Do People Really Want Flexible Work?

There is something of a perception that flexible working is something that employees crave, and there have been numerous studies regarding the benefits of it for employer and employee alike.

When push comes to shove, however, just how much do we crave it? That was the question posed by a recent study from Princeton and Harvard Universities. They wanted to explore whether people would accept a small pay cut in return for flexible working, and the answer appears to be not.

How Important Is Pay?

Interestingly, however, while few people appeared willing to sacrifice their pay for more flexible hours, they were happy to see pay drop by up to 8% if it meant they could work from home.

“Our findings show that flexible scheduling is not valued by many workers in the sense that they prefer a little extra income rather than a more flexible workplace. However, we find that for a relatively small number of workers, flexible schedules are really important,” the authors say.

The study seems to suggest that we’re generally quite happy with the 9-5, Monday to Friday nature of work, and certainly wouldn’t pay to change that. What we dislike are "out of hours" requirements such as being asked to work on weekends and the stressful commute to work.

The study saw participants offered a number of jobs that fell into two broad categories: a tradition 9-5 position onsite, and one with a random schedule chosen from these options:

• Flexible schedule that the worker could create themselves (so long as it equaled 40 hours).
• A flexible schedule whereby the hours could be anything up to 40 per week.
• A 9-5 rota, albeit one that could be done from home.
• A flexible schedule that could also be conducted from home.
• A schedule that was determined by the boss, including the possibility for out of hours work.

In terms of wages, these would be randomly allocated to the different possible work schedules, with applicants able to apply for whatever role best suited their monetary and other needs.

The Sweet Spot

When the results were analyzed, it seemed as though there was a clear sweet spot of around 40 hours per week with people most willing to pay to work from home. There was precious little incentive to set our own schedules or indeed our own hours. The message appears to be that as long as our hours are predictable, we don’t mind working them.

“While much of the discussion about work-life balance has focused on providing workers with more flexibility and more predictability in scheduling, we find that this isn’t what most workers want. Most workers simply want to work during traditional working hours,” the authors say.

While the findings may not be that surprising, they do once again highlight the dislike people have for the kind of zero-hour contracts that are so often in the news.

Hopefully, it will provide some food for thought when you’re thinking about your own flexible work procedures.