If you’ve needed the push to incorporate flexible working options into your company, there are many examples of big companies that offer flexible schedules. Case in point, a recent article in Fast Company that highlights three major companies that are leading the way in the flex work movement.
Asana, Dropbox, and Dell are featured in Fast Company‘s article, discussing the reasons and benefits of offering their employees flexible schedules (which may or may not include remote work). Below, we go over some of these points.
Here’s why some big companies offer flexible schedules:
More Engaged and Loyal Employees
Allowing employees to choose the hours they wish to work, and therefore giving them time and availability to handle personal life events, creates happy and loyal employees. After implementing flexible options, Asana ranked in the 99th percentile among tech companies for satisfied employees in an employee-wide survey. Higher satisfaction in your employees also translates into less turnover for your company. If trust is extended to employees, they’ll return the favor with loyalty.
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Improved Productivity
Improved productivity is another benefit of offering flexible schedules. When employees are able to flex their time and work at the hours that best work for them, you’ll see productivity increase. Workers will choose to work the hours when they’re at their peak performance, instead of pushing through the 3:00 p.m. slump. Flexible schedules allow employees to be more focused on the task at hand if they know they can flex their schedule to handle personal tasks later. Dropbox said it saw a 10 percent increase in productivity when it implemented work flexibility benefits.
Recruiting Tool
Standard benefits and working hours are no longer selling points for companies looking for the best talent. The Fast Company piece found that millennials, now the biggest group in the workforce, “are more likely to accept a job offer from a company that offers flexible work schedules.” Having flexible schedules—and even better, remote work options—in your arsenal of benefits will be a huge recruiting tool in helping your company find talent. Potential employees are likely to move your company to the top of their list if it offers flexible options.
Fits Company Structure
Many companies offer flexible schedules because it fits well into how their company operates. At Asana, “Deliverables and goals are planned out four months at a time so that everyone knows what they’re responsible for and what they’re trying to achieve during that time period.” Dell is aiming to have 50 percent of its workforce on flexible schedules within the next three years. To be sure, there are some jobs that just can’t be done remotely or flexibly. But even if flexible schedules don’t seem immediately viable at your company, it can often be done, sometimes with little effort. Assessing job duties and utilizing the right technology can make almost any job flexible.
Be sure to peruse the FlexJobs Employer Blog for more information and resources about how to integrate flexible schedules into your workplace.
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