Want to increase your revenue by 10 percent? Give your employees flexibility. A new Harvard Business Review article says that’s the key to success. For instance, companies that allow employees to work from home at least three time per month are more likely to report growth than companies that have more restrictive policies.
Is flexibility practical? A lot of companies can’t imagine functioning without strict rules and constant oversight. But these findings say the opposite is true. When you give flexibility, you get better results. For example, Cisco says it saves $277 million per year, thanks to its telecommuting policies.
But adding flexibility can be a difficult task if your company isn’t used to it. Here are some tips for making the changes.
To keep reading, click here: The productivity payoff of a flexible workplace
I wish we could do this…technically, we can without any real problems, but as always, “company policy” stands in the way (ie. “This is the way we’ve always done it”).
. For instance, companies that allow employees to work from home at least three time per month are more likely to report growth than companies that have more restrictive policies.
This correlation has nothing to do with causation. Companies that are limited on their flexibility tend to more in the service related industries that tend to have a lower profit margin than companies such as tech.
Some, but not all. Yahoo, for instance, killed all telecommuting. There are also a lot of traditional companies which demand face time and don’t allow telecommuting for anything.
It would be interesting to see the numbers break down by industry, though, as you’re absolutely right that your grocery store cashiers can never, ever, telecommute.
I work for a larger consulting/third party logistics company who has a wide spectrum on clients. For our service clients, they are the most time sensitive demanding clients who require strict scheduling and staffing. Those are also the lowest profit margin companies, 3-5%. Those jobs are mostly low to medium skilled employees. Trucking, warehousing, clerks. The problem is that these industries requires people to be onsite to do their jobs. And there is a huge excess of labor just waiting to fill these jobs.
Then you look at our technology drivin devisions that produce an unique good for our clients run a profit margin of 18-30%. The high profit margin id doable becuase the labor pool is much smaller. These are also the ones with the most flexibility on schedule.