Flexible working hours are not the only cup of tea for gig workers or freelancers. In 2021 and in the near future, everyone is going to enjoy flexible working hours. We know that many organizations were reluctant about enabling a flexible working hour policy. But the COVID-19 pandemic has brought an overnight shift of remote work for all organizations and since then flexible working hours are becoming a more practical solution to us. Now many organizations are reluctant about its continuation. Many companies think that flexible working hours should be a permanent thing. On the other hand, some companies find it truly beneficial and they want to continue with it even when the pandemic will be over.
What is the flexible working hour?
The term ‘flexible working hours’ is relatively a new word and will be more adaptable by many companies. It refers to the schedules that allow employees to work according to their own time. I mean they can start and finish their workday according to their choice. In this way, your employees may come late or early and end the work late or early. During the work-from-home practice due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations have activated this working schedule. They have realized that no matter when their employees are starting and ending their day, they are getting the desired productivity. There are a lot of benefits that an organization enjoys via enabling flexible working hours. If you are still unaware of those benefits, just take a look at the below section.
Some of the best benefits of flexible working hours
- Reduced costs- If you closely notice the market trends and changes in the industry, you will find out that hot-desking policies are becoming more and more popular on a regular basis. When employees are working remotely, they can choose any shift and cover 24/7 service facilities for your clients. In order to provide round-the-clock services, you do not even require more employees if your existing employees prefer flexible working hours. You can continue your business with fewer employees but will be able to serve clients round the clock. In this way, you are just saving the expense of hiring more and more employees.
- Increased productivity- If an employee has the opportunity to work from home and choose any flexible shift, he/she will be automatically more productive. They do not need to commute for hours in order to reach the office and start work. They get an amazing level of flexibility. When employees get all the desired eases, they become more concentrated at work. When they do not need to face many hurdles, they become more patient and perform their own task with added care.
But it is not that only letting them work from home will bring you a lot of benefits along with higher productivity. You have to equip them with the best technologies so that they can easily perform from their homes without facing any kind of problem. Nowadays, cloud-based technologies are popular because of their stunning benefits. Your employees are truly performing from their home or tending towards time theft or buddy punching, you will be able to track each and every activity of your employees. When employees know that they are getting tracked by a robust and automatic employee tracking software solution, they will automatically become more sincere and productive.
- Increased creativity- creativity is the only thing that gets appreciated in every corner of the world. Happy and motivated employees are truly creative and they show creativity in every step of their performance. You can keep your employees truly happy only when you let them work in the way they want. The flexible working hours will offer your employees the desired level of flexibility so that employees can easily bring out their creative side to the work and let you enjoy the new definition of perfection and excellence.
When you offer the desired flexibility to all your employees, you will find out that there are some employees who are getting more sincere about their work and bringing more creative ideas to the table in order to perform the tasks in better and effective ways. You will enjoy the ease and creativity in all ongoing projects and it will also transform your general working culture.
- Ease of management- without any doubt, employee management is a tough task. And it becomes tougher when employees are working from home. But if you equip your employees with the best set of technologies, management will be a very easy thing for you. By letting them work according to their flexible working hours, you have added the required amount of flexibility. Now it’s time to manage them well. From the previous points, you can easily know that remote employees are more productive and sincere about the instructions they get from their seniors and managers.
Managing them becomes easier when you equip the management department with the best employee management software solution. From tracking employee performance to preparing productivity reports- you can enjoy everything under a single roof. Generally, such software solutions come with cloud benefits and you get real-time data and reports made using real-time data sets. So, we can say that it makes decision-making truly easy, effective, and error-free for you.
- Employee retention- having a satisfactory employee retention rate is a challenge to many organizations. There are lots of organizations that are in an attempt to attract quality performers from other organizations and make a talent pool of their own. And it makes employee retention complicated for many small and medium-sized organizations. In such a situation, small and medium-sized companies can offer the desired flexibility to their employees
Flexibility can be offered via flexible working hours. Employees will be able to start and end their workday according to their wishes or when they find themselves most productive. When employees get the desired flexibility, they find working at that organization more comfortable and prefer to stay there for a longer span of time. In this way, you will be able to offer the desired flexibility to your employees and boost the employee retention rate easily.
