Many business leaders and office-building owners alike had hoped that 2023 would be the year of the great return-to-office push, but in fact the opposite has occurred, often in part because of an underestimated amount of pushback that employees have displayed in response to those efforts to lessen or end altogether the flexible work arrangements to which they had become accustomed.
This article from Fortune, however, highlights another factor that has worked in conjunction with employee pushback to keep the momentum heavily on the side of increased work flexibility - potential investors and company shareholder support.
According to the article, well-executed work from home (WFH) programs and other flexible work arrangements have become keen areas of interest that investors are taking into consideration when evaluating companies, and not just because of the financial benefits that can be mined from optimized scheduling and minimized square footage requirements.
At the start of 2023, just over half (51%) of companies offered some kind of WFH or flexible scheduling option, but that figure jumped more than 10% to 62% by the end of the year.
As 2023 comes to a close, only about 38% of companies currently require full-time office work for all employees. Meanwhile, 93% of start-up companies offer flexible work options, further underscoring the degree to which the work-from-home arrangements have grown beyond their pandemic roots.
One of the reasons that investors are paying attention to companies that have figured out how to properly design and execute these kinds of policies is because of the direct benefits that a company can obtain as a result. Some of those benefits are:
It’s worth noting that in order for the benefits of work from home and flex scheduling to be attained, those policies must both be clearly outlined by the employers so that there is little to no gray area about work expectations or how those policies are enforced, and the policies must also have achieved significant buy-in from the employees. After all, regardless of what the policy states, if the employees aren’t happy with their situation, then there won’t be much gained in terms of morale, retention, talent attraction, or improved productivity.
Accordingly, those same principles are two of the most important factors that investors are considering when evaluating the long-term prospects for success of a company’s WFH and flexible scheduling programs:
To be clear, however, when investors size-up companies’ work-from-home and flex scheduling arrangements that are clearly mapped out and have successfully attained the widespread buy-in of the employees, those investors don’t simply see improved growth, retention, engagement, and other advantages that benefit the bottom line, they also see a company as a whole that is prepared to adapt and thrive in an evolving marketplace, which highlights the potential for sustainable growth over time as the business landscape continues to shift.
Given the foothold that WFH and flexible schedule arrangements have secured across a wide variety of industries and the tailwinds provided by investor and shareholder support, WFH and flex scheduling have likely not hit their peak yet. As a result, forward-thinking leadership would be wise to let go of the outdated perspectives and biases toward the status quo that constitute most of the remaining hurdles preventing these kinds of policies from reaching their potential in ways that benefit employees, owners, and managers alike.
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