When it comes to keeping current staff members or hiring new ones, competitive compensation has been the top factor for decades. However, recent surveys have been showing pay isn’t as important as it once was.

Achieved through remote working technology and schedule flexibility, work-life balance has emerged as a serious rival to pay when it comes to hiring top talent and employee retention. Businesses trying to find and keep top talent shouldn’t dismiss the growing focus on flexible work options. Even better, studies have been showing that providing flexibility actually increases worker efficiency. Employees that say they are more productive outside the office typically cite fewer distractions, the loss of a commute and less office politics as the principal reasons for being more productive.

Why Employees are Drawn to Flexibility

From a psychological point of view, someone’s ability to manage their work schedule is a big driver of well-being. This is why flexibility is so tightly linked with employee retention and consider more valuable than pay by many people. While compensation may be short-term motivation, money doesn’t let your workers take time off here and there to look after children or family needs. If you’ve been up all night with a crying baby, a big paycheck won’t let you start your workday a bit later than usual.

Everyone has scheduling challenges and there is no one-size-fits-all solution for every company and employee. Everyone sense notion of a healthy work-life balance is a little bit different. A few of your staff members may be trying to work in the evenings, while others want to the option to work a four-day workweek.

Types of Schedule Flexibility

Fortunately, there are many options with respect to worker flexibility. If you are looking to give your employees more flexibility, consider the following arrangements:

Remote Working – Probably most associated with schedule flexibility, remote working involves employees doing their job off-site, usually by working over the internet. Remote working is only possible for jobs that are largely computer-based.

Flextime – This approach gives employees the freedom to choose when they come into the workplace to do their job. Often seen with salaried employees, one type of flextime involves people deciding when they work each day and for how long. More commonly, flextime involves employees being able to start their workday a bit later, but still work for the same number of hours.

Short Workweek – This type of flexibility involves employees working the standard 40 hours per week but compressing those 40 hours into a 3- or 4-day workweek.

Job Sharing – Job sharing involves two or more part-time employees working semi-flexible weekly schedules. In some situations, the employees have complete autonomy and in others, weekly schedules are set ahead of time.

We Can Help You Provide More Flexibility to Your Employees

At ZDA, we often help companies boost their scheduling flexibility through custom staffing solutions and services. Please contact us today to find out how we can help your company attract and keep top talent.