A recent study by the Society of Human Resources Management suggests that the traditional nine-to-five work environment is quickly becoming a thing of the past. This can be attributed to several reasons: • Technological advances (e.g. PDAs/smartphones, VPN access, virtual desktops, etc.). • Increased competition/global economy. • Dual income families. • Increase the number of employees with care responsibilities (e.g., child care, elder care). • Different needs of different generations in the workplace (for example, employees under 35 years of age tend to appreciate greater flexibility in the workplace). • Single-parent families. • Sustainability (for example, an organization's ability to balance financial performance with contributing to the quality of life of its employees, the local community and society at large). Currently, Marten Printing and Office Supplies (Marten Printing) has ten employees working in various roles (see Appendix A for organizational chart). Their offices are above the store at 9564 Maxwell Street, in Madison, Wisconsin and there is no room for expansion. Marten Printing wants to ensure that it can enable its employees to achieve a balance between their salaried work and other responsibilities. Marten's proposes to adopt a flexible working environment. Types of Flexible Work Environments There are various types of flexible work environments. For this evaluation, the following was considered: • Number of employees. • Segmentation by age. • Job responsibilities. • Place of residence of employees. The most common flexible work environments are teleworking, compressed work and part-time/job sharing. Telecommuting Telecommuting enables employees to work from home instead of coming to the office. This… middle of paper… where staff only worked four days instead of the typical five days. Employers may require the employee to work more hours to allow them to continue to be classified as a full-time employee. For example, an employee may work four to ten hours a day and then have three consecutive days off. Works Cited http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/career-coach-the-pros-and-cons-of- telecommuting/2013/03/22/fee86bfa-9196-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239_story.html http ://humanresources.about.com/od/employeebenefits/f/flex_schedules.htm http://www.shrm.org/HRDISCIPLINES/ BENEFITS/Pages/workflex.aspx http://www.insperity.com/blog/weighing -the-pros-and-cons-of-a-flexible-work-arrangement/ http://hrcouncil.ca/hr-toolkit /workplaces-flexible.cfm http://sshl.ucsd.edu/intranet/policies/ awst/AWST_Report.htm http://www.flexibility.co.uk/flexwork/general/SMEs.htm