Is It Time Your Organization Provided Workplace Flexibility?

Job Satisfaction Diagram - Workplace FlexibilityA new report entitled, “2015 Workplace Flexibility Study,” surveyed 1087 professionals (employed and job seekers), and 116 HR professionals  and found that 67% of HR professionals think that their employees have a balanced work-life, yet almost half (45%) of employees (35% of job seekers) feel that they don’t have enough personal time each week.

According to the report, sponsored by WorkplaceTrends.com, and CareerArc, giving employees the option to periodically work from home without coming into the office provides benefits to both employees and employers. “87% of HR leaders believe that workplace flexibility programs lead to employee satisfaction, while nearly 7 out of 10 HR leaders use workplace flexibility programs as a recruiting and retention tool.”

Most employers do not appear to be aware of how important workplace flexibility is to employees. Roughly 50% of employers ranked workplace flexibility as the most important benefit they believe their employees desire, compared to 75% of employees – who ranked it as the most important benefit!

But workplace flexibility isn’t only good for employee satisfaction.  Employers also chalked up an increase in productivity, an increase in employee retention, and 54% said their workplace flexibility programs positively impacted their recruiting.

Total Benefits Reporting software tools like COMPackage.com, allow employers to really put a fine point on how workplace flexibility impacts an employee’s bottom line. The software has standard benefits reporting features such as charting the value of salary, bonuses, profit sharing, healthcare-related benefits, paid time off, and so on. Moreover, it has the ability to display, and value, custom benefits. For example, employers can show their employees the actual estimated dollar value of not having to pay for parking, gas, going out to lunch – even the value of the time saved by not having to spend 30 minutes twice a day commuting to and from work. While these things can be taken for granted, they can add up to thousands of dollars.

Employers not currently offering workplace flexibility might well benefit from taking a hard look at the hard dollars to be gained – both by the employer and the employees – in allowing employees to work from home. Workplace flexibility is clearly a burgeoning trend, and employers who don’t get on board might find themselves working harder than necessary to attract and retain top talent.

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