Flexible work structures have swept the globe over the past few years. Whether it’s the widespread interest in the four-day workweek or giving employees the ability to work from home for at least a few days of the week, businesses are experimenting with the best ways of taking advantage of this workplace trend.
It’s important to note that flexible work is far more than just a short-term trend following the pandemic. While the COVID-19 pandemic was the point of inspiration for many to try out alternative work structures, these new approaches to work are being proved – time and time again – to be more effective than 9-5 office working.
From boosting job satisfaction and decreasing employee churn to increasing revenue and helping the bottom line, flexible work is a dynamic and refreshing approach to work that helps employees and employers alike.
In this article, we’ll explore absolutely everything you need to know about flexible work, commenting on:
- The benefits of flexible work
- Creating a better workplace with flexible work
- How to successfully implement a flexible work policy
- How flexible work can impact employee productivity
- The true ROI of flexible work
- Trace the impact of flexible work policies around the world
- How to measure the success of a flexible work program
Let’s dive right in.
What Are the Benefits of Flexible Working?
The vast majority of the benefits of flexible work are a direct response to a number of challenges that commuters face in their day-to-day lives. Of course, a short commute of every 15 minutes (which is far below average) is still 30 minutes of every single day that workers aren’t being paid for.
By providing an alternative method of engaging with work, employees are able to approach their shifts however they would like. With a more flexible approach to work, employees receive a number of positive benefits that impact everything from their finances to their overall sense of mental health.
Here are the leading benefits of flexible work:
- Boosted productivity – Employees who can work flexibly will contribute 1.4 days per month more labour compared to their office-based employees. This accounts for not taking sick days, showing up more consistently to work, and not feeling as burnt out. There are major productivity gains to be made with flexible working.
- Increased job satisfaction – Employees who are given more freedom and authority over how they work show much higher rates of employee satisfaction.
- Improved employee retention – Employees who are happier at work will have a much higher sense of loyalty to a company. This can culminate in employees who are happier and stay longer with a company.
If you want to find out even more about the benefits of flexible work, be sure to read through our recent article.
Why Do Employees Want Flexible Work?
Flexible working has rapidly swept the globe and is emerging as a preferred way of working. Instead of requiring that employees follow a strict schedule of coming to your office at certain hours, you take an approach that grants them more freedom. Depending on the specific approach to work you take, this could include offering them flexible schedules, letting them work from home a few days a week, or a remote working position.
Employees who have to commute to the office every single day are faced with a range of additional pressures and challenges that can decrease their overall satisfaction with their jobs. For example:
- Many employees will have to live in expensive cities to be close to their workplace, increasing their rent and decreasing their overall take-home pay.
- Employees who commute will have to get up earlier than those who work from home to get ready for the day.
- Commuters will have to sit in morning and evening traffic. The average commute time in the USA is 26.6 minutes each way, representing an entire hour of unpaid time each day.
These problems face millions of people around the globe, steadily eroding workplace satisfaction and making people build resentment toward their jobs. Flexible work actively focuses on remedying these problems by providing a new way of engaging with work. No matter what form of flexible work your workplace partakes in, there are a range of benefits to be had.
Creating a Better Workplace with Flexible Work
After the pandemic, the world of work quickly began turning to more flexible office conditions to satisfy the needs of employees. Many workers could not commute to work during lockdowns in their respective countries, forcing many workplaces to quickly adapt to a new digital age.
While there was a great deal of apprehension about this change at first, many companies have now realised that the benefits far outweigh the cons, with the vast majority of businesses and employees preferring this system of work. In fact, 8 in every 10 companies now offer flexible work to some extent.
Most employees who engage in seeking flexible working arrangements do so for one of a handful of core reasons. For example, many seek a better work-life balance, with working from home providing them with more time in the day and more control over when and how they work.
Other common reasons that people seek flexible work are being able to spend more time with their family, save time over the course of the day, or avoid commuting.
Graph to show why people seek flexible working options.
If your company has decided that it wants to pursue flexible working, there are a few core steps you must move through.
Steps to Flexible Work
Once your employees have identified the desire to work from home or take a more flexible approach to their schedules, granting them that opportunity is in your best interest. Businesses that don’t may end up losing top talent and finding it hard to replace core workers.
When switching to flexible work, there are five steps you should touch on to establish a useful and productive working environment:
- Assess Your Goals – Determine what your company wants to achieve and how you’re going to make those objectives a reality.
- Identify a System – Depending on your business and sector, the specific model you choose to follow will vary. Find a flexible working system that meets your needs and satisfies your employees.
