People who have worked remotely are now more interested in getting more flexibility in the hours that they work. A recent survey by Adobe says: “51% of enterprise employees would like to have complete flexibility when it comes to their schedule which is in contrast to only 16% of respondents who said that their ideal workweek should be with no flexibility at all with a start and end according to a set work schedule.”
A survey of seven countries found that there is a desire for more flexible work hours. These desires were found in all 7 countries, including the UK US, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, and Japan. 56% of the surveyed Germans exhibited a keen interest in adopting flexible work hours. 39% of this group were already enjoying a more flexible lifestyle. Japan has the lowest participation in flexible hours out of the seven countries surveyed, only counting for 12% of the population. However, a very interesting point is that 48% of poll respondents said they too would like to work in a less restrictive way in the future.
Younger generations of people are learning that some jobs allow you to set your own schedule and are starting to value those more. A whopping 73% of Millennials in 2021 said they would switch jobs if the salary and job description stayed the same if they were offered more flexibility on their work shifts. An increased number of family-friendly schedules may help with gender equality by giving both parents equal opportunity to take on childcare responsibilities. It seems like this idea is gaining big traction traction as well. We have seen a rising number of organisations adopt this and there were even reports that some European governments, like Ireland, introduced legislation allowing employees to ask for flexible work arrangements.