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The Learning Agenda:  Flexible Work For Non-Exempt Employees

The Work Design Collaborative is pleased to announce a partnership with WorldatWork (www.worldatwork.org) on a new research project to discover, document, and report out "best practices" for creating a distributed work solution for non-exempt employees.

But we need your help.

A number of forces seem to be converging today around the topic of "distributed work." Due to the current economic downturn, many employers are actively looking for ways to reduce costs and retain key talent. Meanwhile, employees have been rapidly adopting mobile devices that enable them to work from anywhere as they grapple with rollercoaster fuel prices and do whatever they can to reduce their commuting costs.

For salaried employees, implementation of distributed work, alternative workplaces, and flexible scheduling is pretty easy. But for non-exempts? Not so simple. A significant body of knowledge and policies is developing for enabling salaried employees to work flexibly, but very little research has been done with regard to hourly employees, who are affected by numerous employment and safety laws that make working remotely much more complex for them and their employers.

Here's where you come in.

We have created a survey instrument to gather the opinions and experiences of human resource professionals like you from a cross-section of industry sectors. If you are an HR professional who has knowledge of, or experience with, non-exempt employees in alternative work programs, please take just 10 minutes and help us by completing the questionnaire. You will be helping to build an important professional body of knowledge with far-ranging value to both organizations and individual workers.

To complete the survey, just click on this link:  Non-Exempt Flexible Work Survey

In addition, we are hoping to speak directly with both individuals and employers who have experience in creating distributed work environments for either exempt or non-exempt employees.

If you have a strategy, a policy, a personal experience, or even just an anecdote to share (anonymously if you'd like), please contact Dr. Charlie Grantham  at charlie@thefutureofwork.net. All information we gather will be reported in aggregate only. Participants will, of course, receive a free copy of the final report if they like. Thank you for your help.

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