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Does Your Business Support Flexible Work

June 17, 2020

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Does Your Business Support Flexible Work?

Offering flexible work schedules and working hours for your remote employees can prove vital to your business’s success during this challenging time. It’s about allowing your workers to choose when they want to work, and providing them with the collaboration tools that make their preferences possible.

Why support flexible work?

It supports your diverse workforce—your employees have different lifestyles, family responsibilities, health needs and more. Supporting them with flexible work allows for their broad mix of skills, knowledge and experiences to flourish, enhancing your business.¹
It promotes your business as a family-friendly and progressive place to work.²
It improves employee morale as they gain more control over their schedules.³
It promotes loyalty—82% of employees are more loyal to employers with flexible work options.⁴
It increases engagement and reduces turnover—60% of employees who have flexible work options feel they’re more productive and engaged⁵
It reduces your business’s energy consumption and carbon footprint by working from home, and eliminates the need for a physical workspace.⁶

How to enable flexible remote work:

Develop clear policies that are fair for everyone, such as requiring that requests for flexible hours must be made at least one day in advance.⁷
Use the cloud to provide access to communication tools that encourage collaboration.
Leverage unified communications to keep employees informed and accountable, and accommodate for various schedules.⁸
Have regular check-ins with employees to keep them on track and feeling connected to the team.⁹
Lead by example—make flexible work part of the norm by doing it yourself. This helps your employees feel good about taking advantage of this new work style.¹⁰

Flexible work has the capability for making your remote employees feel better, work smarter and drive better business results. Luckily, there are excellent unified communications tools available to make flexible work, work for you.

The bottom line: Flexible work can boost your remote team’s morale, improve loyalty and increase engagement. By leveraging cloud-based resources and unified communications, you can ensure that your flexible work policies are fair and beneficial to your business.

Sources:

¹ (Author unknown) (Date unknown) 5 ‘hidden’ employer benefits of flexible working. [Online article] Retrieved from https://www.tpp.co.uk/employers/recruitment-advice/general-recruitment/five-hidden-employer-benefits-of-flexible-working

^2,3 (Author unknown) (Date unknown) The Advantages and Disadvantages of Flexible Work Schedules [Online article] Retrieved from https://www.thebalancecareers.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-flexible-work-schedules-1917964

⁴ (The, E.) (2017 Dec 14) 25 Fascinating Statistics About Employee Engagement [Online article] Retrieved from https://risepeople.com/blog/employee-engagement-statistics/

⁵ (Author unknown) (2018, Mar 23) 60% of U.S. workers feel more productive when they have workplace flexibility. [Online article] Retrieved from https://www.benefitscanada.com/news/60-of-u-s-workers-feel-more-productive-engaged-when-working-flexibly-survey-112321

⁶ (Sutton, S.) (2015, Apr 22) How Telecommuting Reduced Carbon Footprints at Dell, Aetna and Xerox. [Online article] Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245296

^{7, 8, 9,10} (McLaren, S.) (2018, Jun 18) Here’s What Actually Happens When Employees Have Flexible and Remote Work Options. [Online article] Retrieved from https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/company-culture/2018/remote-and-flexible-work-options

Keep your business connected

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Does Your Business Support Flexible Work?

Why support flexible work?

How to enable flexible remote work:

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