Companies not restricted to facilities or institutions where employee presence is mandatory for certain hours per day increasingly use flexible working arrangements. Employees are given more freedom to manage their personal time with the same level of workload and tasks. If you think of it as a paper writer service, it is similar to a website service that offers a free choice of deadlines or other services to choose from, where the client will still get the desired work.
The freedom to choose work hours and location allows employees to better balance work and personal life. There is an increase in responsibility and productivity with less supervision from management. Below, we will discuss the types of flexible schedules and their benefits for supervisors and subordinates.
What Is Flexible Working Arrangements?
In general, flexible working arrangements are an approach to organizing work tasks that offers employees several bonuses while keeping them on task. The components of flexible working arrangements are:
- Flextime: Employees are assigned a certain number of working hours per day that they must fulfill. There are no restrictions on when they must do it. That is, an employee can do a sprint and get off work early.
- Telecommuting: The employee can work from home or anywhere convenient with internet access.
- Compressed workweek: In this approach, employees are asked to complete a standard number of hours in fewer days, shortening the workweek.
- Job sharing: In this approach, several employees are hired to perform a task for one person, who share the rate but perform the work alternately, e.g., half a day at a time.
Such approaches have already demonstrated their effectiveness for both workers and supervisors. In particular, such practices reduce the level of stress among employees and increase their involvement and interest in the successful completion of tasks, which in turn is an obvious bonus for the employer.
Impact of Flexible Working Arrangements on Productivity
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Statistical studies and sociological surveys show that the flexible approach makes sense and can become a modern sustainable practice of work organization. In particular, Stanford University studies prove that remote employees feel more confident in their position at home than in the office, and as a result, their performance increases. Researchers note an average 13% increase in the productivity of remote workers in addition to an increased level of responsibility and engagement. This is also influenced by the so-called psychological aspect of presence. That is, an employee on a remote job feels more responsible for controlling the fulfillment of tasks working from home than the office because the office creates a false sense of control. Also, the fact that they do not have to spend time traveling to work affects the productivity of remote workers.
According to research company Gallup, 54% of employees say flexible working conditions make work more interesting. At the same time, in a 2020 FlexJobs study, 80% of respondents said they would be more committed to their jobs if they had a flexible schedule or could work remotely.
Related: Deskless workers: What you need to know
Strategies for Implementing Flexible Working Arrangements
Flexible working arrangements clearly have a very positive impact on employee sentiment and productivity. Still, it's also worth noting that not every business can afford flexible schedules or remote work for employees. Those companies that can, in theory, implement such practices must first prepare the business for the new environment.
Assessing the company's readiness
Before introducing flexible working arrangements, a readiness audit of the company is necessary. This includes checking the possibility of managing business processes with remote employees and employees with a free schedule, the availability of technical support for remote work, and the guarantee of company data security when working with remote employees.
Developing a flexible working arrangements policy
Flexible working arrangements do not mean completely free working conditions. It is necessary to establish precise hours when all key employees should be available to make common decisions and perform joint tasks. It is also necessary to introduce metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of flexible schedules for future adjustments. These could be task deadlines, productivity metrics, or customer feedback. It would be best to choose the most appropriate metrics for your business.
Employee training
A flexible schedule for employees means a flexible approach for management, so it's worth holding joint seminars and workshops to develop mechanisms for productive cooperation in which the free schedule and remote work will not interfere with fulfilling the company's strategic objectives.
Tools for Flexible Working
Nowadays, many technical solutions are available for working with flexible schedules and fully remote employees. All you have to do is choose the ones you need. The following are among the most common and most in demand.
- Cloud services: Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 have already proven their effectiveness and practicality. These platforms allow you to organize joint meetings and video conferences and provide shared access to the necessary files for employees working on the same task.
- Communication: Set up access for all remote employees to corporate call programs. Slack and Zoom are great for this. You can track activity, schedule meetings, and send notifications of upcoming rallies.
- Project Management: Programs to automate project control, such as Trello and Asana, allow you to track the progress of each individual task, edit tasks, and assign new ones.
We've already discussed security, but it's worth remembering that remote employees should organize secure VPN channels for sharing valuable files and using cloud storage.
Conclusion
Nowadays, many jobs allow employees to work remotely or perform tasks on a schedule that is convenient for them without harming the company's productivity. Many businesses have already proven the effectiveness of the flexible working approach, demonstrating that productivity is increasing, employee job satisfaction is not decreasing, and burnout is decreasing. The 5/2 workweek paradigm is slowly becoming a thing of the past, and we are witnessing this process.
