Focused Retention Strategies Key to Attracting Workforce of the Future

Research shows that it’s not just the traditional students and working parents that are demanding workplace flexibility; generation Y through to Baby Boomers want more time in their busy life schedules to pursue other interests apart from work. This has led to an increase in organisations adjusting their workplace policies to specifically and separately address flexible workplace arrangements. What is sometimes missing is the acknowledgement that students, generation Y, working parents and baby boomers are all at different life stages and there are subtle differences in the needs, challenges and requirements of each group.

Let’s consider women returning to work.  Most women, after they have children, want to return to work. The top three drivers include income, social interaction with adults, and career goals.  Conversely, the top three barriers to returning to work are the lack of flexible roles, the cost of child care, and a lack of self confidence.

Good communication and retention strategies will assist in alleviating most of these barriers. Providing support and tools to help employees’ better plan and prepare for parental leave is increasingly recognised by employers as a critical part of encouraging and enabling parents to return to work. 

Previously employers focused their attention on providing employee monetary benefits such as subsidised childcare and financial incentives to lure parents back to work. However, these ‘benefits’ are often not provided to employees until after the parental leave has commenced or once they have already returned to work.

The crucial difference between the conventional parental leave benefits offered by employers is an organisation’s ability to develop an improved ‘follow up’ approach or ‘checking in’ process to assist the employee during pregnancy at work, and consider their return to work options prior to parental leave.  But it doesn’t stop there.  During the parental leave absence, these employers are working hard to help the employee stay connected to the organisation. This makes returning to work a smoother transition for both employee and manager. The simple act of communication has the potential to transform an employee on leave weighing up their options into a loyal return-to-work employee.

Making flexibility work should not be the sole responsibility of the employer. Employees should be provided with a business case proposal that prompts them to think about issues such as work gaps as a result of reduced hours, and the impact it will have on clients, team members, and the organisation. Negotiation, communication and shared responsibility between both parties are critical to a positive outcome.

Prominent companies, institutions and Government Agencies such as KPMG, Westpac, IBM, Origin Energy, St George Bank, and University of Sydney are all benefiting from flexible workplace policies. Common benefits these companies have experienced include:

• Higher staff retention, with a more energetic, committed, happy and focused workforce.
• More skilled and motivated staff, including mature age workers who are attracted to organisations with flexible working policies.
• The ability to attract staff that might have otherwise been unable to work.
• Savings on recruitment and retraining costs.
• Reduced absenteeism and stress as flexibility helps employees meet their outside commitments more easily.

A suggested approach to identifying flexibility requirements in your organisation:

Step 1: Assess the demographics and needs of your employees in your team/organisation. Seek input from your employees to understand their differing needs; a one size fits all will have limited success. Staff discussions, surveys and exit interviews can help you determine if there are gaps in work practices.

Step 2: Research the job flexibility options available to you. Flexible work practices can take the form of part time, job share, tele/email commuting, part office/home/on the road arrangements, flexible start / finish times, flexible leave provisions such as career breaks and temporary working arrangements and phased return to work and retirement options.

Step 3: Ask your employee to fill in a business case proposal for a flexible work arrangement for consideration.

Step 4: Agree a trial period to ‘test drive’ how the arrangement works in practice. Regularly consult with your employee and other co-workers so that issues can be discussed as they arise. 

Step 5: Continually monitor the new arrangements and be flexible!  The very nature of flexibility means you have to move with the ebbs and flows as life changes.  

CareerMums works with organisations to design and implement processes and procedures for workplace initiatives that specifically address working flexibly and working parents. Their HR Toolkits include ‘Working Parents Toolkit’, ‘Flexible Work Proposal Toolkit’, and ‘Parental Leave Program Toolkit’.