In recent times, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of individuals well-being both inside and outside the workplace. By trying to get the most out of their business, many company owners/managers are choosing to adopt different approaches to increase the wellbeing and productivity of their employees.
Flexible working initiatives is one such example allowing employees to either work from home, work part-time, or another arrangement which is suited to them. Although this may seem like it will affect the development of the individual and their work, it actually has multiple benefits for the business owner as well as the employee.
Research shows that implementing flexible working arrangements can improve your employee’s engagement and their motivation towards their work-life and even their involvement and productivity. By positively engaging with your employees while using flexible working initiatives, you are likely to increase their morale and commitment towards your business.
In particular many women have to juggle childcare with their jobs and in a recent report when discussing roles that offer flexible working, 75 percent of women surveyed wished their jobs offered a degree of flexibility to help them maintain a better work life balance and felt that this would have a positive impact on their lives.
Not everyone can work from home effectively, but for those who can, it can lead to a huge boost in productivity and provide a mental break from being in the office. Mental health is one of the key contributors to productivity. A person’s mental well-being can impact not only themselves but those around them, potentially affecting the productivity of your workplace. If you allow flexible working initiatives, you will reduce the amount of absences and distractions as you can allow the individual to take the time off they need but to work where they feel comfortable and more motivated.
Research shows that, 42% of UK employees call in sick claiming they have a physical illness when really it is a mental health related issue, 21% have called in sick due to stress but have pretended it was physical. Only 15% of UK employees would tell their boss about their mental health issues. On average 8.4 full days have been missed due to mental health (including stress related issues). – Statistics from http://www.onrec.com/news/statistics-and-trends/the-real-reason-employees-call-in-sick-one-fifth-mask-stress-as-a
You may have a valuable member of staff who you could potentially lose from the organisation due to a change in personal circumstances. If you can offer reduced hours or the facility for them to work from home it will cost less than trying to replace them. On this web site you can quickly find a girl. Setting employees up to work from home might carry an initial expense for phones, laptops and remote server access, but compare this with the cost of replacing them, the time and resources allocated for training and you start to see there really is a good case to allow your employees the option to work from home.