Richard Sheridan sits at a desk in the middle of Menlo Innovations with the rest of his employees – the CEO of the award-winning Ann Arbor software company has no corner office. In fact, no one at Menlo has their own office, cubicle, desk, or computer. Almost everything at the seven-year-old company is shared – even the jobs themselves.

The open office at Menlo Innovations is just one example of how the company has redefined what it means to have a flexible workplace. Named after Thomas Edison's “invention factory” in Menlo Park, N.J., the company takes a collaborative approach to all its software development projects. Taking the two-heads-are-better-than-one approach, all employees work in pairs all the time. At the end of each week, each employee pairs up with another colleague, creating a continuously rotating team.

This extreme job sharing has created a learning culture within the company that makes training second nature for all 50 employees who work there. It also makes for an extremely flexible workplace. New hires are literally working within minutes of arrival. And because employees are always paired on projects, there's no downtime or hand-off necessary when an employee takes some time off or goes on vacation.

This approach also makes it possible for employees to have work schedules that provide the kind of flexibility they need to fully enjoy life outside work. And instead of bringing work home, some employees bring home to work – new mothers don't just bring baby pictures to work, they bring their babies to work every day. Many Menlo employees work part time, and some working mothers have schedules that allow them to structure their work lives around the school year. Another employee who loves to travel gives about two weeks' notice when he has enough money saved up for a trip, and then he leaves – sometimes for months at a time. And in a high-tech industry where 12- and 14-hour days are standard, no one at Menlo works weekends or more than 40 hours a week.

These über flexible arrangements and radically different ways of doing business are just a few of the reasons why Menlo recently won an Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility for the third consecutive year. Since opening in 2001, the company also has landed on some other prestigious lists as well, including one of the 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America (Inc. magazine), Cool Places Places to Work (Crain's), and as a finalist on the Top Small Workplaces list (The Wall Street Journal and Winning Workplaces).

While each has a different menu of workplace flexibility options, Menlo Innovations and the other 11 companies that won this year's Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility have some important characteristics in common. They all have company cultures that encourage a high degree of teamwork and collaboration. They promote work-life balance through flexible schedules and arrangements. And they've all tapped into a key business axiom: happy employees are more loyal and productive.

If you allow a working mother to take the summer off so that she can be with her children, “when she comes back in the fall, she's a very loyal employee,” Sheridan said. Employees have different needs at different times in their lives. “We take those into account, and I can tell you that I get a very, very loyal workforce … All of my people have a life.”

Conversations about flexible workplaces are becoming more commonplace for several reasons, said Ellen Galinsky, president and cofounder of the Families and Work Institute, which sponsors the When Work Works program, along with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Institute for a Competitive Workforce, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Twiga Foundation. Many baby boomers want more flexible hours instead of more traditional retirements. And generational differences also are adding to the trend—younger workers, who grew up taking their computers to class or the coffee shop to do homework, now expect a more mobile workplace. And because technology enables companies to get work done around the clock, employees are expecting more flexibility. Other factors like rising gas prices also are fueling the trend toward a more flexible, mobile workforce.

And for many employers, cultivating a flexible workplace also is a talent attraction and retention strategy, said Marge LaRuffa, assistant vice president of talent management and development for Farmington Hills-based Amerisure Mutual Insurance Company, which won the Alfred P. Sloan award for the fourth year in a row.

Given today's shortage of talent and labor, smart employers know that they're competing for qualified people in a marketplace that's never been tighter, she said. If employees believe your company is inflexible, “it's candidly too easy for them to go someplace else.”

To accommodate employees' need for more flexibility, companies are providing a wide range of options, including four-day workweeks, telecommuting opportunities, and time off for care-giving duties, said Greg Roth, senior manager of workforce and education programs for the U.S. Chamber's Institute for a Competitive Workforce.

Here are some tips from Roth, Galinsky and some of Michigan's Alfred P. Sloan award winners on how to bring more flexibility into your workplace:

