Held the third Tuesday of October as part of National Work and Family Month, National Flex Day is designed to encourage employers and employees to unite behind the need for more flexibility by sharing how pervasive and powerful it already is. To help promote the power of flexible work arrangements, Working Mother has partnered with the Alliance for Work-Life Progress (the founders of National Work and Family Month) and FlexJobs, a job-searching site specializing in flexible work.

“Flexible work is important to every single employee, whether to help them accommodate child care responsibilities, elder care needs or a marathon training schedule,” says Carol Evans, president of Working Mother Media. “It’s time for people and companies to step out from the shadows and embrace workplace flexibility as a core business strategy that will enable employees and employers to compete and succeed in an increasingly competitive global economy—while also ensuring a healthy, productive and profitable workforce in the long run.”

To find out what flex means to working moms, the Working Mother Research Institute surveyed more than 1,500 of them about flexible work schedules and found that women who are working flexibly were more likely to say:

+ Their opinions count at work

+ They have influence over their work schedules

+ They have better work life balance

+ They are satisfied with their compensation

+ They are happy with the amount of time they spend with their spouses and their kids.