It's a fact of life, but lets face it today's business world is increasingly demanding. We now have many technological aides to help us organize and raise productivity levels. The days of forty-hour workweeks have died at the hands of the Internet, email and Blackberry PDAs. As Human Resource Representatives it falls to you to help employees find the proper balance between work and personal welfare. To that end many employers have implemented wellness, stress management and conflict resolution programs to help workers cope with the daily pressures of the business world. Although extremely beneficial, these programs may just be treating the symptoms.
Today's workers are a lot more sophisticated than in previous generations and simply need to blow off steam after a twelve-hour workday or a seventy-hour workweek. This craving for entertainment and social networking has led to increasing numbers of individuals seeking planned and mixed-use developments that provide them with entertainment, shopping and social interaction outside the workplace. The "Metropolitan Living" movement has seen success in places like Boston's South End, Atlanta's Atlantic Station District, and Miami's Miami Shores and have seen popularity across many demographics.
There is one thing that both employees and employers can agree on, that a happy employee is a productive one. And there is one thing that I know employees will agree with, its that they must have a life outside of work. What good does it do for an individual to live five miles from work just to shorten their commute if their neighborhood or surroundings aren't desirable to them?
It is well known in the Human Resources community that there are many reasons an individual will leave a job and most of them have their roots in interaction with their management and co-workers. That being said it's important that employees get the social interaction outside of the workplace that they need. Otherwise, an employee who is considering leaving will only have one more reason to take the talent that you searched so hard for to another company.
The solution for the HR Representative is to seriously consider including "Retention through Relocation" seriously within their current Employee Retention programs through workshops and information posted on the company Intranet. The upside for your HR department is at a minimum their employees will get valuable knowledge about real estate and other communities in the area. Also, here is the one that any fiscally frugal HR director can live with--it costs zero dollars to have a real estate professional come to your location to hold the workshop.
