White House Hosts Forum on Workplace Flexibility

On Wednesday, President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and the White House Council on Women and Girls hosted a White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility attended by policy experts, workers, senior administrative officials, and members of the business and labor communities to discuss ways to make the workplace more flexible for working families. Before one of a series of breakout sessions, President Obama offered praise for companies that offer telecommuting, flextime, compressed work weeks, job sharing, flexible start and end times, and help for their employees to find quality childcare and eldercare. With respect to how flexible policies impact companies’ bottom lines, Obama noted that the report (pdf) released that day by the White House Council of Economic Advisers “found that companies with flexible work arrangements can actually have lower turnover and absenteeism, and higher productivity, and healthier workers.”

During her remarks, First Lady Michelle Obama said that the Administration endorsed, among other legislative efforts, the Healthy Families Act (H.R. 2460, S. 1152), a bill introduced in both the House and Senate this legislative term that requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide paid sick leave. Under the provisions of this bill, an eligible employee would be able to earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked up to a maximum of 56 hours (seven days) annually. This leave could be taken for one’s own or a family member’s illness, be used for preventative care or to address acts of domestic violence, stalking or sexual assault. An employee would start accruing sick leave from day one of employment, and would be able to take leave after 60 days. Sick leave would carry over from year to year, but could not exceed 56 hours unless otherwise sanctioned by the employer. 

President Obama concluded his remarks by saying that the participants plan to “continue this conversation in the coming months, holding forums and roundtables in communities across the country, so we can seek out more good ideas and best practices that we can adopt and promote.”

Photo credit:  lovleah