Flex Future

The quarantine imposed due to COVID 19, has affirmed the necessity of,and benefits for, working at home. Just last week, Twitter announced "If our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen.”  

We have also seen that not all jobs are suitable for “remote work”. What happens for the people who need flexibility but are in jobs that don’t offer it? And, now that we are faced with social distancing for the near future, how can we adapt our work day, and possibly our school day, to make the necessary changes for health and productivity.  

Flex time does not just mean working from home.  Flex time is a range of options that work for the company and for the employee.  Options include remote work, split shifts where you work in the morning, take midday off and go back to work later in the day, job sharing between two people, a compressed work week with longer hours but fewer days, a completely flexible schedule where you decide when to work, or a flex schedule where a set alternate time is followed.  Some companies don’t focus on your time but only on the results.  

Each option has pros and cons, and some are more suitable to a particular business, or person, while others are not. Companies need to consider the range of possibilities to find the ones that work for the nature of the business and the needs of the employees.  Why?  A few reasons:

·      In his 2005 memo to Microsoft, “The New World of Work,” Bill Gates predicted: “Companies that give extra flexibility to their employees will have the edge.”  

·      Of 1000 knowledge workers polled in the UK, 52% of them said flexi-time beat out bonus packages as the number-one motivational job perk.  We have seen a lot of technological advances that have benefit companies, but workers have not seen a consistent benefit in a way that recognizes their most precious, non-renewable commodity, time.

·      47% of working adults in their 40’s and 50’s are in the “sandwich generation”, caring for both dependent children and aging parents.  

·      There is a good chance that schools won’t be back to business as normal next fall, with discussions of modified school schedules.

·     Millennials place such a high value on work life balance and expect flexibility, that it is estimated that by about 2030, the Millennial majority will likely have redefined the 9-to-5 workday entirely.

Work as we know it is rapidly changing due to safety concerns. Flexibility can be the key both to a company staying in businesses and to employees staying with a company for the long haul.