The movement away from 9-5 office hours Monday through Friday toward work-from-home and hybrid arrangements represents a major cultural shift. It’s also changing the way that employees relate to their employers and way people are hired. More flexible work schedules are now almost becoming an expectation that’s permeating everywhere from the C-suite to breakroom for hourly workers who now have more options than ever before.
Younger generations, which include my two daughters, want flexible work schedules to fit their lifestyle and don’t want to be tied down to a job for any particular amount of time, no matter how great the company might be. This especially rings true for people working multiple jobs who want to choose where and when they want to work. It began to set in around the time of the pandemic because so many of us had no choice but to commingle our personal and professionals lives – a trend that’s expected to continue for the foreseeable future.
Employers are realizing that some employees are more productive from home because they cut out the commute and watercooler talk. They’re also becoming more flexible about part-time work, which squares with growing demand for gig-economy assignments. For example, the local parks and rec department that needs someone to work 20 hours a week as a pool lifeguard can split those shifts for multiple locations rather than a single facility.
The growing restlessness among working Americans is something that employers are just going to have to accept. This means they’ll need to understand their purpose as a business and align it with whatever employees are working toward to achieve in their lives.
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