According to job seekers, employers offering a flexible work schedule have a major competitive edge. Flexible hours allow for a better work-life balance, which ensures harmony between professional and personal life. Below, experts from the Your Personnel Advisor (VKS) agency explain in more detail what some of the innovative forms of work entail.
Flexible forms of employment are more preferable, as they provide greater freedom, opportunities for development and working part-time, job seekers say. As we all know, today employees dictate the rules of the game, as there are more job openings than workers in a candidate driven job market.
What are the flexible forms of employment?
In fact, there is variety of work arrangements that do not include classical full-time office-based activity. The flexible forms of employment include:
- Part-time employment. The employee agrees with the employer the working hours (for example, 20-30 hours per week instead of 40);
- Remote work. This arrangement gives the employee the opportunity to work outside the office. They can work from home or from any other convenient location;
- Flexible schedule means the employee can start and finish their workday whenever they want, as long as they complete work assignments on time;
- Project work means an employee works on a specific project or assignment that has clear deadlines and requirements;
- Seasonal and temporary employment is an option for businesses where more workforce are needed in certain seasons or for limited periods of time.
All of the above arrangements, in combination or separately, are sought after by job candidates from odd jobbers to senior managers.
However, employers find it challenging to meet these demands as it becomes difficult to log working time, and to calculate payrolls and mandatory social payments. What can they do? They can outstaff HR management and delegate any issues related to flexible schedules.
Outstaffing means transferring workforce from one company (a client) to a third-party employer (an HR firm) that will take care of its workers’ working conditions.
A win-win situation
Flexible employment can bring significant benefits to businesses, especially amidst economic uncertainty and rapidly changing market requirements.
These forms of employment allow cutting staff costs, office expenses, social and tax payments. Outstaffing can help minimize expenses, as the employer will be relieved from the costs of staffing paperwork.
Having remote or temporary workers allows scaling up the business faster. Outstaffing firms can hire freelancers from all over the world, thus reducing the competition in the local market and expanding the choice of available professionals.
For workers, flexible employment brings many advantages and opportunities to improve the quality of life and career prospects. Flexible work allows balancing work and personal life, which is especially important for people with small children, caregivers, or people who prefer to work during certain hours.
It has been noted that workers who can work remotely almost never take sick days because they do not experience burnout and get sick less often – and even when they do, they often continue to work from home as usual. They can juggle several clients, which ensures broader career prospects, and they have more time to acquire new skills. A remote worker can work with several employers simultaneously to increase their income.
Flexible work is becoming an integral part of the modern labor market. The most important thing is to find the right approach to management and to comply with legal and social norms to ensure successful and beneficial cooperation for both parties.