Studies conducted by the Pew Research Center revealed that 71% of the adult workforce is currently working remotely. More surprising is that 54% of working adults in the U.S. want to remain working from home once the pandemic has ended.
Are you interested in working from home or other flexible working forms as an employee or an employer? Check out this list of some of the perks of flexible working. Keep reading to learn more.
More Employee Retention
Flexible working is part of creating good company culture. You’ll find happy employees where a company offers flexibility.
Employees who feel supported and are offered flexibility are more likely to stay with a company long term. This is a great way to retain some of your most valuable employees by showing them you care about them as people.
A Flexible Schedule Finds a Work/Life Balance
Allowing your employees to have a flexible schedule allows them to create a balance between their work and their personal lives. While it’s too early to know whether working from home will become permanent in the workforce, many employees want to have that option.
Allowing your employees to do some of their work from home and focus on their personal lives will make them happier and more productive.
Stronger Team Ethic
Flexibility in the workforce will always lift employee morale. Feeling support in the workplace will make everyone work harder when one team member needs to step away.
This helps create teamwork among coworkers. Creating that strong connection will allow your team to work better towards solutions in the workplace.
A More Diverse Workforce
Creating a workplace that allows lenient working conditions might seem like a bad idea. You might think that you’re setting a precedent for laziness, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
When you offer flexibility in the workplace, you’ll attract some very qualified individuals for the job. More employees are looking for job opportunities that offer a nontraditional schedule.
If you offer flexibility in terms of remote work, you’ll have the chance to attract a more diverse group of employees too. Having different perspectives coming together leads to a better performing company, benefiting everyone.
A Greener Company Culture
Allowing flexible schedules lets employees work out of the office and remotely. This is a great way to create a greener company.
Cutting back on commuting to work reduces the number of cars on the road and fuel consumption. So cutting back on commuting will decrease the emission of greenhouse gases too.
Going green is great for a small business as more people become aware of the environmental impacts people have on the planet.
The Benefits of Flexible Working Explained
Flexible work creates a more diverse team of employees and increases employee retention too.
Are there any downsides?
Sahil Lavingia, the founder of Gumroad gave this outstanding interview where flexible working is a central topic – pretty different to most of the Founder content we get these days.
Flexible working – more important than remote work?
Apparently it is! Among the main takeaways:
- Flexible working arrangements are more important than remote work, profit sharing is better than equity.
- He tries to hire engineers on a part time basis so they can have a life outside of the company: “I’m trying to make an explicit case to amazing engineers: You can work for Gumroad for 20 hours a week and make $100k a year. Or you can work at Facebook for 60 hours a week and make $250k a year. Would you rather make $100k less a year but get 40 extra hours per week?”
- The VC road is toxic because it creates an artificial time based thinking (“by X date next year I need to be at X point”)
- Being psycho about goals is just as bad as not having goals at all. They should serve as motivation, but not dictate your life. You should think a few steps ahead, but at the end of the day, no plan survives contact with the enemy.
- With OKRs, at the start you want structure because you don’t know what you’re doing. When you start figuring stuff you, you realize you don’t need a lot of extra stuff. It can be loosely defined.
- He believes in profit sharing with Contractors.
Sahil seems very ‘unattached’ to his project which provides an interesting perspective.
Check out our blog to learn about more workplace perks and other aspects of company culture.
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