DiversityInc - May 2010

In the past, flexible schedules most often were granted to new mothers and those with serious family concerns, such as a terminally ill relative. Today, however, progressive companies have broadened the scope of what constitutes grounds for flexibility. And companies that allow employees flexibility in balancing their personal and professional lives are often rewarded by more loyal and motivated workers.

Another study conducted by the Families and Work Institute found that 54 percent of employers with more than 1,000 employees allow parents extra time to return after birth or adoption. Forty-seven percent allow time off for important family needs, 44 percent for extended care-giving, and 20 percent allow paid time off for volunteering and community service. Those numbers are even higher for The 2010 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity®, where 98 percent offer flexible hours, 96 percent offer telecommuting, 60 percent offer paternity

Cathleen Benko

leave, 62 percent
offer alternative
career tracks
for employees
with long-
term family-
care issues,
and 82 percent
offer paid time
off for volunteer-
ing and community
service.

“It’s a fast-paced world,” says Theresa Torres, director of diversity and employee experience for Verizon Communications, No. 11 in the 2010 DiversityInc Top 50. “To help our employees maintain peak performance, we offer programs that help them balance the many demands of work and personal life.”

Companies that are flexible have a far greater ability to retain and promote employees, especially those from traditionally underrepresented groups who might be more vulnerable to leaving the workplace or turning down opportunities for advancement.

Ninety-two percent of the
DiversityInc Top 50 offer job
le
o

sharing, 90 percent offer lactation rooms and 52 percent offer onsite childcare. The Families and Work Institute study showed 31 percent of companies offer job sharing and 21 percent offer onsite childcare.

Filling Most
Urgent Needs

U.S. WORK/LIFE BEST PRACTICES

DIVERSITYINC TOP 50 NATIONAL*

98%

96%

92%

82%

47%

44%

52%

31%

21%

20%

Verizon’s Torres says employees
are definitely taking advantage
of these programs.

In 2009, employees contacted
VZ-LIFE, the company’s employ-
ee-assistance program—which
provides resources on
parenting and childcare,
adult care, health and well-
ness, moving and reloca-
tion and more—more than
1, 100 times a month by
telephone and logged
on to the web site
35,000 times a month,
the company said.
And Verizon
Wireless, a business
group within Verizon
Communications, provided
employees with more than 40,000
hours in emergency backup care
for its employees’ children—
time that employees would have
otherwise had to use as vacation,
personal or sick days.

Verizon Wireless also offers a world-class initiative to promote healthy babies, affectionately known as the “$15 baby program.” Under this program, employees have a one time co-pay of $15 at their first OBGYN visit, and the rest of the tab—everything—is on the company, Torres says. Expectant mothers get the $15 co-pay refunded if they enroll in their first trimester.