Several companies offer variable schedules

While the 44% share is remarkable, it is lower than the other measures, because it is likely to capture employers who have adopted formal strategies for making flexible schedules over the long term and are confident enough to designate the policy for job seekers, says Yost.

By the end of 2017, the vast majority of workers said they had some degree of work flexibility, but only 42% said they had been trained in how to handle it, down from 47% in 2015, according to a survey by Flex + Strategy.

Some companies do not formalize flexible work arrangements because they want to offer them quietly to certain employees instead of across the board, says Sara Sutton, CEO of FlexJobs, who posts jobs for external, part-time and freelance work. and provides related consulting services. That, she says, causes jealousy. Others offer flexibility, but still try to reach employees during their spare time.

SOURCE USA Today / LinkedIn survey of 502 hiring managers in the United States, 9/23/9/26 ( Photo: USA TODAY)

Millennials started it all

The transition to more flexible work schedules has been driven by millennials who could complete and submit their college assignments anytime and anywhere as a result of the spread of Wi-Fi , smartphones and emails, says Sutton. They also long for a healthy work-life balance.

"They grew up with this," she says.

Seventy-seven percent of employees consider flexible work an important factor in their job search, according to Zenefits, which provides human resources software. And 30% have left a job because it did not provide flexible work options, reveals a poll from FlexJobs.

Companies respond, largely because they have little choice in the hyper-competitive labor market, says Yost. Technology such as smartphones, cloud and computing tools like Slack have also paved the way. So has a work culture that often requires employees to respond to emails late at night or on vacation . Companies can hardly ask workers to make such sacrifices without giving them more leeway to adjust their hours or locations during the workday, says Yost.

Nevertheless, increased flexibility also increases productivity, says Yost. Sixty percent of employees with workplace flexibility said they feel more productive and engaged, and forty-five percent say it increases their ability to work effectively with their team, according to the Flex + Strategy survey.

Why? The ability to change hours to avoid rush hour traffic, for example, increases efficiency. Some people are more productive late at night than mid-morning. And employees who have been given flexible hours are more loyal and motivated.

"When you give people flexibility, they will give you more," Yost says.

Last year, Sara Martlage, 31, left a sales job at. a shipping company where she felt chained to a desk for a similar role in Scottsdale, Arizona-based Trainual, which provides training for employees largely because the company allows her to adjust her schedule . While the official hours are 8 to 5, Martlage may come in later to attend a workout or yoga class, run a dinner, and work from home for as much as half the time.

"It is giving authority over your schedule," she says. "It makes me want to work harder, be available to call and respond to emails some nights and weekends to go above and beyond to keep my work integrity intact with the rest of my teammates ."

Flexible hours as recruitment tool

Chris Ronzio, Managing Director of Trending, He says he adopted flexible hours about two years ago, mainly to attract workers. Four recent employees, he says, thanks the job offer because of the policy. And it has freed him from keeping a detailed ledger on employee time.

"We put more trust in our team and measure them more based on the results they provide than after the hours they log," says Ronzio. The company with 19 employees has begun tracking monthly and quarterly sales figures to ensure that employees are meeting their goals.

Other companies have hit some bumps along the way. GoBrandgo, a St. Louis marketing company, began letting employees set their own hours and work anywhere about 10 years ago, says partner Brandon Dempsey. To begin with, he said, it was resentful because each division had a different standard for flexible hours and no way to know when employees were unavailable .

Several years ago, he says, the company started an online calendar that employees fill in at the beginning of the week, telling colleagues when they work and when they are out, as well as project management software that tracks the status of each job. Employees must be available for customer meetings every other week and work more closely in teams so that they can answer a client's question if an employee is out.

" Everyone knows the rules of the game now, "Dempsey says.

Employees, he says, are more productive, in part because they can clock hours best suited to their circadian rhythms and not think about home while at work, and vice versa. "Be present wherever you are," he says.

Nicole Turner (33), the creative director, has routinely put in five or six hours during the day at the office and then left home from 7 pm until 2 am

"I am more creative late in the evening, "she says.

Now that she has a two-year-old son, her hours are more normal, though she still sometimes takes part of the day to take care of him and make up the time at night.

"No one looks at me and micromanages me."

The RED Group, a New Orleans-based manufacturer of industrial control systems, began to allow slightly varying schedules several years ago, and changed last month to total flexibility, says company president Kyle Remont. Making the change possible were benchmarks for the cost and time of each project and software showing exactly the percentage completed at any time, as well as a video chat app.

"The biggest positive is employee morale," says Remont. [19659052] CLOSED