Articles From the Team

Should I be offering Agile/ Flexible working? The answer might surprise you!

The ability to communicate “electronically” has been widely used by companies to attract top talent. Systems are lauded as being state of the art, modern, the latest technology, geared up for remote working…the list could go on. These “tag” lines are often used as a way to set you ahead of your competitors.

As more and more firms in the UK begin to offer agile working, whether that is full or partial flexibility, the countries who were early adopters of this regime are beginning to question the productivity gains it offers.

I am sure everybody will agree that America adopted this approach before companies in the UK but now statistics in America show that the number of employees who worked partially or fully from home dropped from 24% in 2015 to 22% in 2016, a downward curve compared to the UK’s upward curve.

To give you a working example, after 20 consecutive quarters of falling revenues, IBM found that remote workers were performing better when seated close to their colleagues/ team mates. As a result of this, the company has announced that about 2,600 people would be required to work in one of six designated cities or to look for new jobs. Yahoo and Best Buy did the same back in 2013. Bank of America also joined the bandwagon of companies pulling workers back in.

Their reasoning, work has become more team-based meaning a higher level of proximity is needed. Employers are also finding that their employees prefer that collegiate environment who would have thought working as a team would have improved results….?

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