Enhance Programs For Family-Friendly Workplaces

Enhance Programs to Provide Family-Friendly Workplaces 

Background

The federal government has traditionally been viewed as a family-
friendly employer with many programs in place to help employees balance
work and family responsibilities. The Federal Employees Flexible and
Compressed Work Schedules Act of 1978 gives agencies the authority to
provide flexible and compressed work schedules for their employees.(1)
The Federal Employees Part-time Career Employment Act of 1978 requires
federal agencies to increase part-time opportunities for federal
employees at all grade levels.(2) In 1990, Congress again tried to
increase the availability of part-time employment for interested
individuals by requiring the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to
establish a job sharing program.

The Federal Employees Leave Sharing Act of 1988 authorizes agencies to
participate in voluntary pilot leave transfer and leave bank
programs.(3) The federal government does not provide short-term
disability benefits for its employees, except for job-related illness
and injuries, so leave sharing helps employees maintain some or all
income through a period of temporary disability or family medical
crisis. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993(4) provides up to 12
administrative workweeks of unpaid family and medical leave for federal
employees.(5)

In January 1990, the General Services Administration (GSA) and OPM
implemented the Federal Flexible Workplace Pilot Project (Flexiplace) to
gain experience and information from work-at-home programs, satellite
work center programs, and flexiplace accommodations for disabled
workers. Congress demonstrated continued support for the Flexiplace
project in September 1992, when it appropriated $5 million to GSA to
establish three telecommuting centers. The telecommuting centers will
provide alternate worksites for federal employees who currently commute
long distances between their homes and worksites in the Washington,
D.C., area.

Need for Change

Changes in societal values and demographics indicate that family-
friendly policies and workplaces will become increasingly critical for
recruitment, retention, and improved productivity of employees.
Family-friendly policies serve the needs of a diverse workforce
struggling to manage child care, elder care, family emergencies, and
other personal responsibilities while at the same time remaining
committed to professional development and advancement. Governmentwide
implementation of these policies will enable agencies to foster a
quality work environment that meets the emerging needs of their
employees and customers. The benefits of family-friendly policies are
well documented:

Recent studies of such companies as Johnson & Johnson and American
Telephone & Telegraph show that helping employees resolve work and
family conflicts boosts morale and increases productivity. The J&J study
found that absenteeism among employees who used flexible time and
family-leave policies was on average 50% less than for the work force as
a whole. It also found that 58% of the employees surveyed said such
policies were very important in their decision to stay at the
company--the number jumped to 71% among employees using the benefits.(6)

In 1991, the Conference Board concluded:

Flexitime improves basic work conditions by allowing adjustments in
commuting times, reducing anxiety about tardiness, and shifting
management's focus away from monitoring attendance. . .  . [F]lexible
work schedules increase employee responsibility, independence and growth
potential, thus motivating the employee.  . . . Flexitime was typically
mentioned as the arrangement found most advantageous in reducing
absenteeism and turnover.(7)

A federal employee writing to the National Performance Review stressed
that part-time employment and job sharing is an important option for
many federal employees.

[W]orkers should be offered a chance to convert to part-time status
whenever possible, if they think their finances will permit it, in order
to have more time with young children or aging or infirm parents, or to
attend to their own health problems, or to continue their education to
stay abreast of changing technology. . . . Some individuals might want
part-time work as an alternative or precursor to full retirement.(8)

The Progressive Policy Institute's Mandate for Change emphasized that
the federal government should take a leadership role in flexiplace work
arrangements, including telecommuting.

The federal government, which as one of the nation's largest employers
led the way in the use of flex-time schedules, should begin to offer
telecommuting options to qualified interested employees. In addition to
the parenting advantages that telecommuting provides for families with
small children, it offers economic and environmental advantages for
society by reducing the number of commuters.(9)

Flexiplace and telecommuting reduce individual and family stress, save
valuable commuting time, reduce commuting and work-related costs for the
employee, and increase civic involvement and volunteerism in nearby
communities. Flexible work arrangements will generate environmental and
energy conservation benefits by alleviating traffic congestion, reducing
air pollution, and reducing consumption of fossil fuels. Evaluation of
the federal government's Flexiplace pilot found that vehicle usage
decreased for 82 percent of participants during rush hour and 35
percent of participants during non-rush hour; sick leave usage decreased
for 45 percent of participants.(10) The evaluation went on to say: "More
than 90 percent of the supervisors and 95 percent of the participants
judged that Flexiplace job performance was either unchanged or improved
relative to pre- Flexiplace performance levels."(11)

OPM's final evaluation of the Flexiplace pilot concluded:  Flexiplace
shows promise as a mechanism for reducing Federal operating and health
care costs. Indications of improved job performance (productivity),
reduced usage of sick leave (benefits), improved health (health care),
and reduced vehicle usage (transportation/energy issues) for a
significant portion of the participant group suggest long run reduction
in costs associated with these areas.(12)

The evaluation found that the actual organizational costs of Flexiplace
were minimal. More than 80 percent of supervisors reported no additional
costs.(13) Significant monetary savings will occur as agencies begin to
include flexible workplace arrangements in their federal building
planning and technology purchasing strategies. "[W]e anticipate long run
reductions in facility costs with expanded utilization of Flexiplace.
The ability of agencies to implement successful Flexiplace pilots with
minimal funding, however, is a strong indication of the applicability of
Flexiplace to diverse organizations."(14)

The federal government should be viewed as a model employer in the
availability and flexibility of quality of worklife programs that
emphasize the tools employees at all levels need to manage their work
responsibilities and personal lives more effectively.(15) Successful
programs will foster interagency and intergovernmental partnerships,
encourage cooperation between management and employees, spark
collaborative ventures between public and private organizations, and
bring harmony to the workplace and community in which they reside.

