You've probably read a huge amount over the years about why flexible working is great for all of us, as individuals. The newspapers talk about it. Social media outlets rave about it. The UK government itself is championing the many benefits of flex for members of the workforce. What's perhaps discussed less often - but is just as important - is why offering flexible job opportunities also makes fantastic business sense for organisations. We'd like to invite you to come with us as we dig a little deeper into the many upsides of flexibility in the workplace...
So what is flexible working?
Put simply, flexible working is any working arrangement that enables employees to have flexibility over when, where, and the hours in which, they work. Flexible working can include part-time jobs, hybrid or remote jobs, fractional jobs and job shares. It might include roles where start and finish times are flexible - for example, to facilitate school runs - and term-time jobs. It could encompass roles with annualised hours, flexitime, and compressed hours - where five days' work is carried out over four longer days, for example. There's a wide range of flexible working options - and we're sure that you'll be able to find one that benefits your organisation.
The Financial Benefits of Hiring Flexible Workers
Let's be absolutely honest here: when we talk about things that "make good business sense", we often mean "things that increase our bottom line, whether directly or otherwise". We don't think that this is anything to be shy about; as well as being a business, you're probably an employer of a large number of people, each of whom needs your company to succeed in order to pay their bills. Thankfully, flexible working can be a fantastic tool to improve the fantastic health of your firm. Recent studies, for example, have demonstrated that organisations which embrace a high degree of flexibility see significantly higher revenue growth than their counterparts with more restrictive policies on flexible working . In fact, a study carried out by Scoop and the Boston Consulting Group stated that: "... in comparison to businesses with more stringent policies, the average public company that allows employees to choose whether to come into the office outperformed on revenue growth over the previous three years by 16 percentage points."
This isn't an isolated claim. A report by Business In The Community indicates that employers who offer their teams flexible working could see a financial gain to their business worth up to 20% of their annual payroll costs. This might seems surprising to you. I mean, 20% is a pretty hefty boost. But when we break it down, it seems increasingly obvious that flex can be financially beneficial. It's been repeatedly shown to improve productivity, to reduce levels of sickness absence and to lower organisations' real estate costs. Given the high priority accorded to flexibility by employees, it's perhaps inevitable that some would choose increased flexibility over higher salaries. It's also the case that flexibility - whether part time jobs, remote roles or hybrid flexible working opportunities, to name just a few - can be a huge factor in attracting the best talent to your business, helping you to thrive. Overall, a flexible offering makes you a more attractive employer - and higher retention rates mean that you can save considerable management time and costs in replacing and training departing members of staff.
How Flexible Working Boosts Employee Engagement and Job Satisfaction
Numerous studies have shown that flexibility is increasingly important to employees and prospective employees. It's something which individuals are starting to value more than workplace benefits, more than job titles, and even more than a high salary. Job seekers often say that it's their number one priority when searching for a new position. This might be, for example, because they have other caring responsibilities and are looking for an opportunity to progress in their careers whilst balancing work with caring for elderly parents or young children. It might be because they're heavily engaged in a hobby or a volunteering role. It might be because flexibility is necessary to enable them to continue working despite health conditions or a disability. There are many reasons why employees are looking for flex; increasingly, it's the thing that will attract the best talent to your organisation but also the glue that might bind the two of you together in the long term.
When employees find the right role, with the flex they need to make their busy lives work, they are far more likely to stay for the long haul. Flexibility has been shown to increase employee satisfaction, organisational loyalty and to reduce sickness absence. If your team members feel valued, they're more likely to be invested in the long-term success of your company. At a subconscious level, they quite possibly want the company to do well so that their own flexible arrangements can continue long into the future, giving them the work-life balance that they need. And happiness definitely has a beneficial impact on productivity!
How Flexible Working Can Reduce Burnout and Increase Productivity
We think it's a fair bet in the modern world that lots of your employees are busy people. Perhaps they form part of the sandwich generation, caught between the demands of young families and parents who need care. Perhaps they're just starting out in their careers but, due to the housing shortage, find themselves unable to move into their own property and so are commuting further than they would like to the office. Perhaps the cost of living crisis is taking its toll and leading to high levels of stress. Whatever the reason, it definitely feels as though cortisol levels in today's society are high. Through no fault of your organisation, it's common for employees to collapse into bed at night, feeling as though they have run themselves ragged.
