Work-life benefits drive attainment of personal and professional goals.

While it has always been true that work has been necessary, the role of work has changed over time as the makeup of the workforce has evolved into something different than it has ever been before.

A report released earlier this year by Georgia Tech Human Resources Department and WorkLifeBalance.com

By terms of definition, the report says that work-life balance, though commonly thought of as a one-way street--what the company does for the worker--it's actually a "two-prong" approach. The second part of the balance comes from what the workers do for themselves.

"Work-life balance is meaningful achievement and enjoyment in everyday life," the report, published in the Mar 2004 issue of B&C Solutions magazine, said. "To achieve better work-life balance, each individual needs to work smarter--to get more done in less time. Managers and employees also need to create more value for and balance for themselves off the job. Employers assist through providing training that improves the individual's work-life balance skill set, on and off the job."

In the United States, work-life programs have become more common within companies. Elements like flex-time, telecommuting, elder care, paternity and family leave, job-sharing, employee assistance programs, in-house store/services, gym subsidies, and concierge services are some of the more common programs put together by companies to help with the work-life situations of their employees.

A decade ago, many companies were following the dot-com lead and providing other side bennies like company cars, or a pre-determined number of free airline trips each year. Four-day work weeks, flexible hours and casual dress were also more common. The work-life perks were frequently used to recruit and retain good workers.

Rosalie Thomas, human resources manager for IBM Global Services in Atlanta said perks such as flex-time provide positive results.

"Focus on results--not how or where people did their work," Thomas said in a May 2004 article titled Balancing Act by Mickey Goodman. "Don't I get much more productive employees if they're not worried about their families? Flex time is a business imperative. We can't afford to let good people slip away."

Thomas said almost three-quarters of IBM employees work someplace other than the office on any given day. Some are full-time telecommuters, while some take time off during the day to run errands, or take care of personal business, and work after 5 p.m.

However, it isn't that way everywhere.

Loads of U.S. companies were resistant to putting extensive work-life programs, policies and procedures in place. That resistance came from organizational cultures that failed to support employees and managers who wanted to use work-life options, according to a paper published be Caux Round Table.

There were other places, the paper said, where if an employee wanted to be a manager, that person was not allowed to work four-day weeks, whether or not they were allowed that perk as a non-manager.

In the days of the recent recession, companies found themselves unable to afford the perks, especially as layoffs became more and more common. Another study said that "recession perks" are what the work-life benefits are known as these days. The extra money that was being tossed around 10 years ago is no longer there, but "recession perks'" tools are being used to build employee loyalty and help employees get along with one another and work well as teams.

In terms of work hours, the federal government has imposed restrictions on companies that limit non-exempt employees to 40 hours per week, unless the employer provides additional compensation, whether it is overtime pay or compensatory time off. For exempt workers, there is no such restriction, which can create a divide in how the employees are treated. As a way to deal with that, some companies have attitudes that expect exempt workers to put in extra hours without additional compensation, but some even pay exempt workers for their overtime, or provide comp time.

The U.S. government has also established guidelines for paternity leave as a part of its Family and Medical Leave Act (FLMA). The guidelines of the FLMA were put in place to assure employees to reasonable rights to have appropriate family leave. The law originally encompassed working mothers, but it eventually was modified to include the needs of the changing American family. The law only assures a minimum of 12 weeks of leave, but nearly a quarter of American companies offer more leave than required.

Childcare is another issue faced in the work-life theory. Nearly two-thirds of families referred to as "conventional (which include a mother and a father)" in the Georgia Tech report, are dual-income households, so childcare is one place where companies can provide another work-life perk.

Different philosophies come into play, depending on the employers' preference. Some provide in-house child care facilities, some provide child care spending accounts, which also come with tax relief provided by the federal government. Other child care alternatives include everything from after school programs to referral services.

Then there's the issue of business travel and how it affects the family part of work-life balance. Telecommuting provides an option for the white-collar segment of society, where workers are allowed to work from home, allowing them to spend less time on the road, and have more flexible schedules. Nearly one-third of U.S. companies allow some form of telecommuting.

Work-life balance is not an easy thing to achieve, and it's not necessarily something that many companies even want to try to reach for. It usually depends on the bottom line if a company thinks it will benefit from having programs that provide such balance. But that's not necessarily an argument that holds water.

"Interestingly, for all the emphasis on such financial justification, very few hard numbers exist on the success or failure of work-life programs," the Georgia Tech report concluded. "More often companies have quantified the benefits of such programs through a variety of performance measures indirectly related to financial return."

Good, solid work-life programs are a strong marketing tool in human resources recruiting efforts. They are good for attracting employees, and frequently translate into accolades such as "Best Places to Work" recognition, and the like and those kinds of kudos open the eyes of the best job-seekers.

Nelson P. Holmberg is associate editor at Northwest Public Power Association. He can be reached by telephone at (360) 254-0109 or by e-mail at nelson@nwppa.org.