New York — Feb. 20

For years, the mandates for more work-life flexibility were directed at organizations and management, but workplace and academic experts say the boss or company are no longer the ones solely to blame for flexibility failure.

Increasingly, the challenge is for risk-averse employees to focus less on sweeping transformative change and instead make small, everyday shifts in work style.

"We've spent nearly the last two decades calling out the companies and management for the need for work-life flexibility," said Cali Williams Yost, a thinker on workplace issues and author of Tweak It: Make What Matters to You Happen Every Day. "Many have responded, but now employees also need to step up and assert control by making small, subtle, practical choices that no one will notice but them."

But according to research Yost conducted with ORC International, nearly 75 percent of the population believes that work-life flexibility is only possible if their employer or boss provides it. Employees do not feel empowered and are stressed by increased workloads and lack of time, the most-cited obstacles to work-life flexibility in Yost's research.

Source: Cali Williams Yost