- Job satisfaction- It is one of the most vital things that your employees are in search of. If you fail to offer the desired job satisfaction to your employees, they are going to leave you soon. In order to keep employees satisfied, today’s employers take various types of measures. Job satisfaction is also directly linked to employee engagement and retention rates. If you offer them flexible working hours, you will actually offer them the desired flexibility. It will keep them satisfied and they will plan to serve your organization for a longer span of time.
- The better mental health of employees- when employees get the desired flexibility and job satisfaction, they have better mental health. Employees who have better mental health are more productive and offer quality work. They do not have any stress of a regular commute, the tension of delay in attendance, and so on. They can be tension-less and properly concentrate on their own tasks.
You know that the COVID-19 pandemic is causing tremendous stress on every human on this planet. In such a situation, you should not let your employees get more stress from your side. You can make them motivated by offering flexible working hours so that you can easily enjoy increased productivity and engagement without making your employees stressed.
- Better work-life balance of your employees- you know that the pandemic is stressing everyone at a great level. In such a situation, if any of your employees find it hard to manage the work-life balance, the entire scenario is going to be more difficult for him/her. It will affect the productivity, quality of work, and engagement of that employee. In order to avoid all these hassles, employers are offering holistic benefits along with flexible working hours. So that all employees of their organization can easily maintain a better work-life balance and stay productive while serving the organization.
A better work-life balance is one of the most important drivers of employee engagement and higher productivity. What a satisfied employee can offer your organization you cannot get the same level of excellence or productivity from an employee who is facing a hard to maintain a proper work-life balance. Letting your employees earn a better work-life balance is no more a challenge or a difficult thing as you can easily achieve it just by letting them work in their flexible working hours.
These are the best 8 benefits of offering flexible working hours to your employees. It is not that flexible working hour policy only comes with benefits and there are no cons of it. There are some drawbacks of it too, especially when nearly all organizations are forced to run remotely. The flexible working hour plan will differ from one organization to another. According to your requirements and after properly evaluating all the cons, you should design your working hour policy carefully and deploy that into your organization.
Disadvantages of flexible working hours
- Difficulties in adapting a new working style- many of your employees are familiar with office-based work and they try to maintain a fixed schedule for work. Such a working hour policy may not be effective for those employees. They can find communication problems as not all their coworkers will be present at work at the same time and they may need some communication in order to perform the task without having any errors. On the other hand, employees who are familiar with face-to-face communication can find telecommunication hard to continue along with their specific tasks.
- No clear fixed work time- we have already mentioned that there are some people who want to have fixed work time and after that, they want to spend their time in their own way. It also helps them to stay on a routine and they can balance everything well. Those employees find flexible working hours a bit difficult. They neither prefer to join late nor leave the desk late. If other team members are following flexible working hours and there is no fixed time to start and end the workday, employees who prefer to maintain everything routine-wise will find the entire setting difficult for them. It can also affect their work-life balance.
- Less productivity- It is not that all your employees are truly committed to your organization and they will deliver quality work even if you do not supervise them. When employees are working remotely, they can easily commit time theft, buddy punching, and so on. And all these things are going to affect the productivity level of your organization.
But all these drawbacks can be easily overcome if you equip your employees with a cloud-based employee tracking cum human resource management software solution. Many leading organizations are taking the help of such solutions in order to run their organization operations smoothly and keep the productivity level up to the mark. If you too are in search of something related, you can easily go for HRMWARE created by Vyrazu Labs.
HRMWARE is an employee tracking cum complete human resource management software solution with the best features and stunning cloud benefits. With such a software solution, managing a wide employee base remotely is not a difficult task. From attendance management to payroll management- you can enjoy all human resource management benefits remotely.
The most exciting fact is that when small and medium-sized businesses are finding it hard to survive in the world of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vyrazu Labs is offering this SaaS product free of cost for organizations who are running with up to 10 employees. In this way, small businesses will be able to manage employees remotely, let them work on flexible working hours, and keep employees truly connected and engaged with the organization. This software solution is designed for all sizes of organizations so that everyone in the industry can equip their employees at the best level and ensure growth even when the market is going through a crisis.