Flexible working – can you really reply to emails from the beach?

It is time to embrace the ‘work from anywhere’ culture now that flexi-hours are becoming the norm

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on Management Today

With the shackles of lockdown seemingly gone, workers are dreaming of working from anywhere (WFA). A recent Randstad survey of 35,000 workers found that 71% of workers thought the ability to work from anywhere is important. 

We now we have the tools, and workers have changed how they think, and what they demand. For employers, giving their workers the freedom to work from anywhere in the world might sound a far-fetched notion – and a logistical nightmare – but some organisations are already adopting this. For example, Airbnb and Spotify have joined the growing list of companies to announce that they’re tapping into the WFA trend. 

Soon, Airbnb employees will be able to live and work abroad for up to 90 days a year. Chief executive, Brian Chesky, said he wants “to hire and retain the best people in the world”.

This holistic take is unusual, and the traditional view is that great company culture and collaboration require at least some in-person work. That said, to bolster retention and attract the best workers, more and more organisations are debating adding a ‘work from anywhere’ initiative. Currently, on LinkedIn alone, there are approximately 16,000 ‘work from anywhere’ roles across the UK.

Hybrid working and four-day weeks are becoming more normal – though more than half of those surveyed revealed that they didn’t have the flexibility to work from anywhere. Meanwhile, data also consistently show that workers under 45 years old are prepared to quit to find a role that offers the flexibility they crave.

In a hybrid working world you can never truly know where any worker is at all hours of the day. Workers should be trusted, measured on output and results, rather than simply on where they’re working.

So maybe we’re starting to see the future – after all, who really cares if sometimes we’re working from a beach as long as we’re doing a good job?