80% Indian employees believe introducing ‘flexible working’ will reduce commuting hours and stress

It seems the concept of working 9 to 5 in an office no longer seems as productive as used to before. And a global workplace survey conducted by International Workplace Group (IWG), a serviced-offer company, brings to light many startling facts including the benefits of ‘flexible working’. What’s interesting is 80 per cent of Indian workers believe introducing ‘flexible working’ will reduce commuting hours and stress.

Flexible working, as the name suggests, is a way of working that gives employees the flexibility of carrying out their work as per the time that suits them or from a place of their convenience. At the start of 2019, IWG took opinions of more than 15,000 business people across 80 nations, including India, about the key drivers for flexible working, how it is being used by international businesses, and what perceived obstacles to introducing and increasing it still remain.

According to the report, "Flexible working enables workers to improve their work-life balance and reduce stressful commutes – all these factors are hugely important for workers with young families, health issues, older workers and many others." In India, employees believe 'flexible working' is the ‘new normal’ and should be introduced here and 80 per cent of Indian employees believe introducing ‘flexible working’ will reduce commuting hours and stress.

Besides mapping people’s opinion on flexible hours, the survey also made some interesting observations about their commuting time. As per the study, around 61 per cent employees wanted their commute time to the office to be included in their working hours because most people spend a large chunk of their time travelling between their home and office. And if you happen to be in a metro city, commuting between workplace and home becomes even more time-consuming. For instance, if you stay in Noida and your workplace is in Gurgaon, it will take almost two hours (one way) to reach office if you take the road and if you travel by metro, it might take anywhere between an hour and a half to two hours. Which means you are almost spending four hours to travel to work!

According to another study, productivity of 630 employees increased by 27 per cent when they were given the option to exercise flexible working. During the trial, these 630 participants were first made to work on a 9 to 5 job for a month. The same set of employees were then given the flexibility to work as per their timings and preference of place. Incidentally, their work performance improved and the productivity levels of the participants increased when they were given the option of flexible working.

According to experts, the productivity of an employee depends on many factors—his mental and physical health, work-life balance, work satisfaction, etc. This is where flexible working plays a big role. It not only helps people to strike the perfect work-life balance but also provides them with the opportunity to work during their most productive hours as per their liking.

For employees who are office-oriented and are more comfortable working under a fixed-schedule, flexible working might not be a good option. Moreover, this type of working habit is a big disadvantage for a team-oriented environment, which demands frequent team meetings and activities. Also, flexible working blurs the line between office and home, thereby putting the employee at the risk of doing office work even during the time he or she expects to spend with family.

(All images used here are representational)