Central Iowa averages 33 inches of snow per year, which can make commuting to work treacherous at times. But this is not a problem for Scott Valbert, who works for Des Moines-based Principal Financial Group Inc. That’s because Valbert has been Key West, Fla.-based for the past year and a half.

It doesn’t snow down there. Even if it did, Valbert’s commute consists of walking into his home office, with its windows offering views of lush greenery. “I try to remind people that I really do spend most of my day inside working,” Valbert said in a telephone interview. “But I don’t get much sympathy.”

No, he probably doesn’t.

Valbert’s situation is on the extreme end of a “workshifting” trend that seems to be gathering momentum. Rather than driving to an office every day, more and more white-collar workers are working from home on a regular basis. More are compressing their work weeks, too, often by opting for four 10-hour days and keeping Friday for themselves.

At the other end of the arrangement, more companies might be able to stop worrying about finding more square feet and instead rely more on “hoteling,” with two or three rarely present employees sharing one work station.

Options are increasing

RSM McGladrey is up to seven flex options now, ranging from reduced work schedules to telecommuting to a “flex career” approach that allows an employee to take off up to five years and then return.

“It’s in the last three to five years that we have had all of these options,” said Rod Foster, president of McGladrey’s Des Moines office. “If we hadn’t done this, we would lose way too many people.”

Before the Great Recession and the resulting Great Unemployment Problem, American corporations were worried about a looming lack of talent. No doubt that fear contributed to greater efforts to keep the troops happy. But the trend toward working outside the office has been building for a while.

“We have always offered telecommuting and flexible hours,” said Polly Heinen, benefits manager at Principal. “But we have done it in a more creative, employee-centric way in the last couple of years.”

Valbert went to his Principal team leaders here in Des Moines in 2009 and broached the idea of rolling his chair 1,350 miles to the southeast. His partner had a career opportunity in Key West, and they both liked the place and wanted to live there. “I approached them pretty directly and said I would like to remain part of the team, and I hoped I could stay full time and work remotely,” Valbert said.

A couple of days later, he got the OK. His bosses even made sure to connect him with other remote workers for advice.

Intranet starting point

More than just suggesting people to talk to, Principal has gone as far as creating a “flexibility suite” on the company’s Intranet, Heinen said. There’s a site for employees and another for leaders. A template helps the would-be telecommuter build a business case, covering the risks, the technology needed and the necessary changes in working with customers.

And if the employee is nervous about how this might affect his or her career, they can watch videos of successful company leaders offering their support. The list includes recently retired Chief Risk Officer Ellen Lamale, who had a compressed work schedule while her children were young; Senior Vice President Deanna Strable; and Senior Vice President Gary Scholten.

“We’ve created a flexibility culture,” said Heinen, who compresses her own schedule a bit during her children’s school year, then goes to a straight four-day schedule, 10 hours per day, in the summer.

Overall, Principal’s most recent work force survey showed that just under 20 percent of its employees were working some form of compressed schedule.

Don’t bother asking Foster how many of his McGladrey employees compress or telecommute, because he doesn’t keep track. He just knows that flexibility has become an essential perk.

“I do a lot of recruiting, and anything one accounting firm does, we’re all early adopters,” Foster said. That’s because a new hire anywhere spreads the word about plum benefits throughout the pool of candidates.

“We hire eight to 10 new employees right off the campuses every year,” he said, “and every one of them has friends who ended up at another firm.”

The ultra-flexible McGladrey approach even includes a requirement that those at the partner level take a sabbatical for as long as three months every five years. The first time he was eligible, Foster took just a month. When it comes up again next summer, he’s thinking he’ll take three months and work on a book about children and finances.

That program is seen as a way to make sure the top people get away from it all now and then. “The partners have five weeks off every year,” Foster said, “and we probably don’t take two.”

Flexibility also can be a tool in the preparation for retirement. “You can use it to ease toward retirement over three or four years,” Principal’s Heinen said.

“On the day you’re not in the office, you can start finding things you want to do and be involved in.”

The long weekend

But at its most basic level, workshifting can be seen as a way to stay energized all through one’s career.

Scott Stanley, for one, doesn’t need any help figuring out how to spend retirement. Not as long as Iowa has hunting seasons.

A compensation consultant in Principal’s human resources department, Stanley switched to a four-day work week more than a dozen years ago. His wife, Julie, also works at Principal, and her supervisor offered the four-day option at a time when it was much less common. The Stanleys commute together from Lacona in southern Warren County, which can take an hour, and the chance to knock off a day of that sounded appealing.

Plus, it meant another day at Lake Rathbun or a day when Stanley could “partake in almost every hunting season there is.”

If the company needs him on Friday, he’s available. For example, he interrupted a hunting trip last year to spend an hour on his cellphone in Winterset, taking part in a conference call.

But having a regular three-day weekend is one of the best benefits the company has to offer, in Stanley’s opinion.

“I would hope more leaders and employees will take advantage” of workshifting, he said. “I don’t know what I would do without my three-day weekends. It’s part of my life.”