Assessment: Conduct assessment to determine the demographics (gender, race and other social characteristics) of employees taking advantage of flexible work options, promotion and attrition rates of this group compared to those who do not take advantage of the programs, when and in which parts of the company are women opting out of positions, who in management takes advantage of flexible work options, and other pertinent information.

Periodic Climate Survey: Conduct periodic climate surveys of employees to accurately assess corporate culture and employee needs. Could include conducting focus groups and employee resource groups to determine the viability of flexible programs, reasons for opting in or out of programs and certain job categories, differences between divisions in male and female employees, unwritten rules and cultural norms. Results should be broken out by gender and/or other identities.

Compliance: Comply with local, state and federal law on this issue.

Flexible Work Assessment

Assessment: Conduct assessment to determine employee flexibility needs, which jobs are suited to flexibility and if there is the potential to reconfigure other jobs to make them suitable for flexible work arrangements. Also determine which technology, if any, is needed to support flexible work arrangements and if there is a willingness to invest in such technology This assessment could also study willingness of company culture to adopt flexibility programs and how to make changes as necessary.

Flexible Work Schedule Arrangements

Occasional Flex: Employee work hours are changed on a certain day of the week – the office opens an hour later on Fridays – or changed at a certain time of the year such as summer hours.

Variable Flex: Employees can take a break during the day and can make up the time on either end of the workday, or start or end early or late as needed.

Daily Flex: Employees may work nontraditional hours on a regular basis.

Core Hours: Employees must be in the office at a certain period, but can start or end early or late.

Compressed Work Week: Employees may work longer hours on certain days, such as 10 hours a day, four days a week.

Part-Time Schedules: Employees may work part time.

Job Sharing: Employees may job share, such as when two part-time employees share one full-time position.

Control Hours: Employees have some control/choice over which shifts they work, including the ability to control overtime hours.

Sabbaticals: Company supports paid or unpaid sabbaticals after which an employee can return to a comparable job.

Notice: Employees are provided with adequate notice of shifts so that they can make necessary family care arrangements.

Shift schedules: Employees may set their own schedules, bid for desired shifts, and/or shift swap without incurring points towards firing.

Overtime: Employees are given notice for overtime.

Overtime: Employees can refuse overtime for family issues.

Personnel Policies: Employees may use reasonable amounts of episodic flexibility and short leaves–personal time in hour increments, vacation time in days rather than weeks, sick leave banks, and access to unpaid personal leaves–without penalty.

Breaks: Employees have some control over breaks, including making calls home if necessary during the day, without jeopardizing their employment.

Utilization: Utilization of alternative work schedules does not impede employee advancement.

Utilization: Utilization of alternative work schedules does not preclude participation in critical benefit programs such as health and disability insurance.

Flexible Work Locations

Working at Home Part-Time: Employees may work at home on a part-time or seasonal basis.

Working Offsite: Employees may work at an alternative location; this location could be provided by the employer.

Working at Home Full-Time: Employees may work at home on a full-time basis.

Management

Standardized Policy: Employees fill out standardized form to request flexible work options in order to ensure fairness throughout the company.

Support: Senior management verbally express their support for flexible work options.

Dialogue: Managers have an open dialogue with employees about work life balance policies and receive feedback on improvements in a team setting.

Modeling: Managers are open about their usage of flex time in order to set tone for their employees to discuss their own flex time needs.

Training: Current and new managers receive training on how to manage objectives versus people.

Training: Managers receive training on flexible work options, how to manage people who choose to have flexible schedules, how to judge talent and hard work in a flexible setting, and how to avoid explicit and/or hidden bias.

Mandatory Leave: Legally mandated leave, including federal, state, county, and city, is well-publicized and enforced.

Paid Family Leave: Support 12 or more weeks for new parents, including mothers, fathers, domestic partners, adoptive parents and foster parents.

Paid Family Leave: Support 12 or more weeks for employees needing to care for seriously ill children, spouses, domestic partners, or other family members.

Shared Leave Program: Allow employees to donate personal/ vacation time to others facing emergency situations.

Adoption: Support policies for adoptive parents including adoption subsidy to assist with paying for adoption process, and time off for adoption related activities such as court appearances.

Extended Career Breaks: Allow time-off for caregiving or other family/ personal responsibilities.

Caregiver Status Non-Discrimination: Adopt a policy which explicitly prohibits discrimination based on caregiver status.

Compliance: Comply with local, state and federal law on this issue with sufficient notice to employees.

Fitness Programs: Offer employees discounted or free fitness center memberships.

Ergonomics Program: Establish ergonomics programs providing employees with feedback on body mechanics and ergonomics.