Some of the problems and barriers faced by agencies and employees
include:

Legislative Barriers to Innovation.

Federal agencies are stymied in their efforts to address emerging
employee needs because most employee benefit policies are codified into
law--literally requiring an act of Congress to modify them.  Legislation
bars most agencies from experimenting with different benefit policies;
therefore, the governmentwide implications of options such as cafeteria
benefit plans and flexible spending accounts are not known. In a 1992
report, the General Accounting Office stated:

The likelihood of federal agencies falling behind their nonfederal
counterparts in the work/family area may be even greater in the future.
The rapid growth of nonfederal work/family programs, such as flexible
benefits, flexible spending accounts, and child care assistance, suggest
that these programs could well become standard employment policies in
the future. Thus, whereas the adoption of work/family programs today may
give an employer a competitive advantage, in the future, employers may
need to offer these programs just to avoid being at a competitive
disadvantage.(16)

Legislative barriers prevent many agencies from implementing flexible
work arrangements with their employees; some of the barriers for
Flexiplace were waived for the duration of the pilot project when
Congress passed legislation in November 1990.(17) Some examples of the
limitations placed upon agencies attempting to provide dependent care
services include a law that limits agencies to providing the facility
and services related to the maintenance and operation of child care
centers located solely in federally owned or leased space, and a
September 31, 1992, decision of the U.S. Comptroller General that the
law prohibits agencies from using appropriated funds for adult day care
programs or contributing any financial resources to private adult day
care centers.(18)

Lack of Clear Agency Support and Implementation of Available Programs.
Many agencies have not developed policies advocating the use of
flexibilities available to help employees balance work and family
responsibilities. In a recent survey of federal employees conducted by
OPM, only 53 percent of employees with dependent care needs believe
their agencies understand and support family issues.  Approximately 38
percent of employees indicated that their agencies do not provide any
dependent care services beyond Employee Assistance Programs.
Approximately 77 percent of employees with dependent care needs who are
currently working fixed schedules are interested in working
compressed/flexible schedules.(19) OPM found that:  [T]he employee
survey data suggest that certain agencies may have internal barriers
that make supervisors reluctant to approve employee requests to work
part-time. Of the supervisors who have denied employee requests to work
part-time, at least 19 percent did so because of internal barriers,
i.e., the agency's internal systems made it difficult and/or that their
agency stressed full-time employment.(20)

Cross References to Other NPR Accompanying Reports

Department of Transportation, DOT13: Create and Evaluate Telecommuting
Programs.

Endnotes

1. Title 5, United States Code, sec. 6120-6133.

2. Title 5, United States Code, sec. 3401-3408.

3. Public Law 100-566.

4. Public Law 103-3.

5. Title II of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 pertains to most
federal employees covered by the annual and sick leave system
established under chapter 63 of title 5, United States Code, and certain
other employees covered by different federal leave systems.  Title I
covers non-federal employees and certain federal employees not covered
by Title II.

6. Galen, Michele, Ann Therese Palmer, Alice Cuneo, and Mark Maremont,
"Work & Family," Business Week, no. 3325 (June 28, 1993), p. 82.

7. Friedman, Dana, Linking Work-Family Issues to the Bottom Line (New
York: The Conference Board, 1991), p. 51.

8. Letter from Marilyn S.G. Urwitz, federal employee, to President Bill
Clinton, March 4, 1993.

9. Kamarck, Elaine Ciulla, and William A. Galston, "A Progressive Family
Policy for the 1990s," in Will Marshall and Martin Schram, eds. Mandate
for Change (New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 1993), p. 174.

10. U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), The Federal Flexible
Workplace Pilot Project Work-at-Home Component (Washington, D.C.,
January 1993), p. v.

11. Ibid., pp. iii, iv.

12. Ibid., p. 45.

13. Ibid., p. 31.

14. Ibid., p. 32.

15. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), Balancing Work
Responsibilities and Family Needs: The Federal Civil Service Response
(Washington, D.C., November 1991), p. 82.

16. U.S. General Accounting Office, The Changing Workforce:  Comparison
of Federal and Nonfederal Work/Family Programs and Approaches,
GAO/GGD-92-84 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. General Accounting Office, April
1992), p. 15.

17. Public Law 101-509.

18. Title 40, United States Code, sec. 490(b).

19. U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Report to Congress: A Study of
the Work and Family Needs of the Federal Workforce (Washington, D.C.,
April 1992), pp. 5, 6, 20.

20. OPM, Report to Congress, p. 26.