Checklist: Steps For Implementing a Successful Work-Life Program

No single work-life program is going to be the right one for all companies and all employees.

The challenge is to come up with the right mix of programs for a particular workforce and to be able to justify the cost of the program. Here are some steps you can take to help your organization implement programs that meet the needs of your workforce and make sense for the bottom line:

• Take a demographic snapshot of your workforce to help understand the needs of your employees. Be sure to capture different employee constituencies, if applicable, to determine if there are any specific patterns of which you should be aware.
• Review your organization's policies, benefits and programs to determine what is currently offered.
• Measure usage of existing work-life programs.
• Compare fit between existing programs and your workforce's current and projected needs. If differing employee needs surfaced in the demographic snapshot, make sure your comparative analysis also considers these groups.
• Identify new policies and programs, or fine-tune existing policies and programs that will fill these gaps.
• Consider organization culture and workflows to ensure proposed new policies and programs will be supported in the work environment.
• Communicate and reinforce the value of balancing work responsibilities and personal and family needs; stress the availability of useful benefits and programs.
• If your organization needs to address (i.e. decrease) the number of unscheduled employee absences, find out why workers aren't at work before you implement new work-life benefits. Track absences for a six-month period, and conduct focus groups and surveys to pinpoint barriers to attendance. Also make plans to measure unscheduled absences at set intervals in the future, to determine if your organization's work-life benefit offerings continue to make sense.