Work & Family the WorldatWork Way

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to work for the world’s leading total rewards professional association? As a 2008 Alfred P. Sloan award winner for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility, there’s no doubt that WorldatWork practices what it preaches — total rewards.

“WorldatWork is committed to promoting work-life effectiveness as an integral element of total rewards globally, as well as in our own employment practices in Scottsdale, Ariz., Washington, D.C., and to our ‘virtual’ workers across the country who work full-time from home offices,” said WorldatWork President Anne Ruddy, CCP, CPCU.

Along with the occasional “March Madness” afternoon of basketball and popcorn, or a Saturday miniature golf tournament or bowling outing for employees and family members, WorldatWork puts into practice some of the same work-life programs that it educates others about, including telework and flexible work options, a health and wellness program and an organizational culture that supports work and family.

Telework
With a host of flexible work options, including telework, four-day workweeks, part-time schedules and more, WorldatWork allows employees to be productive and engaged in the environment and schedule that works best for them. Recognizing that the entire team can be impacted by others’ flexible schedules, WorldatWork has also developed training sessions for working with teleworkers and virtual workers that offer creative ideas for team-building exercises, etiquette for teleconferences and more.

In 2006 Customer Relationship Services Adviser Nancy Annunziato had been with WorldatWork for nine years when she and her husband, Frank, decided to move away from a growing Phoenix metropolitan area to Tombstone, Ariz., a small town some 190 miles south from WorldatWork Scottsdale headquarters.

With an interest in dressing up in period clothes for Western reenactments, the Annunziatos had frequently visited Tombstone and yearned to get back to their small-town upbringing. They purchased 5.5 acres and built a permanent home. “It’s a small town, peaceful and the scenery is beautiful. It was a dream for us,” she said.

 “When we decided to move, I knew I would have to find a new job. I didn’t want to quit my job at WorldatWork. I’m not one to go from job-to-job,” she said. “I was nervous to tell Lisa (Levey) I would need to resign because I didn’t want to leave.” But with her husband, four horses and three cats, ready to move to a “town too tough to die” Nancy didn’t know what else to do.

It was January when Annunziato gave her four months notice to her then manager Lisa Levey, who today works as Public Education manager. 

“We consider Nancy a valuable team member so we knew we wanted to keep her engaged with WorldatWork,” said Lisa Levey, Annunziato’s manager at the time. “Anne Ruddy’s openness and creativity spurred my creativity to work with our IT department to find solutions to enable Nancy to continue to take calls from the queue even from a remote location. And the cost of setting her up with technology was much more economical than hiring a new person to train for the job. So telework was a win-win” Levey said.

“A few weeks later Lisa approached me and asked if I would consider telework,” Annunziato said. “I said, ‘Yes. I’d love to.’ WorldatWork had never had a customer relationship services adviser work from home and this would be a perfect opportunity to see if it could work. It did and it gave me the chance to remain part of the WorldatWork family.”

For the first year, teleworking from Tombstone worked perfectly via a satellite telephone. In fact one time a Scottsdale power outage shut down headquarters, but Annunziato was still able to answer member telephone calls and e-mail messages from her home. However, in 2007, WorldatWork upgraded its phone system and technical challenges disabled her from receiving inbound customer calls. As a solution, WorldatWork reconfigured her job duties to act as a retention adviser, interacting with a portfolio of members and those whose memberships are about to expire.

“I love teleworking,” Annunziato said. “When you’re in the office there are more distractions. When you’re working from home you can get even more work done because you are not interrupted. I stay very well connected with everyone at headquarters. My managers are right on top of it. I go to the office from time-to-time. I’m always available by phone and e-mail,” she said.

Today, thanks in part to the success of Annunziato’s telework arrangement, there are a total of three customer relationship advisers who work full-time from their home office, as far away as Iowa and North Carolina.

“Telework has enabled us to retain highly-qualified and committed people,” said WorldatWork Human Resources Director Kip Kipley, CBP, SPHR. “Telework helps relieve some of the personal pressures of, for example, a spouse whose job changed location or if someone simply wants to live somewhere else.”

With telework, WorldatWork satisfies not only employee work-life needs but has expanded the WorldatWork recruiting reach. “With telework as an option, we can hire talent where they live and truly hire the highest caliber individuals for a position,” Kipley said.

In addition to the 11 full-time remote workers, WorldatWork also supports telecommuting employees, those who live within driving distance to the office, but desire to work from home on certain days.

Of course, the biggest story in every media outlet of 2008 is the price per gallon of gasoline. Many employers are looking for solutions to help their employees find some relief from gas prices and balance work and life priorities, and WorldatWork is no exception. Telecommuting is on the rise for the 150 WorldatWork employees, as many want to save gas money and work from home one or two days a week. Plus, others prefer working from home on certain days to focus on larger projects with less distraction, have quality time for thinking and planning and some find it perfect for professional development opportunities like attending Webinars or catching up on professional reading.

