continuity of operations and measure employee engagement. Studies have shown that employee engagement increases when employees are given the option to work from home and do thoughtful and creative work without office distractions. What other benefits do you think organizations could discover by participating in Telework Week?
Stegmeier Consulting Group can assist with a wide range of challenges involved in implementing a workplace change initiative. Contact us to find out how our services can help your organization.
Grinding out hundred-hour weeks for years helps bankers think of themselves as tougher and more dedicated than everyone else. And working 15 hours a day doesn’t just demonstrate your commitment to a company; it also reinforces that commitment.
Over time, the simple fact that you work so much becomes proof that the job is worthwhile, and being in the office day and night becomes a kind of permanent initiation ritual. The challenge for Wall Street is: can it still get bankers to run with the pack if it stops treating them like dogs?
The business world is abuzz with the news that entry-level bankers at banks such as Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse are now encouraged to take at least a few weekdays off every month.
We’re seeing that the decision to leave long-hour jobs doesn’t just occur in the ranks of the Millenial generation. The numbers of Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers moving toward jobs with a better work-life balance are increasing steadily as well.
Where does this leave industries like the investment banking industry? If you are in a similar industry, would your organization’s retention rates and talent look any different if schedules allowed for a better work-life balance?
Stegmeier Consulting Group can assist with a wide range of challenges involved in implementing a workplace change initiative. Contact us to find out how our services can help your organization.
Changing the way organizations manage workplace change
About SCG
Stegmeier Consulting Group is a 100% woman-owned small business. We’re a team of behavioral change agents & data specialists, with expertise in people & place.
We work with corporations, civic partners, & higher learning institutions to lead data gathering, strategic planning, and change implementation efforts.
SCG feels strongly that every employer should strive to create a respectful workplace for each employee. It’s why we started Project WHEN, a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to eliminating all forms of workplace harassment.
Our financial support has allowed the organization to grow and begin impacting work communities everywhere. We encourage clients to consider donating or getting involved in the movement with us.
