Workplace Flexibility 2010 was a campaign to support the development of a comprehensive national policy on workplace flexibility. Along with partners at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s National Initiative on Workplace Flexibility, the work of Workplace Flexibility 2010 helped set the stage for a robust national debate on how to restructure the workplace to meet the needs of today’s workforce.
Workplace Flexibility 2010 viewed workplace flexibility as part of the solution to a myriad of intense pressures facing American employees and employers. Workplace flexibility was defined to include the following three components: Flexible Work Arrangements, Time Off, and Career Flexibility.
- Flexible Work Arrangements (FWAs) alter the time and/or place that work is conducted on a regular basis, in a manner that is as manageable and predictable as possible for both employees and employers. FWAs provide flexibility in the scheduling of hours worked, amount of hours worked, and the place of work, and thus include arrangements such as flex time and compressed workweeks, part-time work and job shares, and telework.
- Time Off provides leave from work for a defined period of time to address unexpected or ongoing personal and family needs, and can describe short-term time off (STO) for needs like sick days or parent-teacher conferences, episodic time off (EPTO) for an employee’s or family member’s chronic illness, or extended time off (EXTO), for longer interruptions like grave personal illness, caretaking, or military service.
- Career Flexibility (C-Flex) addresses the fact that careers in the 21st century economy often follow a cyclical rather than a linear progression. Out of necessity or personal choice, individuals may leave the workforce for a period of time, but will need and/or want to reenter the workforce at a later point in time. C-Flex is comprised of three critical components: career exit, the point in time when an individual decides to leave the workforce; career maintenance, the period of time spent out of the workforce by an individual; and career reentry, the point in time when an individual chooses to get back into the workforce.
Workplace Flexibility 2010’s work proceeded along two tracks:
From 2003-2010, Workplace Flexibility 2010 created a deep substantive knowledge base on workplace flexibility through a systematic review of laws impacting workplace flexibility in this country, including the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and tax and benefit laws like the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), and the Social Security Act (SSA).
For our public policy reports, legal memos, fact sheets, charts and summaries:
In addition, Workplace Flexibility 2010 engaged a diverse range of stakeholders, including business and labor representatives, in thoughtful dialogue about common-sense workplace flexibility public policies.
For information on our outreach and community stakeholder development:
Browse the Workplace Flexibility 2010 Collections:
Briefings, Hearings, and Congressional Study Group
Charts and Summaries of State, U.S., and Foreign Laws and Regulations