News release
Johnson Storage & Moving Highlighted in New Guide to Improving Workplace Policies for the 21st Century Workforce
February 10, 2011
Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996
Company’s Flexible Workplace Policies are Model for Other Businesses
Several years ago, Jim Johnson, owner of Johnson Storage & Moving Company, was encouraged by his wife to attend a talk on flexible workplace policies. Struggling to find a balance between raising their twins and working as an attorney, she had been reassured by what she had heard – that companies can still remain competitive while offering their employees the kinds of flexible work options that would eliminate the struggle between work and life commitments: raising children, taking care of aging parents, or just making ends meet and taking care of themselves.
Jim, too, was inspired by the issue, and began offering flexible work options to his employees in 1995. Today, nearly 30 percent of his employees take advantage of these policies. Allowing employees to work virtually and set their own hours, the company has seen turnover nearly eliminated, and increased profits and quality far above the industry average.
“Sixteen years after instituting flexible schedules and working at home into our work place the decision continues to engage those workers in our work due to their appreciation of flexible scheduling and working from home,” said Jim. “Millennials, the next generation of workers who will carry on our 112 year tradition, indicate that they want—indeed will demand flexible schedules and the ability to telecommute. We’re fortunate to have an established culture that can accommodate and thus attract this workforce.”
The success of Johnson Storage & Moving Company is profiled in the book The Custom-Fit Workplace: Choose When, Where, and How to Work and Boost Your Bottom Line, by MomsRising founder Joan Blades and Nanette Fondas. The Custom-Fit Workplace is a guide for managers and employees at all levels to implement “custom-fit” work, accommodating workers’ needs and improving companies’ bottom lines. The book details best practices used by private companies and nonprofits across the country, which have created win-win situations for both businesses and employees.
These cutting-edge, custom-fit practices include work-from-home arrangements, results-only work environments, babies-at-work programs, and successful career lane changes, among others. And Johnson Storage & Moving isn’t the only company that has seen tremendous success from custom-fit work – the success stories of Jet Blue, Ernst & Young, Best Buy and the University of California are also profiled in the book.
In order to share more information about how businesses and employees benefit from a custom-fit workplace, the authors have created a web site where people can share their perspectives on their workplaces and how they accommodate a 21st Century workforce, find resources for implementing new policies and much more.
The web site, www.customfitworkplace.org, now includes a blog from Johnson Storage & Moving employee Lori Tubaya about how the company’s work-from-home policy has helped five generations of her family by allowing her to care for her children, her mother-in-law and her grandkids as she needed. Lori’s blog, detailing her experience, can be read here http://customfitworkplace.org/blog.
“A custom-fit workplace is one that not only fits employees’ lives, but also the employers’ needs,” said Joan Blades, co-author of the book. “Johnson Storage & Moving is a perfect example of how flexible workplace practices, like being able to work from home, help employees meet their family responsibilities and also help employers improve their bottom line. More companies need to look seriously at these kinds of practices and how they can benefit from them.”
The Custom-Fit Workplace has important and far-reaching implications for the way we work and improving not only people’s lives but companies’ bottom lines. This research-based book presents flexible work tactics to help workers integrate their work and home responsibilities, and allow managers to tap into the power of their key asset: their employees.