How flexible working leads to happy employees

The Ten2Two Flexible and Proud Report looks at how businesses have been able to improve staff retention and employee satisfaction by offering flexible working to their workers.

Often, flexible working is viewed as being a major benefit for working parents or staff who want greater work-life balance. But we don’t hear enough about the flip side of that and what it means for businesses who open their doors to flexible working. Our Flexible and Proud Report seeks to address that.

Offering flexible working means fulfilled staff

As an employer, when you consider the recruitment process, does it fill you with dread? It’s certainly a time-consuming process and one that can run into the thousands when it comes to paying for a new hire. But if you could hold onto your employees for longer by increasing staff retention, you can save your company time and a lot of hassle.

Simply put, happy employees don’t leave companies as frequently as disgruntled employees.

“Greater employee engagement leads to less time out of the office.”

Happy employees cut down their commute

Haines Watts is Chartered Accountant in the London and Hertfordshire region. Here’s what they had to tell us when we asked them about the benefits

They say, “Flexible and remote working allows our staff to better manage their home and family life whilst still meeting the needs of the business. We have seen a rise in productivity levels and a decrease in holiday requests as a result of remote and flexible working as staff no longer require a full day out of the office for personal reasons such as a doctor’s appointment or a dental appointment.”

“For some of the team, remote working saves them up to three hours per day avoiding sitting in traffic jams, allowing for higher productivity and a strong focus on the job at hand. In our opinion, as long as the job is completed to the high standard that our clients are accustomed to, then we are pro remote and flexible working.”

It seems that happy employees aren’t sitting in long traffic jams or spending hours on packed trains. It’s why many of the candidates we place happen to be local to the businesses they end up working for.

Happy employees look for work-life balance

MHA Monahans is a Wiltshire and Somerset based business who also recognises the benefits of flexible working. They say, “We’re really clear about the value of our people – they are our biggest asset and this is reflected within our strategic business objectives.”

“Flexible working is embedded in our business as a key element of our people strategy. Ensuring we can attract and retain the best candidates in the current challenging recruitment market is key and we pride ourselves on getting the work/life balance right for our workforce.”

“Our people told us that one of the things they love and value about working here is our flexibility.”

Happy employees and presenteeism don’t mix

When employees have autonomy over the way they achieve their results, they have greater happiness generally. It’s a wake-up call for businesses still hung up on presenteeism.

Rebel Kitchen, an innovative Health Food Company explains, “We’re all about allowing people to work to their own individual rhythm so there are no set hours and people are not required to be ‘in the office’. The business is on from 9-6pm but how people choose to interact with that is entirely up to them.”

“By showing that you value and trust your employees to do a good job without limiting yourself to the practice of presenteeism, your business can boost employee discretionary effort.”

As Rebel Kitchen highlights, “Of course, there is a need for flexibility within that where cross functional meetings may be needed but it’s a reciprocal relationship which people respect. All we ask for is respect for one another across the team in the way that you would respect your family.”

Read Ten2Two’s Flexible and Proud Employer Report

You can read Ten2Two’s full Flexible and Proud Report here. If you’d like to find out more about how to implement flexible working to increase employee happiness across your business, please contact us today.

We can also create returnship programmes to help you recruit higher volumes of staff and offer consulting around designing part-time and flexible roles such as job shares. We look forward to hearing from you.