Take it from us. Turbine is a completely remote company, and it’s one of our biggest perks. Here are 5 benefits to adopting flexible working practices at your business.
1. It’s cost-effective and efficient
Flexible working offers benefits on both sides. For an employer, a totally remote workforce means no paying for office space or any associated bills. And the employee cuts down on travel costs.
Flexible working means employees don’t waste time (or expenditure) on unnecessary travel. Crunch the numbers – what could you save?
2. Better work/life balance
Speaking of travel, 45 percent of people spend more than an hour commuting to work each day. Instead, they could be spending that time having breakfast with their family, getting in some exercise or reading a book. Imagine that. Think how happy people will be with more time for themselves.
Flexible working also means you can fit work around your other responsibilities, like walking the dog or taking care of sick children. This is a great way of accommodating the needs of your employee, and you will see a return.
3. An improved company culture
This argument is controversial, but hear us out. Denmark wins the happiest country award almost every year. Why? A lot of it is to do with culture. Without a conscious effort placed on happiness – like the practice of Hygge – happiness is a hard thing to avoid.
For flexible working to work, culture must be prioritised. Done wrong, it’s isolating. Done right, flexible working means employees no longer take each other for granted. They must put in that extra bit of effort to communicate and collaborate. The result? A more connected, more in-sync company.
4. Location independent hiring
Flexible working means that regardless of location, you can hire anyone from anywhere. A great example of this is Basecamp, our project management application. Their philosophy sounds a little like this:
As an employer, restricting your hiring to a small geographic region means you’re not getting the best people you can. As an employee, restricting your job search to companies within a reasonable commute means you’re not working for the best company you can.
If you’re a London-based company and you’re only looking for employees within the M25, you’re limiting your company. If you’re a job seeker looking for a career near you, you’re limiting yourself.
5. Increased loyalty, reduced turnover
In the UK, employee absenteeism costs the economy £18 billion per year. Flexible working is freedom, and freedom is loyalty.
When people quit jobs, it’s often because extra responsibility means closed doors in personal lives. A new project, for example, means longer working hours, and less time for ourselves results in unhappiness, demotivation and dissatisfaction.
But flexible working let’s employees go to the dentist and take on that extra work. Sure, time management becomes an important factor, but once you demonstrate trust to your employees – when you give them the extra freedom to work – they’ll show you just how hard they will.
Make flexible working work
To make flexible working a reality, you need the right tools. Smart devices, access management, and, for an employer, an automated HR tool like Turbine is vital.
With Turbine, your employees can request time off, purchase orders and expenses from their devices, and you can approve them in minutes from any location at any time.
Long gone are the days of filling in forms. Turbine lets you go paperless. Better yet, it lets you go office-free. Think how much money you could save…
