Sheila Eby, a vice president in finance and risk management at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City, was overwhelmed. "I had so many needs," the mother of two, wife, and daughter recalls. Most pressing at the time was finding top-notch care for her ailing father who lived in Massachusetts.

What did the former magazine writer do? One of Chase's many employee benefits is elder care counseling. She called a service provided by Chase that sent her a list of care providers in her dad's neighborhood. "I would not be able to work here if it were not for these programs," she notes. "I feel proud to work for a company that understands that employees have lives outside the bank and they need to take care of the people they love."

Among its perks are back-up childcare, a fitness center a few floors down from Eby, and flextime. She works at home one day a week and puts in a couple of long nights at the office so she can take off every other Friday. In exchange, says Eby, "I work very hard. I can work anytime, anywhere--and I do!"

Eby's assistant Ometa Austin also benefits from being a Chase employee. She has received college credit through Cornell University's Off Campus Program. Chase foots her education bill and even brings professors to a nearby location to teach.

Work/life benefits, as the name suggests, helps people juggle family and work responsibilities. They are an increasingly hot recruiting and retention tool for businesses.

Hutchins, Wheeler, & Dittmar, the oldest law firm in Boston with a seriously buttoned down image, recently hired a telecommuting associate on partnership track with full benefits. The intellectual property lawyer goes into the office just once a week. "He was skilled in a highly sought after area in which we were desperately trying to recruit," explains the law firm's director of human resources.

Larger companies typically offer the most attractive perks, including resource and referral information on everything from relocation to emergency elder care, seminars on personal topics like the emotional and financial fall-out of divorce, retirement planning, stress management, college coaching, counseling for new mothers returning to work, lactation centers, wellness programs, doggie daycare contacts, adoption reimbursement and leave, pre-tax reimbursement accounts for health care, dependent care, and transportation expenses, mental health and substance abuse plans, and even concierge services to handle employees' dry cleaning and other scutt work.

Now the little guys and start-ups are starting to get in on the act. They may not have formal programs, but they, too, may allow flextime, job sharing, and telecommuting.

Working it out at work

What's in it for the companies? A fortune! They are finding that benefits lead to happier employees, increased loyalty, reduced absenteeism and turnover, higher productivity, and an impressive work ethic.

Mindy Fried, a sociologist who directed a recent study of the impact of flexible work arrangements on employees of 1320 workers and 451 managers for the National Work/Life Measurement Project at the Boston College Center for Work & Family, discovered what she terms a "flexibility/productivity exchange."

Fried found that "these policies are often framed as a privilege, not as an entitlement, and that fuels the notion that flexibility is exchanged for productivity. People feel they have to produce more--give something special and must demonstrate they deserve it--and that is often done by working harder. They feel they have to go the extra mile."

And they're right, because bosses often expect it. There's a tacit understanding that employees will check e-mail or catch up on their home computer at untraditional hours--that is, when they're not supposed to be working.

"It's hard to turn the computer off because of the exchange. Employers want high producers and expect a lot," believes Fried. Make no mistake, states Margaret Hadley, the director of human resources at Hutchins, Wheeler & Dittmar: "The telecommuting lawyer will put in as many, if not more, than the 2,000 billeable hours his colleagues work."

Clearly not all jobs lend themselves to telecommuting and unorthodox work arrangements. If someone is in charge of manning the office phones or operating a brick and mortar store for instance; she has to be there.

In addition, "Who gets approved to telecommute has to do with the kind of worker you are perceived to be," maintains Fried. High performers whose output is clear and measurable have the best shot of convincing superiors that they can pull it off. "You have to be able to demonstrate that your job is amenable to flexibility," believes Eby. "It's up to the employee, not the employer, to prove that he can change the schedule."

The perks process

Employees access work/life programs in various ways. Some businesses provide in-house resource and referral services, but most contract out to other companies. An employee usually calls the outside company to dispatch a resource and referral specialist to the employee's office. The specialist clarifies any needs, identifies specific, local relevant services, and develops an action plan. If it's childcare, for instance, the coach may give them a checklist of questions to ask when interviewing prospective caregivers as well as educational materials on care giving and parenting.

Next time you're thinking of changing jobs, ask about a lactation center or if that's not your need, where you can park your dog while you're off on vacation--with your laptop, of course!

SALLY ABRAHMS is a self-employed writer from Boston who wishes she had cushy corporate benefits like a concierge service.