Frankfort, KY (August 5, 2009) - When an injury made it difficult for her to walk, Linda Haddix was afraid she might lose her job as a transcriptionist at Frankfort Regional Medical Center. But thanks to the hospital's willingness to change its scheduling practices, she's now been working from home for the past 11 years, even finding time to help her daughter when she adopted a child from oversees.
"I feel very blessed to work for such a great company," said Haddix. "The hospital has allowed me to continue to perform my job from the comfort at my home, and I had the flexibility to arrange my schedule so I could help my family during a very important time."
Linda's experience is just one example of why Frankfort Regional Medical Center has now been selected as a recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility. The hospital will be being honored August 27 by local award sponsor the Institute for Workplace Innovation.
Frankfort Regional's innovative workplace practices include self-scheduling, flexible hours, and job sharing for staff members. The hospital aligns the career goals of its employees with its own needs to create a healthy work environment that fosters individual growth and prevents job burn-out. Frankfort Regional also encourages employees to continue their education and to take advantage of a tuition assistance program that pays up to $6,000 per year. The program enlarges the pool of employees who can be promoted to positions of higher pay or more responsibility and offers them greater career flexibility.
The Sloan Awards honor organizations of all sizes and all types in Central Kentucky and across the country that are using workplace flexibility as a strategy to increase workplace effectiveness and yield positive business results.
"We are thrilled to receive this recognition for our workplace practices," said Chip Peal, Chief Executive Officer. "Even with all of the high-tech multi-million dollar equipment owned by the hospital, our employees remain the greatest asset of the organization. The workplace initiatives we have implemented have allowed us to invest in our people, reducing turnover, and providing greater patient care. In the end, it all comes down to putting our patients first, and our workplace practices have allowed us to accomplish this."
The current recession - considered one of the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930s - is proving to be a "game changer" for organizations in all sectors of the economy. A study conducted by the Families and Work Institute in May 2009 found that most companies (81%) are maintaining the workplace flexibility they offer during the recession and another 13% are increasing it. The question remains: to what extent are employers able to continue to be good places for employees to work while dealing with these very difficult business survival issues?
The winners of the Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility offer a unique picture of organizations that are finding this middle ground. "From new forms of flexible work arrangements that minimize lay-offs, to creative cost-cutting that retains core medical benefits, to providing financial information and support to employees, these employers are braving the economic storm through innovative policies that prevent undue shock to their workplaces and their employees," said Ellen Galinsky, President, Families and Work Institute.
The Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility are part of the When Work Works project, an ongoing initiative of Families and Work Institute, the Institute for a Competitive Workforce (an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce), and the Twiga Foundation. Through When Work Works, these partner organizations provide research, resources, and recognition to employers nationwide. The project shares the results of research on creating effective and flexible workplaces that meet the needs of the 21st century.
Each of the 2009 Sloan Award winners will also be recognized nationally and will be featured in next year's edition of the Guide to Bold New Ideas for Making Work Work, published by Families and Work Institute.
Now in its fifth year, the prestigious awards program expanded its application base to organizations nation-wide for the first time in 2009. With the introduction of an "at-large" category and 30 participating communities across the country, any organization in the U.S. was eligible for the award. Applicants were evaluated in a rigorous two-step process, first comparing the employer's application to nationally representative data from Families and Work Institute's National Study of Employers, and then corroborating the employer responses through a survey of employees.