How To Improving the Quality of Life and Work

How To Improving the Quality of Life and Work

Enhancing employees' quality of life through work reorganization can improve a company's bottom line, according to a study released by the Radcliffe Public Policy Institute (RPPI). This conclusion is based on results of a pilot project undertaken by RPPI and the New England-based Fleet Financial Group, the country's 11th largest financial services company.

"There exists a prevailing myth that the struggle to meet business goals and to achieve a high-quality work and family life are mutually exclusive," said Paula Rayman, the director of the Institute. "The Radcliffe-Fleet Project shows that attention to quality-of-life issues can be beneficial to a company's bottom line. This represents a win-win scenario for both business and employees."

Key findings of the study are:

* Both supervisors and employees considered work reorganization efforts worthwhile and rated them highly (8 on a scale of 1 to 10).

* Productivity was maintained and the reduction of seasonal loan backlogs was better managed.

* At one of the pilot sites, underwriter satisfaction with administrative systems tripled as more time became available for "real underwriting."

* Employees gained a heightened sense of control over their work, had more quality time to spend with their families, and felt better able to integrate their work and family lives.

* Turnover rates for employees participating in the pilot projects were lower than those for other employees.

Terrence Murray, CEO and chairman of Fleet, said, "We recognize that our employees are multidimensional -- in addition to their jobs, they often have responsibilities at home and in their communities. We think their life experiences make for better employees and better communities. Helping our employees fully integrate the different spheres of their professional and personal lives is part of our strategic business planning for the future."

A team of researchers, led by Rayman and former RPPI visiting professor Lotte Bailyn, worked at two Fleet sites to devise new ways of working to enhance business goals and employees' well-being. The study focused on how work is accomplished, how work affects employees' personal lives, and how changes in the way work is organized can have positive effects on employees' home and work lives.

Anne Szostak, Fleet executive vice president and director of corporate human resources, said, "In our effort to become an employer of choice, Fleet has implemented a variety of traditional and nontraditional workplace solutions to meet the needs of our business and the well-being of our employees. Work and life initiatives, such as the Radcliffe-Fleet Project, give Fleet a strategic, competitive advantage in attracting and maintaining a highly skilled workforce."

Two Fleet sites -- a retail, small business banking unit in Framingham, Mass., and a financial reporting and management information systems unit in Providence, R.I., -- were selected for the study. Each represented different, but important, aspects of the changes in today's banking industry: new technology, new forms of competition, banking deregulation, and the integration of newly acquired companies.

Through a preliminary survey, researchers learned that Fleet employees consider family and work to be the two most important elements in their lives. The employees also had strong time commitments to their workplaces -- all surveyed employees worked full-time, and 40 percent worked more than 50 hours a week.

In Framingham, employees expressed concerns about long commutes; difficulties in scheduling workloads; and burdensome administrative tasks that took underwriters away from their primary job duties and created overtime demands. To address these issues, certain administrative tasks were reassigned, freeing up more time for underwriting. A revised system for assigning and monitoring the status of loan underwriting, which facilitated workload management, and a small telecommuting experiment were also undertaken.

In Providence, employees were concerned about integrating the accounting and computer systems of recently acquired banks as well as the growing demands for faster, more sophisticated reporting. To address these issues, flex-time and telecommuting were introduced. Report request forms were also revised, giving employees more information about internal clients' reporting needs at the early stages of a project.

The Radcliffe-Fleet Project established a new standard for studies of this kind by adhering to comprehensive and rigorous research methods. A cross-disciplinary team of experts in economics, psychology, and organizational theory worked with Fleet to identify issues and develop strategies to address them. The team conducted evaluations at each site before, during, and after the initial implementation phase. Supervisors, employees, and their coworkers worked collaboratively to develop needs assessments, experiment design, and outcomes measurements.

Szostak said that Fleet expects to launch four additional work-and-life pilot projects in the year ahead and will continue to monitor the original pilot sites to identify long-term benefits and issues that may arise The Radcliffe Public Policy Institute (www.radcliffe.edu/pubpol/index.html) works to engage women and men as equal partners in shaping policy on important national economic, social, and political issues. By bringing together different constituencies, including business and labor people, policy makers, scholars, representatives of the media and community organizations, the Institute creates new strategies and contributes effective solutions for selected public policy problems.

Fleet Financial Group (www.fleet.com) is an $83.6 billion diversified financial services company. Fleet offers a complete array of products, providing solutions to individuals and businesses through a truly dynamic, diverse workforce of over 30,000 employees operating across the country. The nation's sixth largest commercial lender and New England's leading small business lender, Fleet's lines of business include consumer banking, government banking, mortgage banking, corporate finance, commercial real estate finance, insurance services, discount brokerage services, equipment leasing, and asset-based lending. Fleet also provides investment

management services for both individuals and institutional clients and currently has $52 billion in assets under management. With more than 1,200 branches and 2,300 ATMs located throughout the Northeast, Fleet also provides 24-hour telephone banking as well as electronic banking services through the Fleet PC Banking Center.