• Hire the right people: A flexible workplace requires the right kind of employee, said Tom Stanfield, people development director for Grand Rapids-based Mill Steel Co., a coil steel processor and first-year award winner. If you have the right people on board, they won't complain when a coworker needs to leave early to take their kid to soccer practice. And the right employees will be able to work collaboratively on a team. For these reasons, Stanfield is always more focused on hiring the right person than he is on the candidate with the right background and skills. One of the company's best salespeople is a young man who used to sell football helmets and had no background in the steel industry, Stanfield said. When you hire the right employees, you can teach them to do the job. Candidates who apply at Mill Steel go through a rigorous process that involves multiple interviews, online testing, and a personality test. By the time someone has hired into Mill Steel, the company has typically spent about $1,000 on that person, Stanfield said. Candidates at Menlo Innovations go through a rigorous process as well. The company generally interviews 40 to 50 people at a time, and each candidate is paired with someone from the company to perform a specific task. Similar to a speed dating process, candidates rotate from one team member to the next during the interview. Afterward, employees select the candidates who made the best impression – basically, the team builds the team.
• Build the right culture: A flexible work environment requires buy-in from managers who model a more flexible approach to work, Galinsky said. A lot of it requires an attitude change, “and people have to manage better if they're flexible,” she said. In a flexible work environment, more planning generally is required. It's also important how supervisors treat employees and how well they support work-life issues in practice. Cultivating the right culture also means retiring old ways of thinking about how work gets done, said Judy Orians, regional senior vice president and operations director of the central region for Lee Hecht Harrison in Southfield, a career management and outplacement firm and also an Alfred P. Sloan award winner. “A lot of this is thinking outside your box, or putting your box away.” Many businesses are programmed to say that work must get done from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but companies really have to ask whether that's necessary for every employee. Look at your business needs and ask yourself, If there were no rules, how would we do this? There's a lot of room for creativity, Roth said. “There's no one way to do anything in the workplace anymore.”
• Talk to your employees: There are plenty of workplace flexibility programs out there for companies to emulate, but it's not a one-size-fits-all proposition, LaRuffa said. “You need to talk to your employees. You need to know what would really be a driver for them because it's going to be different for every organization.” There's no sense in implementing a four-day workweek at your organization if no one would find that helpful, Roth said. And the work in your organization may not be conducive to a shortened workweek anyway. It's always about communication, said Mario Apruzzese, owner of Employees Only, an Auburn Hills human resources consulting and benefits management firm, which won an honorable mention in this year's Alfred P. Sloan awards program. There will always be scheduling issues in a flexible work environment, but if your employees are comfortable talking with you about their needs, there's less likelihood that you'll have last-minute glitches or someone sneaking out the back door to attend their child's soccer game, he said.
• Identify the problem you're trying to address: Before putting a workplace flexibility program in place, know what problem you're trying to resolve – start with a real need, Galinsky said. Put together a work group to examine what's not working in the organization from both the employees' and company's perspective, and then develop a set of possible solutions. It's also important to examine every workplace flexibility program to determine whether it is in alignment with your overall business strategy, LaRuffa said. “In the end, it has to produce something better for your company, your customers, and your employees,” she said. “It has to drive business results.”
• Pilot new programs: Before implementing any program throughout your company, develop a pilot to identify any glitches, LaRuffa said. As part of the pilot, make sure you develop a way to measure its success, Galinsky said. It's also a good idea to pilot only one or two programs at a time. And if there are issues that come up, don't be afraid to change your focus or approach if something isn't working right.
• Cross-train employees: As Sheridan can attest, it's helpful to have employees cross-trained so that there is no lapse in work progress when someone is on vacation or taking time off from work. Succession planning and onboarding also are much easier at Menlo. At Mill Steel, there also is a big emphasis placed on employee development and training. People who want to learn new skills are paired with a training buddy, who they shadow during the workday, Stanfield said. If employees can learn how to do a variety of different jobs, the company can be much more flexible when it comes to employees' schedules and other aspects of the job.
• Develop flexible schedules: Since much of the work at Lee Hecht Harrison deals with outplacement, the firm has to be flexible enough to handle an influx of 200 clients at a time, Orians said. To help manage the flow, Orians has adjunct staff members who she calls when the workload gets too heavy for her full-time employees. And while the office is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Orians allows employees to work schedules to suit their needs outside work. One employee, for example, prefers to come into work at 6:30 a.m. and leave at 3:30 p.m. And when employees need to leave in the middle of the day to care of business at home, it's understood that they just come and tell Orians – they don't have to ask for permission. Employees also are provided a certain number of paid time off days at the beginning of the year that they can use as they see fit, and that also provides flexibility. At Mill Steel, if someone needs to go to a kid's soccer game in the middle of the afternoon, the rest of the team absorbs the work until that person returns, Stanfield said. And the time is not counted as vacation either. The company also is flexible when it comes to sick time. In fact, the company does not count sick time as vacation time, he said. One employee's wife had twins with bad heart problems. One baby died, but the other survived with many health problems. To help, the company allowed the employee to take about six months off work – with pay.
• Offer a menu of options: Every employee has different needs, so it's smart to offer a variety of flexible work options, LaRuffa said. At Amerisure, employees can take paid time off to take care of family members' medical needs. The company also offers work-at-home options, flex time, opportunities to do volunteer work on company time, and schedules flexible enough to attend college courses during work hours. Amerisure also tries to accommodate employees with special considerations, LaRuffa said. One employee has a daughter who plays golf in amateur tournaments all over the country. She wanted to be with her daughter at the tournaments, so the company made that happen for the employee by creating a more flexible schedule for her, LaRuffa said.
• Encourage self-management. Several years ago when LaRuffa's staff approached her about summer hours, she was skeptical – she thought it was going to turn into a scheduling nightmare. But she told her staff that if they figured out how to do it successfully without hampering work productivity, that she would go along with it. “They managed it themselves,” and for the most part, it worked. Apruzzese took the same approach when his staff approached him about creating more flexible schedules so that parents could attend their children's functions and athletic events. His employees successfully developed a more flexible schedule without negatively impacting clients or other coworkers.

Written by Jenny Cromie, certified human resources specialist (CHRS)