Need More Workplace Flexibility?

Source: AICPA CPA Insider

Excerpts from this article by Jennifer Wilson are reprinted with permission from the AICPA.

Following are four options for increasing your firm's flexibility.

Flexible-hours programs — These can include allowing your people to choose their start and end times, usually within an agreed upon range of hours around your firm's traditional office hours. This can also include compressed work-week programs that allow your people to work more hours over fewer days, having more days off per week or month.

Reduced- work-hours programs — This is where you offer part-time options or part-year options. Reduced work-hours programs can be especially beneficial during “off season” slower periods for reducing labor costs. While a reduced-hours program can be beneficial for interns, mothers returning to the work force and employees caring for the elderly or the ill, most of your people will not choose to take advantage of them because they choose instead to earn full-time wages.

Flexible-location programs — In this type of program, your firm supports its people in working at other locations including client sites, from home, when traveling and more. These programs are important to have in place, even if you offer no other element of flexible work arrangements (FWA), so that you can allow your people to leave the office, attend to their personal obligations in the evening or on the weekends and still engage in work as time permits.

Flexible-leave programs — These programs range from those that allow employees to leave during the day for personal business or take time off to care for a sick child with pay, to more complex programs that allow employees to take sabbaticals, change career paths temporarily or exit the firm for a defined period to attend to child rearing, a military leave or an illness.

For the complete article, read “How Flexible is Your Firm?”

From AICPA CPA Insider, October 4, 2010, www.CPA2biz.com.