Obama promotes flexible workplace hours in speech to conference of prominent female leaders

Obama promotes family-friendly hours at businesses

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama promoted flexible hours and other family-friendly workplace policies Tuesday, telling a conference of female business leaders that such arrangements are more than a women’s issue.

While addressing Fortune magazine’s 2010 “Most Powerful Women Summit,” Obama said companies with flexible arrangements can have lower turnover and absenteeism and higher productivity.

Obama said he wants federal agencies to be models with policies like mobile workplaces and flexible schedules. He urged that employees be judged “by the results they get, not the facetime they log.”

Obama also supports paid leave programs and child tax credits.

The Fortune event, in its 12th year, brought together hundreds of women who have succeeded in fields from business to education to philanthropy. Obama said their achievements show how much progress women have made in the workplace since his grandmother hit a “glass ceiling” after becoming a bank vice president in Hawaii.

But, the president said in a dinner speech the Carnegie Mellon Auditorium, “we still have a ways to go.”