Sara Sutton Fell sharing the benefits of offering flexible work

VIDEO: FlexJobs' CEO Shares the Benefits of Offering Flexible Work

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By Greg Kratz

Work flexibility is good for both companies and their employees, and as more businesses come to that realization, the world of work will keep changing for the better.

That was the message shared by Sara Sutton, FlexJobs’ founder and CEO, during a recent interview for CNBC’s “On the Money.” She noted that about 80 percent of companies now offer some kind of flexibility, and they are doing so for a variety of reasons.

“There are many benefits, starting with costs, such as real estate and overhead, as well as recruiting,” Sutton said in the interview. With recruiting, in particular, “you can access a whole new pool of candidates, and also offer them one of the most desired benefits, work flexibility.”

Opening up your company’s recruiting to candidates who may live hundreds or thousands of miles away from your home office may also have real financial benefits, she said. For example, a New York company would have to pay more to compete for a local worker than it would when hiring someone to work remotely from Kansas. In such a scenario, the business wins through lower costs, and the employee wins by having access to a job that she wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.

And that doesn’t mean flex workers are likely to take a hit to their paychecks. Sutton said that, on average, “we don’t see any big difference between salary or benefits for flexible workers and on-site workers.” In fact, when you consider the jobs that may come to people in rural areas or locations with depressed economies, flexible work can allow for a boost in both pay and benefits compared to what they could find locally.

Sara Sutton Shares the Benefits of Offering Flexible Work with CNBC

In addition to those benefits, companies that offer flexibility may see other advantages not noted during the brief interview. For example, many have found that workers who have opportunities to shift their hours or work from home are actually more productive than those who don’t have such options.

And since flex workers tend to be happier and healthier, they also may be more loyal to their employers. When you consider how much it costs to recruit, hire, and train new employees, retention benefits cannot be ignored.

That also may be the reason so many different kinds of people are interested in flexible work, Sutton said in the interview.

“The people looking for work flexibility are very broad and diverse,” she said. “Certainly working moms are kind of the most visible, but it’s a misconception that that’s the only audience who are interested. We’ve talked with working moms and dads, as well as people with health issues, or who are caretaking people with health issues.”

Sutton said others who appreciate and benefit from flexibility are people who live in rural or depressed economies, military spouses, people who want to travel, freelancers, and millennials.

That final point was confirmed by a recent FlexJobs survey, which found that 84 percent of millennials said work-life balance was the most important factor for them when evaluating a possible job. Also in the survey, 82 percent of millennials cited work flexibility as a factor in those evaluations, while 81 percent of generation x and 79 percent of baby boomers felt the same way.

Clearly, workers crave flexibility. But some business leaders may believe that anything so popular with employees comes at too great a cost. Fortunately, Sutton told CNBC, the downsides to flex work are minimal.

The biggest risk to employers is when they do “casual flex,” meaning they’re not implementing and formalizing a policy. In those cases, she said, an inconsistent use of flexibility can breed competition and distrust among managers and their workers, as well as jealousy.

Even though eight in 10 companies offer flexibility, as previously mentioned, only 37 percent had a formal, written policy to manage flex, according to a survey. It’s vital for any business that is serious about flex work to make it formal to avoid the problems Sutton mentioned.

She also told CNBC that people who are enjoying flexibility need to make sure they pay attention to both their personal lives and their work, and not let them “creep into each other.” And she noted that both workers and their managers must have excellent communication skills to make flex work.

But again, when all of these factors come together, flexible work can bring incredible benefits to both employers and workers. This is more than just a temporary trend. It’s a basic change in how, when, and where people work, and it’s only gaining momentum.