Workplace, Work Force and Working Families
Kathleen Christensen, Program Director

The Sloan National Initiative on Workplace Flexibility

Started in 2003, this collaborative effort is designed to shape workplace flexibility as a compelling national issue - providing an essential step toward the long-term goal of making workplace flexibility the standard way of working in America.  The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has articulated three complementary strategies:

• Increase public understanding of workplace flexibility through the news media,while reframing the discussion about flexibility as a strategic business tool rather than as a personal favor or employee accommodation.                                                             
• Increase voluntary private sector efforts to implement workplace flexibility without jeopardy to employees through the use of quality research and a local awards program that is partnered with chambers of commerce.                                                           
• Create a climate in Washington, D.C. whereby members of Congress will assume responsibility for pursuing viable, bipartisan, workplace flexibility policy ideas.

To increase voluntary employer efforts, business case studies demonstrating the positive impact of workplace flexibility as a strategic business tool are being disseminated to businesses of all sizes.  Business case studies produced by the BOLD Initiative, Families & Work Institute, Corporate Voices for Working Families and the Sloan Work and Family Research Network have been featured in news coverage and are effectively influencing other companies’ practices regarding flexibility.

As a result, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is being recognized for its impact in the business world. An executive at one award-winning company stated that the efforts to promote flexibility in a credible and empirically based manner have made it much easier for her to get approval to implement results-oriented flexibility.

Similarly, the Sloan National Initiative on Workplace Flexibility is committed to the principle that workplace flexibility must be good for both the employee and the employer.  To further communicate the benefits of workplace flexibility to employees, The Labor Project for Working Families has recently released FLEX PACK, which provides fact sheets on current union practices regarding workplace flexibility.