Mumbai: Amid the competitive talent landscape, employers are adopting flexible working policies to enable employees to vary their hours and use the latest technologies to work from home. Nearly 75 per cent of companies worldwide have now introduced flexible working policies, according Vodafone Global Survey titled “Flexible: friend or foe?”. The survey was conducted with 8,000 employers and employees across three continents and it got responses from small and medium-sized businesses, public sector organisations and multinational corporations (MNCs) in 10 countries.
The survey revealed that the rapid rise in adoption of flexible working environment was led by broadly three factors: an increase in the company’s financial performance; an improvement in employee productivity; a positive impact on reputation of the company. Nearly 61 per cent of respondents said their company’s profits increased while 83 per cent reported an improvement in productivity. Further, 58 per cent believed that flexible working policies had a positive impact on their organisation’s reputation.
Vodafone’s survey further mentioned that digital technology and Internet of Things (IoTs) are prompting the companies to adopt flexi-working policies. High-speed mobile data services, fixed-line broadband and cloud services is playing an integral role in this workplace revolution. Around 61 per cent of respondents now use their home broadband service to access work applications and 24 per cent use a mobile data connection via their smartphone, tablet or laptop with a broadband dongle.
The global survey also attempted to explore the reasons why 20 per cent of respondents said their organisation had not yet implemented a flexible working policy. Cultural issue, possible conflict between employees working flexibly and those who did not do so, expected downfall in employee’s performance were found to be major causes that forced the companies not to adopt flexi-work environment.
Nearly 33 per cent of them said they believed it would not suit the culture of their organization while 30 per cent were concerned about friction between employees working flexibly and those who did not do so. As many as 25 per cent believed that work would be unfairly distributed between flexible and non-flexible groups of employees where as 22 per cent believed employees would not work as hard if allowed to adopt flexible working patterns and technologies.
52 per cent of German employees surveyed said they were not aware of their company’s security policy regarding flexible working compared with 23 per cent of those in India.
Vodafone Group Enterprise Chief Executive Nick Jeffery said: “Vodafone’s research reveals a profound and rapid shift in the modern workplace. Employers are telling us that flexible working boosts profits while their employees tell us they’re more productive.” The new technologies, from high-speed mobile data networks and fixed-line broadband to the latest collaborative cloud services, are reshaping and fostering innovation in the modern workplace.
Vodafone’s Flexible: friend or foe? survey also found divergent views between age groups in the workplace. The new generation in the workplace is adopting technologies more quickly such as cloud services, advanced messaging and video conferencing that are central to flexible working. Researchers found that 72 per cent of 18-24 year olds thought that flexible working would improve the quality of their work. However, that proportion fell to 38 per cent among respondents over 55.
The Flexible: friend or foe? survey was conducted by Morar (formerly Redshift Research) on behalf of Vodafone between September and October 2015. The surveyed covered the following 10 countries: Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, the UK and the USA. A total of 8,000 employers and employees were interviewed online across these 10 countries.