Seminars and/or Webinars : Offer sessions on topics such as smoking cessation, weight management, stress reduction, financial planning, parenting, and elder care.

Lactation Support Services: Offer education, on-site mothers' room, storage site, and lactation consulting.

Alternative Healthcare: Health insurance plans cover alternative health care such as chiropractic, acupuncture, and massage.

On-site Medical Assistance Services: Support services including volunteer immunization clinics, nutritional counseling, health screenings, mental-health counseling, reproductive health/pregnancy programs, and/or on-site nurse.

On-site Fitness Programs: Support fitness programs at the worksite.

Routine Adult Wellness Allowance: Financially support routine adult preventative services, including physician office visits, which may not be covered elsewhere.

Educational programs: Offer educational programs geared towards employees who are exiting or re-entering the workforce.

Reentry Plan: Conduct outreach to women before they leave the workplace to create a reentry plan.

Recruitment Staff: Train staff to discount resume gaps due to off-ramping , and recognize the value of returning employees.

Tap Broader Talent Pool: Foster relationships with non-profits and affinity group associations that help companies tap a broader talent pool.

Flexible Work Programs: Support programs such as alternative, flexible, and/or customized work schedules to ease reentry.

Mentoring: Support formal and informal mentoring opportunities for on-ramping employees.

Connections to the Workplace: Offer voluntary programs geared towards helping employees stay connected with the workplace during their absence, ranging from continued e-mail correspondence about work-related professional and social opportunities to paid consultancy opportunities.

Ramp-Down Programs: Establish programs to provide part-time, high impact work for employees who need to ramp down.

Recruitment: Establish programs to identify, recruit, and hire off-ramped employees.

Structured Ramp-Up Programs: Offer programs for returning employees similar to those in place for relocating or expatriate employees, which can include educational and training programs and networking opportunities geared towards bridging any gaps created while they were away.

Compliance: Comply with local, state and federal law on this issue.

Assessment: Assess employees' dependent care needs.

Dependent Care Resource and Referral Services: Offer assistance through resources and referrals, including information on local dependent care services, backup dependent care options, non-traditional hours dependent care, and resources on vacation time activities and other options.

Dependent Care Assistance Plans (DCAPs): Offer employees programs that allow dependent care payments with pretax dollars.

Informational Programs: Support programs on specific dependent care issues such as parenting teenagers, caring for people with disabilities, and grandparents raising grandchildren.

Block Dependent Care: Negotiate a reduced rate for a "block" of dependent care slots at a nearby dependent care centers.

Dependent Care Subsidies: Offer financial support for dependent care with vouchers or other subsidies.

Dependent Care Reimbursement: Offer reimbursement of dependent care costs when employees travel for business or have to work late.

Short-Term Dependent Care: Offer interim dependent care options, such as afterschool care or care for school age children on vacation.

Backup or Emergency Dependent Care: Offer dependent care options for employees when they have problems with their regular dependent care arrangements (center-based and/or in-home care).

Develop Dependent Care Centers: Work with local transportation and dependent care management agencies to develop dependent care centers, where needed, with hours that coordinate with company's work shifts.

On-Site Dependent Care: Explore the creation of on-site dependent care, at or near the employment site.

Assessment: Determine demographics of which employees attend which trainings, find underserved employee groups, determine employee needs and interests, and track post training data to see impact of trainings (bottom line, career advancement of participants, etc.).

Disaggregated Data: Maintain gender-disaggregated data on training and vocational programs, including who is being recruited for programs, who takes them, and who passes them.

Information: Provide employees access to frequently updated information about educational and vocational opportunities offered by the company and local institutions.

System: Support a system for determining whether employees need literacy or numeracy skills-building, with provisions that recognize the sensitivity and confidentiality required and reward rather than dis-incentivize participation in courses.

Support: Support educational efforts by all employees via means such as flexible work arrangements, tuition subsidies, and incentives for degree completion.

Training for Non-traditional Fields: Pay special attention to encouraging women to gain vocational certificates or degrees in non-traditional fields, and to recruiting men for training and vocational programs traditionally dominated by women.

English-Language Courses: Consider offering English language courses for speakers of other languages.

Work with Colleges: Approach colleges with occupational education programs in their communities or/and internship programs to offer to employees.

Extend Training and Vocational Opportunities: Extend opportunities to women who work in other businesses (e.g. contract factories) that produce your company's products or are otherwise part of your supply chain.

Various Training Formats: Ensure that training and vocational courses are offered in various formats, in order to facilitate participation by women and others minority groups, such as offering courses during work hours, via distance-learning, via mentoring or tutoring arrangements, or having a job-shadowing program.