- Establish Guidelines – Next, your business should communicate these changes to your workforce, outline the rules and guidelines to follow, and begin your flexible work journey.
- Monitor Progress – Using a range of tools, you can then check the progress of your flexible work policies and review any changes you may need to make.
- Assess – After a set period of 3-6 months, you can review all the data your business has produced during this time to accurately assess how the policy change has impacted you.
Across these core steps, you’ll have created an effective work system and will be able to trace the success of your flexible work program. Read through our complete guide to explore these five steps to flexible work in more detail.
How to Successfully Implement a Flexible Work Policy
While most businesses have already identified the range of benefits that they and their employees can access once using a flexible work policy, it can be difficult to bring that policy to life. At present, over 62% of employees want flexible working hours, representing the majority of the global workforce.
Yet, in order to identify the correct flexible work schedule for your business, you’ll need to turn to your employees. Of course, in some sectors, flexible work isn’t as realistic as in others. Medical staff and marketing teams don’t have the same obligations and responsibilities, making a blanket solution impossible.
In order to find the best flexible working policy for your business, you should endeavour to survey your respective teams and ask them what they want. There are three popular strategies that most businesses are currently using:
- Flexible office days – This strategy means that workers only have to come into the office on a few set days a week.
- 4-Day Workweek – Many studies demonstrate that the four-day workweek is the leading method for boosting employee satisfaction while maintaining productivity.
- Flexible Hours – This strategy was pioneered in Finland (more on that later) and allows employees to start or end their day up to three hours before their contracted hours.
While the 4-day workweek is the most effective flexible working situation, it’s the one that most businesses are still wary of. By starting with one of the other two options that employees opt for, you can delve into a flexible working experiment.
Over time, your business can try out different flexible working systems until you find one that works best for you. For a more comprehensive overview check our dedicated article on the topic.
How Flexible Work Can Impact Employee Productivity
One of the primary challenges that businesses have to confront when managing their employees is the tendency toward burnout with modern workers. With more expectations than ever before, bountiful triggers of stress, and deadline after deadline, the corporate world is rife with reasons for burnout.
Burnout is the leading factor of low productivity in the workplace. Employees who feel burnout are less likely to volunteer themselves for additional work, more likely to miss deadlines, and routinely submit low-quality work. These drastic impacts are felt by over 50% of the workforce, with the majority of employees feeling overly stressed and unmotivated.
According to the graph below, nearly 60% of all burned-out employees suggested that they were significantly less productive or slightly less productive than in 2022. When compared to employees who didn’t feel burnt out, only 19% cited the same lowered rates of productivity.
Graph to show the rates of productivity in 2023.
The leading method to fight against burnout is to give employees more control over their schedules with flexible work.
How to boost productivity with flexible work
Changing employee schedules or working from home on certain days can dramatically increase employee happiness. Happiness and productivity are often linked, with an increase in satisfaction at work resulting in boosted productivity. By focusing on giving employees a workplace dynamic that suits their lifestyle, you can improve overall happiness and kickstart productivity.
Around 65% of employees believe that they would be more productive at home than in the office. The vast majority of these reasons come back to typical distractions that are plentiful in an office environment. For example, 74% of employees believe that they would be more productive at home because there are fewer distractions.
One single distraction, like a coworker asking a question, can derail concentration by up to 23 minutes. On average, it takes around 22 minutes to regain full concentration after experiencing a distraction. While one small comment might not seem to be a problem, when this happens several times a day, you can quickly see why employees feel less productive in the office.
Flexible work can help to boost productivity for several reasons:
- Removes distractions
- Gives employees more time to sleep in the morning
- Allows employees to work in comfortable clothes
- Reduces stress from commuting
While not an exhaustive list, these demonstrate how effective flexible work can improve employee productivity. For more details on what benefits flexible work can have for your business pay a visit to this article.
What is the ROI of Flexible Work?
When businesses seek to implement a flexible work policy, they need to be sure that the change will result in a positive financial gain for their company. The need to improve the company’s bottom line is the primary reason why organisations may initially be hesitant to switch to these flexible work policies.
Companies can trace the ROI of flexible work by looking into the various streams of new profits and savings that these structures offer. While it may not instantly be apparent what savings there are to be made, there are actually numerous ways that businesses can save money by engaging in flexible work.
