What is flexibility in the workplace and why is it important?

Attitudes to work are evolving. To retain and engage employees, organisations today are reimagining the traditional workplace by embracing more flexible working arrangements that cater to the diverse needs and expectations of their workforce. But good flexible working depends on two key ingredients: choice and trust.

The rise, fall, and rise again of flexibility

Flexible working is still a relatively new phenomenon in society. Although it had gained some traction in certain sectors or business models before the pandemic (companies such as Deloitte and PwC were experimenting with flexible, distributed workforces back in the 1990s), it was by no means a mainstream business practice. This means that organisations don’t have many datasets or established frameworks to draw on as they feel their way into establishing flexible working practices post Covid.

The problem with flexibility is that there are no universal pros and cons. While flexibility can improve the bottom-line, the degree to which this is true will be dependent on a wide variety of organisational factors; where not managed properly, flexibility can actually have a negative effect on communication, collaboration, oversight, and culture. In fact, many of the companies that had brought in ‘boundaryless’ or work-from-home programmes were busy closing them down during the 2010s – IBM, Bank of America, and Yahoo were some of the highest-profile examples.

Employees want flexibility, and yet some data suggests it leaves them vulnerable to isolation and depression and can hamper career growth because of reduced learning experiences. While it appears that flexible working increases productivity and job satisfaction, there is a danger that remote working places an unfair burden of responsibility onto the employee, leading to job creep and overwork, which could result in high employee turnover.

So, it would be wrong to say there are only benefits to flexible working. There are positive and negative impacts, there are good and bad experiences, and that’s why it's so hard to do well. I think that achieving true flexibility that benefits everyone will require us to challenge our assumptions and be open to change. If we want different work experiences, we will have to think differently.

What exactly is flexibility in the workplace?

So, what exactly do we mean when we talk about flexibility? It’s a catch-all phrase for a wide variety of working scenarios. Flexibility is not the same thing as hybrid working. While a hybrid model is one example of flexibility, you have not achieved flexibility simply because you have established a hybrid office. Some examples are:

• Remote – working at a location outside the office (sometimes referred to as teleworking or telecommuting).
• Hybrid working model – a combination of home working (referred to by Revenue as e-working) and on-site office working.
• Flexitime or staggered hours – a schedule that’s different from the typical nine-to-five.
• Compressed hours – a work week condensed into fewer days than usual.
• Part-time – one of the more established forms of flexibility that involves working a percentage of a normal full-time role.
• Job-shares – where two employees cover one full-time job between them.
• Unlimited time off – a model that sets no limit on annual leave as long as the role responsibilities are met (sometimes referred to as unlimited holidays).
• Annual hours – setting a total number of hours that must be worked in the year, but not when they need to be worked.

These are just some examples, but there are other ways to bring flexibility to the workplace. Flexibility means different things to different people. For some, geography is the key. For others, it might be time-management. There are also many reasons a person might need flexibility; while parenting or caring are the most obvious ones, others reasons to want flexibility could include study, travel, volunteering, and cultural or social reasons.

You may have a flexibility policy that takes account of practicalities such as dropping children at school, however, there are other scenarios that may not be as apparent or easy for people to discuss. People may be looking to reduce their environmental footprint by commuting less. People with disabilities may want to reduce the stress of planning for and taking public transport. Neuro atypical employees may be looking to minimise sensory distraction or work in rhythm with their energy levels.

Whatever the reasons, flexibility often comes up as a requirement for candidates early in our conversations with them. It may not be a deal-breaker, but many candidates want to know if this is even a discussion that can be had with the potential employer or if working structures are set in stone. When it comes to evaluating similar roles, the ones with more flexibility are more attractive to candidates. Luckily, the sectors we specialise in are generally well-suited to flexibility.

Flexibility isn’t going away

The United Kingdom is currently legislating for the right to flexibility in the workplace. From spring 2025, all employees (not just parents and carers, as in the EU) will be able to make two flexible working requests in each 12-month period, and employers will have to respond within two months, with a valid reason if they reject the request. It’s not unreasonable to think that other jurisdictions will bring in such protections in the near future.

Before Covid, we saw regular examples of people not moving jobs because they had a degree of flexibility and weren’t prepared to let that go. Now that most organisations realise this is a desirable and workable element of hiring policy, it has levelled up the field and actually increased mobility in the market. Companies that get it right – keeping their culture and maintaining collaboration in a hybrid setting – will win in attracting the quality staff they want. Any employer hoping that talk of flexible working will go away if they ignore it for long enough needs to realise that this is the new reality.

How to bring flexibility into the workplace

Flexibility is a balancing act and there is no one way to achieve it. If you are exploring ways to make flexibility work, understand that this is an ongoing conversation within the organisation. Maintain open communication around the issues employees are having and check in with teams regularly – whether you are a manager or in the HR department. It’s possible that what was working well six months ago is not working so well now.

We’re in a period of fast change in terms of employee presence – going from fully remote in 2020 to mostly remote in 2021 to hybrid in 2022 and now, in 2023, a definite trend back towards the office. For those living more than an hour from work, a move back to full-time office working will be tough. Plenty of people moved out of the city to embrace the new era of remote working and benefit from the lower cost of living and higher quality of life. If organisations mandate higher numbers of days in-office, it could prove to be a pinch point for some of them.

We are seeing a couple of different issues in the hybrid environments we encounter. One is inflexible flexibility – for example, a hybrid model without any ability to choose which days are in or out of the office. That may be a hybrid working policy, but it can’t be called a flexible working policy. On the flip side, too much flexibility can turn into a downside for some people in the team – for example, where the physical presence of colleagues varies wildly across the week, people can find themselves coming into an empty office. When there is no predictability, employees can feel adrift. Morale is affected because there are fewer opportunities to engage with or learn from colleagues.

So you may find yourself managing conflicting requirements from employees. In these scenarios, the only way forward is to bring teams together and establish what would be best for the team as a whole, rather a particular individual. Although compromise may be needed, this will ultimately lead to a better outcome for each employee, as both organisational and professional success will depend on the team working and collaborating well.

We have seen people leaving jobs because they don’t have enough flexibility, and others leaving because there is so much flexibility they no longer interact with colleagues and feel cut off. That's why some level of trade-off will be required. The sense of connection and creativity you can generate in a bustling office can’t be denied. I certainly miss it sometimes, but I’ve traded it for a different balance, and I’m happy with that because it was my choice. I think ultimately that’s what flexibility should be founded on. Choice.

Flexibility works well in high trust environments

In our experience, people ask for the flexibility they need to do their job well and no more. When the bounds of what signifies flexibility only account for the most typical scenarios, this is counterproductive. The working model may look different to pre-Covid, but it is in fact just as rigid (we’re back to the phenomenon of inflexible flexibility). Rather than setting limits and expecting people to fall within them, it makes sense to hire capable individuals who can achieve the results you want and then work with them to find out what they need.

You can only have true flexibility in a high trust environment. At Savvi Recruitment, we’ve worked hard to make sure there is no fixed template for flexibility. We hire people we can trust, and we let them develop their own version of flexibility without contrast or comparison with anyone else’s reality. This includes measuring people’s outputs rather than inputs as, to achieve the same results, different people work in different ways. That’s how flexibility becomes organisational success. Trust.

My takeaway from all this is that flexibility is hard, but possible. Focus on your key ingredients of choice and trust. Remember that flexibility isn’t what you, as the employer, say it is. Also, think less about what flexibility looks like and more about how it feels for the individual. Good flexibility isn't just about accommodating an employee's work schedule, but also about empowering them to lead a fulfilling and rich life - at work and beyond.