A recent growing trend in last few years is the flexible workplace, something that in turn has shown to be highly appreciated among employees. However, how do we know that it really works in practice? The older and firmer rules as well as work hours are slowly but steadily fading away as they’re replaced by more flexibility, but who is the real winner?
Has the new trend instead lead to many working around the clock?
The fact that many like the opportunity of being able to work from home may not come as a surprise. According to a study by PWC, there’s a 48% bigger chance of higher ratings from those who do decide to work from home once a week than those who don’t. Therefore, the trend has increasingly become a popular concept and more companies choose to give staff the opportunity of working from home.
Smaller companies seem to be better at letting their staff be more flexible. The study from PWC also shows that 86% of employees at bigger companies want to be able to work from home but only 26% see it as a possibility. In smaller companies more than 50% say that they’re able to complete their work from home.
So, what’s the issue?
Employees want to be able to work from home and it’s allowed in some manner. However, the big problem is shown when you investigate how those hours are used. 4 out of 10 agree that they are expected to be available via email or phone on their free time according to a report by Doplace, while only 4% actually work from home at least once a week. Today there’s a strong expectation that employees should be able to adapt their free time to work. We rarely hear the opposite, that work life simply can be adapted to fit private life.
Another problem is experienced disbelief and false expectations. There’s still perceived distrust amongst employers that work isn’t handled how it should when working from home. This often leads to employees overcompensating by only taking a quick lunch or working an extra hour at night to finish a certain task.
We believe that much of this derives from the fact that companies don’t have the technology needed, in particular mobile applications, to be able to work as effectively as possible outside of work. We can clearly see how companies that have adapted to technical trends and mobile access have changed their attitude, policies and approach to flexible workplace.
Some of the most important techniques to invest in is access to system (CRM for example) as well as communication solutions such as telephony, chat, conference call and collaboration tools.
Read more about companies that have come a long way with mobile tools in daily work:
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