WorldatWork also offers flexible work schedules that allow employees to choose their start and stop times and compressed work weeks. “When you give people the opportunity to make their own hours they are likely to be more committed to the organization and more productive,” Kipley said.

WellnessatWork
WorldatWork recognizes total employee (and family) wellness as essential to a functional business and functional people inside and outside the office. In 2004, the WorldatWork wellness program, WellnessatWork, was launched. Voluntary health assessments (blood work, fitness testing, etc.) are offered to all employees twice a year, tracking wellness goals.

On a more regular basis, WorldatWork supports wellness with exercise and yoga classes, chair massages, support groups and educational meetings on topics ranging from choosing the best vitamins and supplements to caring for aging relatives. To encourage participation, WorldatWork counts these classes as work time. And each quarter, one employee who has made a life change to become healthier is celebrated as a “Wellness S.T.A.R.”

WorldatWork Wellness S.T.A.R. Bonnie Kabin, CCP, works as vice president of Professional Development. “I am really very blessed to work for an organization like WorldatWork that brought WellnessatWork to our workplace in the first place,” Kabin said. “I have participated in many WellnessatWork programs and activities and it was easy to get started at work. My colleagues at WorldatWork have encouraged me every step of the way.”

For Kabin, WellnessatWork “gives me ‘permission’ to increase my energy to give back to my job, my colleagues, my company and my life outside of work.”

“Employees are much more aware of what they need to do for a healthier lifestyle,” Kipley said about WellnessatWork. “Plus, it has helped the company lower its insurance premiums that directly translates into the bottom line.”

Organizational Culture
The success of WorldatWork work-life programs is due in large part to leadership’s top-down commitment to them and openness to discuss unique employee needs.

“I think it is clear to most employees that WorldatWork is not just an employer but, in many ways, a family of co-workers,” Ruddy said. “There is a level of care and concern for the individual (and their family) that is rare. From top down, WorldatWork supports an environment that recognizes that our employees have lives too, not just WorldatWork business hours. To that end, we live and breathe flexibility and wellness and provide as much assistance and support through our managers, HR and EAP to make sure that everyone here can be engaged, productive and focused on what's really important in life.” 

When an employee has a work-life issue arise, whether it is a new baby, spouse job location change, personal or family member health issues, or anything else, every employee’s work-life issue is reviewed on a case-by-case basis, so employees get personalized options that best meet their needs and the company’s. Whether it’s telework options, part-time work or assistance, employees are treated with respect and compassion by management when it comes to work-life issues.

“WorldatWork is an organization that looks around hurdles. We don’t let hurdles get in the way,” Kipley said about keeping top talent within the organization.

"The family is the core unit of society,” said Kathie Lingle, Alliance for Work-Life Progress (AWLP) executive director and WorldatWork employee. “Families cluster into communities from which employers draw their workforce, their customers and their image or goodwill. In spite of this simple and irrefutable dynamic, there are lingering remnants today of a work culture that once demanded people to check their family at the door, behaving as if work and family were opposing pawns in some kind of cosmic zero sum game.

“At WorldatWork the significance of family is not only understood but honored. Informally, what's going on at home is often a lively topic of conversation, and it's not uncommon to encounter family members in our corridors. Formally, it's encouraged to invite significant others to participate in WellnessatWork activities as well as life's major milestone celebrations—a benefit that should not be undervalued, given the power of family dynamics to influence many aspects of our behavior and ultimate success, personal and professional," Lingle said.

National Work & Family Month
Since National Work & Family Month started as a national educational awareness campaign in 2003 by Alliance for Work-Life Progress (AWLP), now an affiliate of WorldatWork, the organization acknowledges this event each year both publicly (www.awlp.org/workfamilymonth) with special activities and creative ideas to help employees balance life at home and at work and internally with its employees.

As in years past, the 2008 celebration for WorldatWork employees includes an online “family photo album.” Employees were invited to share their best “family” photo (anyone important to them including spouses, children, pets, significant others, relatives, friends), along with a testimonial of how WorldatWork culture, practices and programs (i.e., flexible spending accounts, flexible scheduling, the wellness program, pet insurance, education assistance, etc.) help them achieve success in work and in life.

WorldatWork will also host an October picnic for employees and family members to attend in both Scottsdale and Washington, D.C. Throughout the month, special attention will be given to the work-life benefits offered to employees. Among those offered: Privacy room for lactating mothers and/or other needs in Scottsdale, employee assistance program, 24-hour nurse line, fitness center affiliations, dependent care flexible spending account, commuter benefits, tuition assistance, identity theft insurance, health care flexible spending accounts, 529 college savings plan, general leaves of absences, vacation days, sick days, paid holidays, short and long-term disability, pet insurance, on-site chair massages, shortened summer hours in the Scottsdale Office, casual-dress Fridays and family and medical leave, to name a few.

As the total rewards association, WorldatWork “walks the walk” when it comes to offering innovative and effective work-life programs that support the organization and employees. By providing a supportive work environment — with options like flexible work schedules, teleworking, wellness programs and a robust bank of resources — WorldatWork meets the needs of individual employees and business strategy every day.