* Flex appeal
Flexible schedules and the freedom to work offsite make for happier employees and cut turnover, according to a study by a pair of University of Minnesota sociologists. Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen surveyed workers at Best Buy both before and after the Minneapolis-based firm adopted a Results Only Work Environment, or ROWE, which allows employees to work whenever and wherever they want as long as their jobs get done. The change cut turnover nearly in half, in part by reducing the number of workers leaving due to the pressure of balancing work and family. Best Buy’s results show that “it’s feasible to broaden access to schedule control and thereby relieve work-family conflicts,” says Moen. The study results were published in this month’s American Sociological Review.
* Site unseen
Companies are outsourcing work to remote online workers in booming numbers, says an employment report by Elance, a hiring site for online contractors. Jobs posted on the site have doubled over the past year, and spiked 32 percent between the last quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011, according to the firm, which estimates that online workers raked in $30 million during the last quarter. They attribute the growth to businesses that are adopting “hybrid hiring models,” supplementing stripped-down staffs with “skill-specific” offsite workers, especially IT jocks. (PHP and WordPress programmers are the remote workers most in demand.) New York is the top earning city in the country for online workers, though the US is second behind India as the top earning country.
* Word up
And the winner is: “social media.” Or maybe that’s the loser. Either way, that phrase topped a list of the most annoying industry buzzwords in a poll of marketing and advertising executives by the staffing firm Creative Group. In second place: “synergy.” Other words and phrases that made the top 20 included “value added,” “going green,” “branding,” “viral” and the perennial favorite “think out of the box.”
* Men of steal
Three-quarters of employees have stolen from their workplace, according to a survey by office designers Maris Interiors. On the bright side for employers, the most commonly snagged item is the humble pen, followed by printer paper, stamps, mugs and toilet paper. One in 20 has pilfered a big-ticket item, though, with targets including laptops, office plants and, for the extra-ambitious miscreant, entire desks.