Despite recent news that Yahoo! Inc. and other big employers have eliminated or reduced telecommuting, overall workplace flexibility has been on the rise over the last several years, says a group here that's promoting flexible practices.

The group, which consists of representatives from Greater Spokane Incorporated, the Inland Northwest chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management, and Spokane Valley-based staffing company Humanix Corp., has been named a community partner in a nationwide workplace-flexibility initiative.

Andrea Morgan, president of the SHRM Inland Northwest chapter, says she believes workforce-flexibility practices are growing among employers here.

"I think it's going to continue to grow and evolve as the economy continues to improve and employers try to recruit and retain employees," says Morgan, who works at Spokane law firm Lee & Hayes PLLC as a client development specialist, with a background in human resources.

Nancy Nelson, president of Humanix, says a recent national survey conducted by Families & Work Institute, a New York-based nonprofit, shows that 63 percent of responding employees had the option to work at least occasionally from home in 2012, up from 34 percent in 2005.

The same survey shows other workplace-flexibility provisions, such as periodic flex time, control over breaks, and the ability to take time off during the work day to attend to important personal needs without loss of pay, also rose during that period.

"For whatever reason, Yahoo is going against the trend," Nelson says.

In general terms, workplace flexibility means that employees and their supervisors have some control over when and where certain work gets done. It often includes a combination of flexibility in scheduling hours, the number of hours worked, allowing for extended absence and return to the workforce, and the ability to address urgent or ongoing personal and family needs, Nelson says.

Goals of the community partnership here are to educate employers about workplace-flexibility practices and to make Spokane known as a community that values workplace flexibility, she says.

As a community partner, the group is the official Inland Northwest host of the annual Sloan Awards for Excellence in Workplace Effectiveness and Flexibility.

GSI, which is the combined chamber of commerce and economic development agency here, first began promoting the workplace-flexibility initiative and the Sloan awards in 2007. It has appointed Keri Gardner, GSI's internship development manager, as its point woman to promote the initiative, which culminates with the annual awards.

Only employers that rank among the top 20 percent when compared with national data on workplace flexibility are eligible to receive the Sloan award, which is named for former Ford Motor Co. CEO Alfred P. Sloan.

The two-step application process not only includes the employers' initial applications, but a follow-up for qualifying businesses in which the employees are asked to evaluate flexibility at their workplace.

The employees' responses are weighted heavily in the final judging.

Humanix and the SHRM chapter here joined in the community partner relationship to provide GSI additional resources to promote the initiative.

Spokane is one of 26 communities or states nationwide with a community partner designated by Families & Work Institute and the Society for Human Resource Management, which together oversee the Sloan awards.

"When we win the Sloan award, it puts the public on notice that we support workforce flexibility," says Nelson, whose company has won the award five times and is a finalist, along with five other Spokane-area companies to win 2013 Sloan awards.

Two of this year's finalists, Ambassadors Group Inc. and Community-Minded Enterprises, are first-time applicants. The other finalists are the Spokane operations of BDO USA LLP, Career Path Services, and Principal Financial Group.

The winners will be announced June 14.

Nancy Rust, finance and operations administrator at Community-Minded Enterprises, says the Spokane nonprofit demonstrates workplace flexibility by encouraging staff members to value family before work.

"We focus on the quality of work as opposed to how many hours we're clocking," Rust says. "Our work week is understood to be 40 hours. We don't encourage even salaried employees to work more than 40 hours a week."

Community-Minded Enterprises, which has a staff of 25 people, advocates affordable shelter, accessible and healthy food sources, grassroots economic development, child care support and education, and environmental sustainability.

Rust says employees are allowed to bring children or pets to work if the need arises. "They can come and go for personal appointments," she adds.

Flexibility helps maintain morale and productivity, Rust says.

Nelson contends flexibility can improve productivity when employees are more satisfied with the balance between their work and personal lives.

"To me, it makes the bottom line stronger," she says.

Nelson says Humanix employees all have the ability to work at home. One employee resides in Arizona half the year and works remotely from there.

Such flexibility is a recruiting tool that helps employers draw top talent, Nelson contends.

Perhaps even more importantly, she says, workplace flexibility also is an employee-retention tool that helps employers hold onto their top performers.

"For us, the average tenure is 8.5 years per employee," Nelson says. For the staffing industry, however, the average turnover is 18 months, she asserts.

"Keeping our recruiters is huge," Nelson says. "It makes our relationships with clients stronger."

Nelson says she began to appreciate the value of flexibility when her family had a protracted medical emergency in 2000.

"The company allowed me to work from the hospital," she says. "For three months, I focused on key components of my job."

After that, Nelson says, she made sure workplace-flexibility provisions were available to all Humanix employees.

"We can't always leave life's issues at work's door," she says. "When employees have more life-work balance, they're more engaged at work. If they're stressed and not able to handle something, productivity goes down."

Workplace flexibility will look different for every company, Nelson says.

"It has to work for that company and its employees," she says. "I've had to say no to issues that leave staff coverage too short."

Humanix has 16 core employees, including one full-time employee based in Coeur d'Alene, and another in Las Vegas.

Last year, Humanix placed about 1,300 workers with client companies, Nelson says.

Those workers are subject to whatever workplace-flexibility practices the clients have in place, she says.

Nelson says she's happy to consult some of Humanix's clients about workplace flexibility.

"We touch so many different companies," she says. "Our job is to find the company the best people. It's the company's job to keep them."

Nelson adds, "We try to educate the client."