Drawbacks in Alternative Work Arrangments

Alternative work arrangements are useful approaches for both the health care employer and health care employee. Do you see any drawbacks for expanding their use in health care organizations?

Most Health care organizations in North America offer alternate work policies and arrangements to their employees as they do recognize that the best asset they have is their people. Large organizations, and most health care organizations are, also identify a clear correlation between stress levels among their employees and the levels of absenteeism and productivity. It is also of note that in health care, most employees are women who traditionally and culturally have taken on the caregiving roles associated with parenting and caring for elderly. Most women in today’s society also cannot afford to assume a singular caregiving role and must work in order to either provide for their families or contribute to the lifestyle of choice.

In our “aging society, as the obligations outside work for child or elder care increases, organizations are finding that providing support to their workforce ensures maintaining mandated performance. This support may also be necessary for those employees who wish to dedicate more time to altruism or philanthropy or those who wish to further their education. Their achievements also have longer term benefits for the organizations who keep the “bragging rights” in being able to foster and monopolize on resident talent as well as promote volunteerism.

This offered support in the form of alternate work arrangements is also valued by employees who have several options to help them balance the work-life obligations. These options may include the flexible hours of work, self-scheduling, compressed work weeks, job sharing, working part-time or taking leaves of absence (paid and unpaid) that protect their jobs. There is also a concept of gradual retirement, which has great benefits for the employees who are not quite ready for full retirement