It is an essential tool for businesses to attract and retain quality employees who often have family commitments that fall inside the traditional 9-to-5 workday.

Now Utah businesses can get help with developing workplace flexibility from a new federal program.

The Salt Lake Chamber's Women's Business Center has been selected to implement the Flex-Options Initiative for the state by the Women's Bureau, a U.S. Department of Labor agency. The program, particularly aimed at helping women employees, provides mentoring to small and medium-sized businesses interested in developing a workplace flexibility program for all workers.

"People have lives other than their work," says Michael Williams, a Women's Bureau economist who is coordinating the program. "[Flexibility] allows workers to simplify their lives."

Flexibility programs are tailored to individual businesses and usually include options such as flex time, compressed work weeks, telecommuting, part-time work and job sharing. They can also include on-site day-care centers and accommodations for new mothers, such as allowing them to bring infants to work and designating a private room for breast-feeding.

Flex time allows employees to work during their most convenient or productive hours, such as a 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. or 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., or vary their shifts by the day or week. Some employees may want longer weekends and compress their schedules into four 10-hour days or three 12-hour days, and others may wish to telecommute from home. Job sharing allows two employees who would prefer part-time work to split a full-time job, divvying up the days of the week with some overlap and communication on projects.

"For some people, it might make the difference between working and not working," says Nancy Mitchell, director of the Women's Business Center.

Businesses benefit from flexible-work programs by improving employee morale, expanding their pool of potential job applicants, extending business hours and retaining employees.

The Women's Business Center will pair 10 businesses interested in developing or expanding a workplace flexibility program with 10 businesses that have strong programs in place. Business owners, executives or human resource managers will learn how to create a flexible workplace from other professionals with firsthand knowledge.

After Carrie Dunn had her second child, she quit her job with a local television station and started her own marketing firm, Strategex, to give herself more control over her work schedule. She has extended that flexibility to her five employees, four of whom are also mothers. One employee works only during the hours her kids are in school and another does the bookkeeping from home.

"I tell my employees that they are not going to be good employees unless they have a balance [between work and family life]," Dunn says. "Giving them the time they need at home makes them more productive in the office."

rwinters@sltrib.com

How to participate

Businesses interested in the U.S. Labor Department's Flex-Options Initiative can contact Zee Min Xiao, assistant director of the Salt Lake Chamber's Women's Business Center, at 801-328-5057 or zxiao@saltlakechamber.org.