Because “flex” is a part of our brand, it should come as no surprise that FlexJobs—and our amazing CEO and founder, Sara Sutton—is one of the biggest (if not biggest) flexible work advocates. She’s leading this biweekly edition of the employer news with a great interview with ERE Media, in which flexible work is discussed in detail.
Next up are a few conversations about productivity featured on Inc. and The Next Web. Both pieces take a deeper look at what professionals want (and need!) to be productive, and it’s not the office. In fact, most professionals get more work done at home and prefer to work there because of higher productivity and fewer distractions.
Changing focus to working parents, HR BLR explores the latest FlexJobs survey in detail. Curious about the findings? Well, let’s just say when it comes to what working parents want in a job, it’s not necessarily a high salary. Rather, the golden ticket to win over working parents is work flexibility.
Rounding us out is an article on Forbes that dives into flexible work and what that means for return on investment. The surprising discussion shows that while many employers support and offer flexible work, few have formal policies in place to measure the positive return they are seeing.
Keep reading for more great quotes and access to the full articles!
Learn more below about flexible work advocates, office productivity, working parents, and flexible work ROI!
A Conversation with a Pioneering Advocate for Flexible Work on ERE Media
“At FlexJobs, we heard from professionals every day who used our service to bring more balance to their lives, and I wanted to encourage even more companies, organizations and agencies to adopt flexible work options. There wasn’t one voice that was bringing together all stakeholders to champion flexible work. That’s why I founded 1 Million for Work Flexibility. I view it as our advocacy arm.
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FlexJobs is an entirely remote company, and most of what we’ve done to create a healthy culture and build a successful business in a virtual environment has been based on our own instincts. It had crossed my mind more than once that it would be great to have a way to learn from and share insights with other companies embracing remote work as a core part of their business strategy. So, in 2015, I created Remote.co as a one-stop resource for companies that see remote work as an opportunity for their businesses, their workers, their communities, and the environment.
It became clear that a larger conversation was needed, and that’s why we created the TRaD* Works Forum (which stands for telecommuting, remote and distributed) in 2016. It’s a community event for those keenly interested in learning how they can advance their organization’s telecommuting, remote and distributed work efforts.”
Only 7 Percent of Office Workers Are Productive (but Most Are Miserable) on Inc.
“A FlexJobs survey of 3,100 professionals found that only 7 percent reported they were most productive when working in the office. So if you answered ‘true,’ you were right. More than 50 percent said they accomplished more when working from home, while another 8 percent cited better productivity at coffee shops, libraries, or co-working spaces.”
Want to Increase the Office Productivity? Don’t Have an Office! on The Next Web
“Furthermore, in a study carried out by FlexJobs, based on 2,600 interviews, 76 percent of workers prefer to avoid the office when they have an important job to do.
So, why do you continue insisting that your employees go to the office every day?
If you think they do their job correctly because they go to the office every day at 9 and remain in front of their computer till 6, this is nothing more than a false sensation of control.
Just because they are at their desk all day long does not mean that they will do their best work, both in quality and productivity.
The key to increase productivity is not to have an office where you can control your employees, but to eliminate all the distractions that they may have. In order to be productive, a person needs on average between three to four continuous hours without interruptions.”
New Survey Shows Working Parents Prefer Flexibility over Salary on HR BLR
“Want to retain working parents? According to a recent FlexJobs survey of nearly 1,200 parents with children 18 and younger living at home, work flexibility (84 percent) and work-life balance (80 percent) are the most important factors when parents consider a job opportunity. Parents placed these ahead of other factors, such as salary (75 percent), health insurance (42 percent), company reputation (39 percent), and 401(k)/retirement benefits (29 percent) when evaluating a job prospect.”
How Will Amazon’s Part-Time Work Program Impact Workplace Diversity and ROI? on Forbes
“Of all the statistics we found while exploring this topic, one finding that really stood out came from a study recently published by WorldatWork and FlexJobs. The study explored trends in workplace flexibility through a survey of nearly 400 companies across a variety of industries, geographical locations and sizes. While the majority of companies surveyed (80 percent) offered flexible work arrangements to employees, only 37 percent of those surveyed reported that they have a formal, written philosophy or policy to support employee flexibility options.”
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Readers, who are some other notable flexible work advocates that you follow? Share with us below!
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