Best Buy Secret To Employee Health: Job Flexibility

The Best Buy retail store in Providence Town Center, Routes 29 and 422, Collegeville PA

RICHFIELD MN – Best Buy, the nation’s largest electronics retailer with stores in Collegeville, Pottstown, and King of Prussia PA, is improving the health of employees participating in a pilot program that gives them more flexibility in their work schedules, according to a study released this month (December 2011) by researchers at the University of Minnesota.

The study, titled “Changing Work, Changing Health: Can Real Work-Time Flexibility Promote Health Behaviors and Well-Being?,” is featured in this month’s Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and was the topic Friday (Dec. 30) an article on the BusinessInsider.com website. Best Buy is headquartered in Richfield MN.

Researchers led by Phyllis Moen looked at a flexible work-schedule program the company began in 2006 that involved 300 corporate employees. It found they “got on average 30 more minutes of sleep every night, and improved their health over a six-month period” according to BusinessInsider. “They also had less ‘work-family conflict,’ which arises when there’s a work ‘spillover’ effect,” it noted.

• Read an article by writer Aimee Groth, titled “Proof That Giving Your Employees More Freedom Makes Them More Productive” and published Friday by BusinessInsider.com