Here are the top streams that improve the bottom line and demonstrate the ROI of flexible work:
- Increased Productivity – As we discussed previously, employees who work from home are more likely to work at high rates across the entire span of the month. Working from home allows employees to take less time off, deliver higher quality work, and sustain themselves with higher rates of satisfaction. All of this contributes to sizeable productivity gains, boosting profit and increasing project completion speeds.
- Rent Savings – One of the main business expenses that comes on a monthly or yearly basis for companies is the need to rent out an office space. Depending on the size of your business, this could be a small office with enough capacity or a larger structure that can accommodate 100s of employees. Either way, businesses spend anywhere from 2-20% of their profit on rent. By decreasing this figure by letting people work from home, companies will save on rent.
- Hiring costs – It can cost as much as $7,500-$28,000 to find, interview, background check, hire, and onboard a new employee. Flexible work contributes to less employee churn, meaning you won’t have to spend additional money on hiring fees as often.
Flexible work demonstrates its ROI through a number of core sources, some of which improve profit and revenue while others decrease expenditure.
Exploring ROI of Flexible Work Case Studies
Mercy Health, a non-profit organisation that provides health and community care services, switched to flexible work back in 2012, expanding its program in 2015 to accommodate even more flexibility. By switching to flexible work, Mercy Health has achieved $23 million of net savings per year from its new working structure.
The above figure represents an increase of nearly 4% to their overall revenue, simply from giving employees more flexibility when it comes to finishing their work. The four leading causes of savings are the following:
- Direct Labour Productivity: $26M
- Retention: $17.4M
- Recruitment: $3.7M
- Absenteeism: $420K
These savings amount to an overall positive of $47M in yearly savings. However, there is, of course, a range of costs associated with flexible working, which they also take into account. The following are the costs of flexible work for their business:
- Marginal Onboarding Burden”: $17.6M
- IT Expenses: $4.4M
- Management Burden: $960k
- Flex implementation: $490k
Across these major categories, the vast majority of the expenses go to onboarding people into the system and paying for additional IT expenses, like buying laptops for workers. That said, some businesses are much better prepared for this shift, already having IT equipment to give to their workers. If that’s the case for your business, then the ROI of flexible work could be much higher.
While Mercy Health is a wonderful example of demonstrating how impactful flexible work can be on the financial side of a business, they are far from the only case study. There are many examples of companies that have adopted flexible working and have hit the ground running.
Does Flexible Work Help Sustainability Goals?
Another major consideration that often pushes businesses to adopt flexible working initiatives is the fact that they can help companies meet ESG goals. By moving to flexible work, businesses instantly cut out huge portions of the overall CO2 they produce from requiring employees to come to work each day.
Nearly 80% of all employees drive to work, which has a huge impact on the emissions of carbon from cars. Based on the average commute, each American generates around 3.2 tonnes of CO2 each year just from their morning commute. When a business adapts a flexible working policy, it instantly allows employees to cut this figure by increments of 20%.
For example, if employees don’t have to come to work for three days a week, then they are going to produce 60% less emissions per year, as their morning commute no longer exists for those days. Each extra day you give an employee to work from home, you’re cutting their annual emissions by an impressive 20%.
With that in mind, one of the most effective ways that businesses can radically reduce their carbon footprint is simply by giving employees the ability to work from home a few days a week.
What’s more, the average figure for emissions produced by the average office in California equates to 234 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. By having fewer employees in the office, businesses don’t need to spend as much on energy to keep every part of their office active. Due to this, they can reduce the overall spending and emissions evoked by people working in an office.
Tracing the Impact of Flexible Work Policies Around the World
Across the globe, flexible working arrangements have quickly become a favoured alternative to the 9-5 that most are so used to. Workers who are able to choose how and when they work are more likely to engage with their work positively, submit higher-quality work, and get more done while working.
In the United States alone, around 80 million employees are currently engaging in flexible work. Areas like the United Kingdom are equally partaking, with millions of employees being offered the chance to work from home for a few days a week.
When exploring the impact of flexible work around the world, data is still in the early stages of being generated. Considering that most businesses moved to flexible work in 2020 or 2021, there has only been a few years of data.
That said, based on research by the Center for Economics and Business Research, the USA can gain a total of $2.36 trillion USD per year thanks to mass movement to flexible work.
Employees are also set to greatly benefit, with over 11.9 billion hours per year of leisure time being added to workers’ lives in the US alone. From an economic, social, and emotional well-being standpoint, moving to flexible work is one fo the best changes that an economy can make.
While most of the world has already realised this, some countries are further ahead in flexible work development than others.
What Countries Are Leading the Flexible Work Charge?
