Your So-Called Life

Working It Out

BY Eric Freedman | March 1, 1999|

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Once you experience the benefits of balancing your family and business lives, chances are, you'll want your employees to enjoy the same flexibility. On the plus side, the less formal environment of a small company is the ideal setting for a flexible employee policy. On the other hand, small businesses are more likely than large companies to depend on a core of "indispensable" employees. How do you balance your company's needs with those of your employees? Options include flex-time schedules, job-sharing and compressed work weeks. The key to making all these strategies work is a willingness to understand the needs of your staff.

Schaffer's company has often worked with employees to accommodate individual needs. For example, the company's marketing manager works a 32-hour week, with Fridays off to spend with her children.

"There's no question that there are short-term pains for the organization," says Schaffer. "On the other hand, the thing we [valued] most is loyalty, particularly in this tight labor market. When we started out, we didn't think too much about these issues. As we grew, it became clear that the way the company would be successful was to align itself and its actions with its employees. It's a two-way street: The company needs to be loyal to the employees, and the employees need to be loyal to the company."

In establishing your company's personnel policies, whether they're set out in a formal employee manual or created on a case-by-case basis, it's important not to be arbitrary in accommodating your employees. Doing so will lead to poor morale over perceived unfairness; worse, it could open your company to lawsuits.

Don't treat business and family as two separate worlds, for yourself or your employees. Instead, recognize that your commitments to these two spheres should enrich one another. After all, the stakes are high in both, and effective strategies that balance home and work can give you the best of both worlds.