According to New York Times, the pandemic has made many employees but also many employers aware that the inflexible demands of the pre-2020 period were no longer tenable or desirable. Teleworking has become widespread and has even become a requirement for many executives when applying for a new job. This is especially true for the millennial generation, in their twenties today.
“But, in a truly flexible working environment, people could decide not only where they work, but also when,” underlines the American daily. Moreover, the aviation company Southwest Airlines allows its pilots to choose between flight schedules in the morning or in the evening. Several tech companies have also implemented “work when you want” policies that allow their employees to manage their time as they wish while traveling the world or staying at home.
Flexible hours: benefits for everyone
This can be particularly useful for people who work very far from their desk, for those who have to take care of loved ones, who are disabled or simply those who have a natural rhythm that does not correspond to standard working days. . “Our bodies would benefit from more flexibility. Each of us has a personal rhythm known as a chronotype – an internal timer that determines when we naturally fall asleep and when we are most awake. For more than half of adults, explain it New York Times, it is biologically desirable to go to bed after midnight, which means that 9am to 5pm schedules exhaust many of us.”
Unfortunately “in practice, it is not yet widespread”. Of course, some jobs require attendance at fixed times, such as the teaching profession. But this is not the case everywhere and “Experts say flexible working hours would make the workforce more productive, more creative and more loyal”.
For Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, technology expert and co-author of How about we rest? Why we do more when we work less (De Boeck Supérieur, 2019), the best thing is not to work eighty hours a week but to manage to do the same work in thirty hours. An adaptation of its schedules can make it possible to achieve this.
Other small changes in company culture could also be beneficial, such as eliminating most non-essential meetings, giving more trust and autonomy to remote workers and establishing reduced working hours common to all. .