Flexible work is more than just a small trend that’s centred in the USA. On the contrary, this new work methodology has swept the globe, with large pockets of activity being found in major cities all over the world. While flexible work is now a widespread activity, some countries are still much further ahead than others.
The top leaders when it comes to flexible working conditions are Finland, Portugal, and Belgium. Let’s break down their approaches:
- Finland – Finland began flexible working back in 1996 by passing the Working Hours Act. This act allowed anyone to start or end their shift three hours before their allotted time. Finland doubled down on this policy in 2020 by upgrading the act with a clause that required workers to choose where they want to work for at least 50% of their working hours. From helping with child care to providing a better work-life balance, Finland is the world leader in flexible working.
- Portugal – Portugal found flexible working during the pandemic and never looked back. They now have laws that state that companies cannot contact employees outside of working hours and that they must recompense employees for electricity incurred while working from home.
- Belgium – Belgium is one of the world leaders when it comes to the 4-day work week, offering employees the chance to achieve a more active work-life balance. Countries like the UK, Japan, and Spain are following closely in their wake and testing out their own flexible working structures.
The impact of flexible work is untenable, with the aforementioned countries demonstrating higher rates of workplace satisfaction and exhibiting workforces with higher rates of productivity.
How To Measure the Success of Your Flexible Work Program
Once a business takes the leap and decides to try out a flexible work program, it must then prove that it’s having the intended effect on its workforce. There are several ways that a business can measure the success of its flexible work program. Most of the time, the results will be fairly apparent, with employees perhaps even commenting on the change.
However, for businesses that want concrete data, we’ve collected the best methods to prove the efficacy of these schemes once and for all. When exploring the success of your flexible work program, there are two common methods of investigation that you should use:
- Quantitative methods
- Qualitative methods
Let’s break these down further.
Quantitative methods
Quantitative methods of measuring flexible work refer to any numerical tracking that provides you with hard data. For example, if your business measures the overall number of projects completed per team before and after the shift, you would have a clear number that states whether productivity has improved or declined.
When measuring quantitatively, you can use the following metrics as a basis for your experiment:
- Employee engagement rates – Asking employees to rank their engagement on a scale of 1-10 before and after the change will demonstrate how your workers feel about the change.
- Total absenteeism – Trace the total amount of sick days or days where someone didn’t show up to work. These figures can represent a huge amount of lost or gained labour over the course of a year.
- Employee retention – Tracing whether or not your employees are staying on for more or less time will shed light on how loyal your employees are. Flexible work tends to improve retention, so you should notice a fairly substantial difference.
While these aren’t all of the metrics you could trace, they are a great place to start to give you an overall understanding of how flexible work has impacted your business.
Qualitative methods
Qualitative methods refer to changes that are harder to track directly through numbers. For example, looking at profit before and after you introduce flexible work will provide you will a clear figure that represents how the change has impacted you. However, if you were trying to understand how your employees felt about the change, you would have to turn to qualitative analysis.
The best way to collect data of this kind is by sending out surveys to your workforce. It’s very important that you make these surveys completely anonymous. If employees think that HR might call them up based on their opinions, they might refrain from being honest, which will ruin the integrity of your results.
Once you’ve established that employees can speak their minds freely, you can begin collecting written data. Asking employees to write a little bit about how their approach to work has changed can go a long way. Use the following questions as a basis:
- How has your opinion on work changed?
- What differences have you noticed in your levels of motivation since moving to flexible work?
- How could our flexible work policy be improved upon?
These questions provide space to share honest thoughts about your experiment. While not as concrete as numerical data (unless you have an NLP tool), these questions provide additional context that can colour your understanding.
Don’t overlook how essential written employee feedback can be!
Final Thoughts
For companies that are looking to get more from their offices and promote a happy balance between home and office work, MEAVO can help. With years of experience crafting and integrating high-quality workstations and office meeting pods, we provide your office with the infrastructure it needs to stand out.
MEAVO proudly supports flexible work, additionally providing offices with a way of diversifying the type of working environment they offer within their office. For employees who want to concentrate at work without running into distractions, our Soho Workstation provides a phenomenal space for getting their best work done.
Alternatively, the MEAVO Camden Two and Camden Four offer a private, comfortable, and fully-equipped meeting space for your office. While accepting flexible work, your business should strive to make its office as enjoyable as possible for employees. Reach out to the MEAVO team to learn how we can help you create a highly efficient, productive, and enjoyable office space to work in.
Best of luck on your adventures toward a future of fully flexible work.