Workplace flexibility as an HR incentive: benefits and examples

Workplace flexibility is a resource that encompasses different types of work accommodations to increase employee engagement and attract qualified talent.

From facilitating flexible work schedules to remote working, there are many things you can do in your organization to increase the autonomy and satisfaction of your teams while improving your results.

In an ever-changing world, the same flexibility that is demanded of individuals must also be offered by the organization if it is to be competitive. This is where flexibility becomes a HR incentive. 

If you are interested in this topic, read on. In this article, we explain the benefits of workplace flexibility and illustrate them with some examples.

What is workplace flexibility?

Workplace flexibility is a business strategy based on solutions of various types that allow your employees to achieve work-life balance autonomy through their locations and schedules. 

Although flexibility varies from one organization to another and can be translated into very different measures, it is usually an environment that focuses more on the completion of a project than on completing it from a specific location with a specific schedule. 

Thus, a flexible work environment can be incorporated into the corporate culture through different types of flexibility: 

• Functional. It lies in the versatility of employees to adapt their tasks to the needs. It is ideal for implementing an agile methodology.
• Schedule and working hours. It allows employees to freely adapt their schedules or to concentrate their work in 4 days instead of 5. 
• Salary. It lets employees choose to receive part of their compensation in kind, whichever form of payment suits them best, or when they prefer to receive their paycheck.
• Spatial. It makes it easier for employees to accept telecommuting or remote work, and even to relocate geographically.

In each case, flexibility must be analyzed based on an organization’s needs and goals to determine the best way to implement it.  

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Challenges of a flexible work environment 

Although workplace flexibility offers many benefits, it also presents some challenges that need to be understood: 

• Before working on creating a flexible work environment, conduct a study that integrates your teams, the roles and resources you have, the need for training and development of specific skills, etc. 
• Train your employees in the concept of workplace flexibility so that they can manage and take responsibility for the freedom of choice.
• Think about how change will affect your suppliers and customers, each department and interactions between teams.
• Train your managers in exponential leadership to enable the transition from linear to exponential thinking needed to manage change.  

Benefits of workplace flexibility

The significant benefits of workplace flexibility make it a HR incentive for organizations. 

Some of the strategic benefits are listed below.

Enable work-life balance

Workplace flexibility allows your employees to better adapt to their responsibilities while benefiting from a better work-life balance. 

The result is increased commitment to the company and reduced conflict situations that can lead to stress from not being able to deal with pressing personal issues.  

Empower team autonomy

Giving teams greater autonomy in managing tasks or time improves decision-making and accountability. 

It also creates an environment conducive to the development of creativity and innovation, and increases employee satisfaction by reducing the likelihood of work burnout.  

This improvement in employee experience creates a healthier work environment that cares for the mental and physical health of your human capital and empowers your employees. 

Attract and retain talent

Flexibility is often a priority, especially for the most skilled profiles, so offering it enhances your employer branding by improving your ability to attract specialized talent. 

Introducing a job crafting dynamic to your recruiting process, where the candidate works with the company to design their ideal position, can significantly improve talent retention. 

Help create specialized work teams

Workplace flexibility to some extent involves the refinement of work by incorporating technology to achieve better performance, as well as working remotely. 

Work becomes more specialized thanks to multi-skilled professionals who know how to manage their time and adapt to fluctuations in workload that can lead to unstable markets. 

This has a positive impact on the competitiveness of companies.

Complementary benefits

Measures such as remote work can help to reduce fixed costs in companies, for example by reducing the need for office facilities and services. 

On the other hand, an agile infrastructure allows companies to adapt to changes in a volatile environment. 

Besides, the reduction of employee turnover rate leads to an increase in the success rate of recruitment processes. 

The bottom line is increased business value and continuity. 

Workplace flexibility examples

At this point, although we have introduced some of them, we would like to list several examples of workplace flexibility for you to evaluate if you can incorporate them into your HR strategies: 

• Flexible schedules, in which workers set their own shifts, schedules and breaks.
• Part-time work, compressed into fewer days or intensive workdays. 
• Multipurpose training that allows your teams to develop across the company.
• Flexible emotional pay, where the employees choose the nature of their additional compensations. 
• Remote work in hybrids jobs, where the person chooses the place of work.

The traditional organizational model is being replaced by other more agile models capable of adapting to markets where uncertainty is common. 

For this reason, Smowltech wants to accompany you in this transformation by offering you proctoring plans for your online supervision. 

Ask for a free demo to see all the solutions we can offer you to combine flexibility, innovation and security for your users to increase your success.

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