Thanks to my new contact at LifemeetsWork, their President Kyra Cavanaugh, for passing along this study by Corporate Voices for Working Families (CVWF).  As Kyra explained in her email to me yesterday, "Since it often seems easier to think of flexibility in terms of exempt employees, you might find it interesting to review best practices intended for shift workers and admins."

This study is indeed interesting.  It culls employee engagement ideas from an in-depth, year-long review of five organizations that have found success implementing flex work arrangements with at least a portion of their low-wage workforce – typically those earning $12 per hour or less.  The trends CVWF identified, which you might compare against your own measures to strengthen your culture of ownership, include:

• Flextime in production, operations and other settings in which coverage is essential
• Flexible "flexibility policies" and "just-in-time" time off reduces absenteeism and overtime and increases retention
• Telework for administrative assistants and customer service representatives
• Team‐based compressed workweek schedules
• Full-time benefits at 30 hours (side note: at our judges meeting yesterday the fact that several of our 2009 Top Small Workplaces Finalist organizations do this at 20 hours was a point of discussion)
• Career flexibility – flexibility over the life cycle
• Employee-designed schedules for continuous operations
• Employee-managed shift trades

Read the full study for lots more great info, including key findings in addition to the above trends as well as success factors (hint: the latter underscore our building blocks to a Winning Workplace).

Look for an interview with Kyra at LifemeetsWork in our next IDEAS newsletter.  (Subscribe to it here.)

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