When Work Works

History

When Work Works was founded by Families and Work Institute in 2005, in partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for a Competitive Workforce and the Twiga Foundation, with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. In 2011, Families and Work Institute and The Society for Human Resource Management announced a ground-breaking partnership designed to help organizations be more successful by transforming the way businesses view and adopt flexible workplace practices. The partnership’s mission is to share the research on how effective and flexible workplaces can benefit employers and employees, to share best practices, and to help employers develop workplace cultures that fully embrace and implement strategies that will “move work forward.” 

Research

The When Work Works initiative is grounded in the results of nationally representative studies of employees and employers, which have found that flexibility is a key ingredient in creating effective workplaces that can yield important work-related outcomes for employers. In fact, employees in effective and flexible workplaces report:

• greater engagement on the job;
• greater job satisfaction;
• greater desire to stay with the organization;
• better overall health; and
• lower stress levels.

>> For more research click here.

Employer Practices

Promising practices and innovative ideas for creating effective and flexible workplaces are culled from winners of the Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Excellence in Workplace Effectiveness and Flexibility and published annually in the Guide to Bold New Ideas for Making Work Work.

In combination with research findings, these practices have been highlighted at hundreds of business conferences and workshops as well as in over 2,000 national and local media stories since the project launch to inform business and community leaders, policy makers, and the general public about the importance of workplace effectiveness and flexibility.

>> For more on employer practices click here.

Recognition and Education

The Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Excellence in Workplace Effectiveness and Flexibility recognize employers of all types and sizes that are using workplace flexibility as a tool to enhance business and employee success. The Awards are offered to employers within the When Work Works partner communities, as well as to those outside of these locations as “other” applicants.

The Awards are unique for their rigorous criteria. To win, applicants must rank among the top 20% of U.S. employers in terms of their programs and practices for creating effective and flexible workplaces, based on nationally representative data from Families and Work Institute. What is more, two thirds of the overall score is derived from a confidential employee survey, ensuring that these programs and practices are having a real impact where the “rubber meets the road,” on the employee experience.

All applicants receive a customized benchmarking report comparing their effective and flexible workplace practices to a nationally representative sample of U.S. employers and to Award winners. In 2011 there were 450 winners of the Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility.

>> For more about the Sloan Awards click here.

When Work Works Partners

When Work Works has grown from eight community partners in 2005, to locations today that span the country, comprising nearly one third of the total U.S. population—including five states.