If your team members are able to reduce their stress by working flexibly - for example, in part-time or remote jobs - it seems likely that this could help them to balance all the competing demands on their time and their resources. Avoiding the daily commute, for example, can be the difference between checking on elderly parents each day and not doing so. Part-time or compressed jobs can enable families to reduce childcare costs, and take a huge amount of pressure off family budgets. The ability to make time for exercise at either end of the day will improve your employees' physical and mental health. Each of these may seem like small steps, but for the team member on the receiving end, it may be the catalyst which stops them from burning out and enables them to stay in the workforce. Clearly, this is a great outcome for your organisation; management time is precious, and if you can avoid spending it on finding and training new employees, then everyone has won! What's more, a happier colleague is a more productive one, and it's certainly been shown over and over again that flex can improve productivity. After all, if you're in work for a reduced amount of time, then you're going to make every single one of those hours count!
Why Flexible Working Leads to Higher Retention Rates
Offering flexibility isn't just a great way to recruit the best people; it's also a really effective tool to keep them! Your employees are individuals, after all, and life being what it is, their needs will change over the course of their employment with you. They may start a family. They may have elderly relatives who begin to need more support. They may develop health conditions which make it more difficult for them to attend the office from 9-5 every day. These changes can sometimes be pretty stressful; it's perhaps unsurprising that your employees may need to make adjustments in order to keep the wheels turning smoothly and to keep producing their best work for you.
As businesses, we can either choose to flex with our employees or to lose them to the competition. We've seen time and time again that if an organisation isn't willing to offer their team members flexibility, someone else certainly will. We promise you that the mental effort and financial cost involved in onboarding and training new employees is significantly greater than that required to offer your existing, settled and experienced team members the flexibility that they need to make their roles at your company work well. As the phrase goes: we have to use it or lose it...
How fractional roles can help to scale your business
Here at 9-2-3, we've been lucky enough to work with some amazing and innovative start-ups and SMEs. The work they do is often exciting and inspiring; we can see that they're changing the world, one step at a time, and we're thrilled to be able to find them the best talent to help them soar. This can sometimes be a tricky time for a growing business. You need to bring on board experienced and skilled staff, in order to grow, but your budget may not allow you to hire new full-time, senior team members in each area of the business. The joy of part-time or fractional roles is that you don't have to incur this expenditure! There are lots of highly experienced individuals looking for part-time professional jobs; they can bring all of their accumulated years of experience and wisdom to the table for a fraction of the price of a full-time member of staff. As your business grows, you can of course take on more resource - but when budgets are tight, part-time roles can be worth their weight in gold for your company! Moreover, offering part-time or fractional jobs can help you to access talent that just wouldn't be available for a traditional, 9-5, office-based role; we have many talented professionals on our books here at 9-2-3 who are specifically seeking a part-time job and aren't registered anywhere else.
The Diversity Dividend: How Flexible Working Supports Inclusion
I think we'd all agree that diversity is great for your business. The more viewpoints and perspectives and life experiences your people can bring to the table, the more likely they are to be able to find a connection with your customers, and build those crucial business relationships. But how can flexible working help?
Well, there are lots of reasons why employees need flex, and lots of reasons why job hunters may be actively looking for companies hiring for flexible jobs. Flex isn't just for mums returning from maternity leave and it isn't just for working parents seeking part-time professional jobs or return to work programmes. Flex may help to recruit or retain older workers, who aren't ready to retire yet and still have lots of experience to share but who'd like to reduce their working hours. It may help to support female career progression and reduce any gender pay gap at your organisation; we know that women still shoulder the majority of childcare responsibilities in a family, even when both parents are working, and flexibility at work can be the key to helping women to stay in the workforce and to continue to build their careers. Staggered start and finish times, part-time and fractional jobs and remote roles are just some of the tools that can help women to lean in through the crunch years when they are balancing their commitments to young families with their professional lives.
Flexibility - particularly flexibility around start and finish times, and hybrid or remote jobs - can play a huge part in enabling people with disabilities to access the workforce. If someone finds it challenging to travel on public transport during rush hour, for example, because of neurodiversity, then the ability to start work later in the day can be hugely beneficial. If someone finds it easier to work from home because of mobility difficulties, then a forward-thinking flexible working policy can be the most important factor that enables you to attract this candidate to your company. If you're looking for a new team member, this sort of flexibility can open up a whole new candidate pool to you - a pool that may be rich with skills you may not easily be able to find elsewhere.
Finally, there's the obvious point that if you are allowing your team to work remotely, you immediately increase your pool of candidates to include...well, potentially, anyone in the world with the right skill set. It's exciting to think of all the additional cultural approaches and points of view that can be brought to bear on a problem when we throw the talent net wide like this. And when you're searching for exactly the right people to help your business thrive, that really matters. There may be 50 software engineers with relevant experience in your county, but 2000 in the UK. The more potential candidates you're willing to consider (or allow us to consider), the more likely it is that you'll find your perfect match!