NEW YORK, NY–(Jan 26, 2017) - Employees cite flexible work hours and remote capabilities as critical factors in the workplace, even more important than unlimited paid time off, according to new research. Below are the findings from interviews with 314 U.S. small business employees and 47 small business owners, conducted by Justworks, the simple all-in-one benefits, HR and payments platform for small businesses, and SquareFoot, a marketplace for commercial real estate leasing.
Employees polled cited the importance of flexible work hours and remote capabilities as very important to them, more important than unlimited paid time off.
70 percent of employees feel flexible hours are very important, and 68 percent believe it has a positive impact on their teams. Aligning well with those needs, 63 percent of employees polled work at companies that offer flex time.
57 percent of employees feel that remote work capabilities are very important, and 60 percent believe it has a positive impact on their teams. 59 percent work at companies that offer remote capabilities.
Meanwhile, less than half (44 percent) of employees believe that unlimited PTO is important, only 21 percent believe it has a positive impact on their teams (72 percent say it has no impact on team performance). Just 28 percent work at companies that offer it.
Only 35.5 percent of employees polled (the majority of whom are not parents) work at companies that offer paid parental leave.
49 percent believe it’s very important, and 22 percent believe paid leave has a positive impact on their teams.
48 percent of the employees polled said none of these perks affected their decision to join their companies.
Flex hours factored into the decisions of 35 percent of the employees polled.
Remote capabilities were a factor in 30 percent