When the economy gets rough, and profits begin to decline, one place businesses look to make cuts is in the area of employee assistance programs, according to business experts.

Most businesses provide such programs on the assumption that it is good for the bottom line – support for employees in their personal lives is designed to help them keep their personal duties and problems from interfering with their work, thus helping to keep them productive.

But this attitude may slowly be giving way to a more long-term viewpoint – that such programs would better serve the company and employees if the programs were oriented more toward employee and community well-being.

These programs then become part of quality improvement, because programs for the employees help them add value to the services and products that a company offers.  Many low-level workers, for example, do not have sick time or vacation time or even health insurance through their employer.  By looking at the factors that prevent these employees from getting such benefits, it would help these employees, and contribute to the competitiveness of the company.

Research has also shown that laws passed to give relief to employees with family responsibilities, such as the Family and Medical Leave Act, have for the most part not worked out very well.  The Family Leave Act, for example, covers just 11 percent of the work sites in the country.

Businesses need to do more to evaluate the effectiveness of the work-home life programs, according to business researchers.  Long-term studies would help businesses to identify the connections between work and home and help them to better understand what leads to conflicts between workers and their jobs.

Up to now, research has tended to focus on the two-income, married couples and the issues they have with work and home.  Little work has been done to look at the situations and needs of low-income, single workers who have families, according to some business experts.  More research also needs to be done on the nature of the jobs themselves, not just on the workers and their family needs.

Researchers looked at the hotel, transportation, retail and financial services industries, and discovered that there is a high amount of turnover and not much of an opportunity for workers to center their lives around the needs of their families.

When you need more flexibility in either your working life, or in your Tampa-area company’s staffing, contact StaffEx. We can help you find a more flexible job situation (if looking for work), or help you craft a strategic and flexible staffing plan (if you need employees). We look forward to hearing from you.