Are we heading towards the end of the 9-to-5 workday? Studies follow one another and all say the same thing. In the era of the Great Resignation, employees are, first and foremost, looking for flexible jobs.
According to the report "The Future of Time" published by Adobe, 51% of respondents from seven countries (United Kingdom, United States, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, and Japan) say they would like to have complete flexibility in their work schedule.
Meanwhile, a CNBC survey shows that U.S. employees now value the notion of flexibility in the workplace as much as a 10% pay raise.
According to WorkMotion, the workforce of the future wants flexible policies: the modern employees are different from the generations before, people currently in their 20s and 30s, otherwise called the Gen Z and Millenial generations are highly mobile, tech-savvy, socially conscious and insist on better work-life balance in a way their parents’ generation didn’t.
Flexible Jobs: a Definition
But what do employees mean by flexible jobs? What they want today can be summed up in one word: autonomy, i.e. the power to work from wherever they want, whenever they want.
As Holger Reisinger [1], senior vice president of Jabra, says, " Flexible work policies that live up to their name put trust at the forefront, allowing employees to choose when and where they work best even if that doesn’t align with the traditional nine-to-five schedule. (…) Employees with full autonomy to choose where and when they work reported the highest levels of inclusion, productivity, trust, and well-being when compared to those employees with limits placed on their location and schedule autonomy."
McKinsey & Company says no different. In an article [2] dedicated to the subject, they believe that employees expect "radical flexibility" from their employers and that "organizations cannot afford to miss the mark".
However, for the analysts of the American firm, "flex-washing" is not an option. As they point out, for example, "hybrid work models with fixed days in the office are falsely flexible. It is time for organizations to radically transform their concept of flexibility. Employees today demand flexibility tailored to their specific needs, whether it be work-life balance, physical and emotional health, or caring for a family. Without it, McKinsey warns: “the alternative is to risk losing people and fail to attract crucial talent".
Jobgether, Head of a new Ecosystem
There is no doubt that many companies are lagging behind in this area. But others, aware of the challenges, have chosen to embrace the flexibility revolution. In fact, a whole ecosystem of flexible jobs is currently being born. There are many examples, whether it's finding flexible job offers, accommodation for full remoters who can work from the location of their choice, or obtaining the authorizations to work from abroad for a length of time when you want to move to a foreign country.
Jobs :
No doubt, to find the flexible job that suits you, one address, ours. The Jobgether website offers 10,000 jobs in about 1,000 flexible companies including start-ups, scale-ups, and unicorns. It allows qualified people to apply for job that fits their lifestyle. To each company, Jobgether assigns a flexibility score calculated along three dimensions:
1 Where? Remote/Hybrid: frequency and flexibility over geographic area
2 When? Flexibility on hours, 4-days week, vacation periods, etc.
3 How? Type of contract offered, slashing, freelancing, etc.
Accommodations:
It is not always easy to find housing that will meet the needs of a teleworker, especially if they choose to work outside their home country. But here again, solutions exist. Airbnb has decided to partner with 20 destinations around the world, ranging from the Canary Islands to Bali and several rural French villages, to encourage telecommuting and flexibility. The accommodation giant is not the only one in the niche. The company Remoters helps teleworkers find accommodations abroad if they decide to stay for more than a month.
Administrative Authorizations:
We recently devoted an article to the subject. But in this field, things are changing very fast. The list of countries offering digital nomads visas specifically made for them keeps growing. In February 2021, it only included 21 countries. Today, there are already 44, with the recent addition of Latvia and Grenada.
The great revolution of flexible work, as we can see, is underway. Its ecosystem is being built day by day. And there will be no turning back.
[1] "Companies are 'flex-washing' to attract talent-but there will be a backlash" Fortune (08/29/2022)
[2] "Three types of modern flexibility today's workers demand" (04/25/2022)