Βusinesses that desire success and continuous growth focus on retaining top-performing employees. Offering a flexible schedule, competitive salary, friendly work environment and extra benefits are very important factors for employees when deciding to stay or not in a firm. Therefore, employers that value the wellbeing of their personnel, have the ability to create such organisational environments, by promoting work-life balance and flexible work arrangements. 

The creation of adjusted work schedules and workspaces give the chance to employees to control non-job-related responsibilities and maintain a better work-life balance. Moreover, the business rationale behind this concept is that employees tend to be more productive and handle stressful situations better when in their personal space. Therefore, their overall job satisfaction increases and makes it less possible for them to look for a new role in a competitor. 

Flexible work arrangements include the following, but are not limited to:

• Remote or Hybrid work — The last few years and especially following the COVID-19 pandemic era, working from home and hybrid working came to the forefront. Most employers have currently adapted to such work arrangements by developing hybrid or remote workforces and giving their teams the ability to stay agile. 
• Flexitime — The meaning of “flexitime” is giving employees the option of structuring their daily or weekly schedule according to their time and needs. Employees that operate under flexible arrangements are expected to work during specific hours and are given the opportunity to prioritise their tasks or, occasionally, to choose their start and finish times.
• Work-sharing — By choosing “work-sharing”, employers hire two permanent employees who share the same role. However, each individual may have different salary and benefits according to the proportion or amount of work each employee completes. Successful work-sharing supposes that the employees work together harmoniously and produce optimal results in minimum time.

Overall, work-life balance and employee retention go hand in hand, as flexible work arrangements build loyalty, increase job satisfaction and promote a happy work environment for employees.

By Grigoria Pateraki, Communications Team