Internships: Create internship programs, preferably paid, to encourage career exploration.

Time Off: Allow time off for education/training to improve skills.

Apprenticeship: Create apprentice programs with an emphasis on traditionally underrepresented groups.

Monitor: Monitor on an ongoing basis the progress of the organization in preparing the workplace for women.

Commitment from the Top: Give priority, visible support, and adequate resources to women's leadership training programs.

Mission and Brand: Make realization of the potential of diverse talent part of the company's mission and brand.

Leadership Training: Identify committed champions from across business units or divisions to spearhead women's network and leadership training initiative.

Survey Teachable Skills: Examine skills women in positions of power within the company have, determine which of these skills are teachable, and figure out how to teach the skills through professional development courses.

Focus on Business: Position women's leadership training as a vehicle to improve the overall company.

Skills Development: Help women conduct self-assessments of their professional development gaps and skills and competencies that require further refinement. Assist them in the development of future strategies and training plans.

Exposure to Role Models: Create forums for women employees to hear from senior women executives on leadership and career advancement.

Training at All Levels: Gender specific professional development is focused on developing women over time at each tenure level.

Training Time: Ensure trainings are offered both during the workday and after work for greater participation of all employees.

Training Evaluation: In training evaluations examine impact of training on women's versus men's performance and promotion, especially if training is on intrinsic skills.

Leadership Programs: Both men and women participate in leadership training program for top performers within the company.

On-The-Job Learning: Emphasize on-the-job learning through rotations and project work.

Cross Functional Career Moves: Through career counseling, encourage female employees to think about cross functional career moves to broaden their skills portfolio and accelerate their progress.

External groups: Support employee membership in professional external groups, such as industry associations or women's business networks. This is even more critical in industries or sectors where there is generally a low percentage of female representation.

Access: Ensure networking/employee resource groups (ERGs) are available to all interested employees.

Framework: Ensure ERGs have defined goals and objectives, and provide on-going programmatic support.

Budget: Provide ERGs with dedicated budgets.

Access: Provide ERGs with regular access to executives through executive sponsorship.

Purpose: Utilize ERGs as strategic resources, with participating employees contributing to marketing, product, and business development ideas.

Access: Provide ERGs with access to the CEO.

Disclosure: Disclose performance results, goals, and objectives. Communicate achievements and plans to address challenges/gaps.

Resources: Provide women with equal resources (mailing lists, phone numbers) to access clients.

Marketing: Market female employees equally to potential clients and develop safeguards to prevent discriminatory client preferences from impeding female career advancement.

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Referrals: Provide business referrals equally to female employees

Client events: Consider additional security precautions that could facilitate female attendance, such as valet parking, or safety escorts.

Client events: Be mindful of certain timings that may prevent women from attending.

Assignments/Opportunities: Provide equality of assignments and opportunities, being mindful of quality, visibility, and priority.

Metrics: Measure client development event participation to ensure equality of opportunity. Measure assignments to ensure they are being equally distributed. Use findings to identify both achievements and challenges/gaps. Develop action plan, including establishment of measurable short- and long-term goals.

Disclosure: Disclose performance results, goals, and objectives. Communicate achievements and plans to address challenges/gaps.

Metrics: Measure the impact of formal mentoring programs on employees by demographics (gender, race and other social characteristics), including promotion rates of mentees and mentors. Use findings to identify both achievements and challenges/gaps. Develop action plan, including establishment of measurable short and long-term goals.

Access: Ensure mentoring programs are available to all interested employees at all levels of the company.

Framework: Ensure mentoring programs have defined goals and objectives. Create customized action plans for mentees and mentors that clearly address objectives and expectations.

Resources: Provide training/coaching, resources, and on-going programmatic support.

Recognition: Employees get recognition and are rewarded for mentoring others.

Community mentoring: Provide opportunities for employees to gain leadership skills through mentoring of community members, such as youth or members of traditionally underrepresented groups

Classroom mentoring: Offer classroom-focused programs, including classes on various leadership and development skills. Role-playing or simulation training sessions are a critical part of this type of program.

Peer mentoring: Offer peer-based program that matches a more seasoned employee with a newer hire, focusing on company culture and overall working environment.

Executive mentoring: Offer executive-level program that matches a senior-level executive to a non-executive employee, focusing on broadening network, increasing visibility, and further developing leadership skills.

Rotational mentoring: Offer structured program that provides opportunities for employees to rotate job assignments for a predetermined timeframe. Allows participants opportunities to broaden network, access high profile projects, and develop additional areas of expertise.

Disclosure: Disclose performance results, goals, and objectives. Communicate achievements and plans to address challenges/gaps.