With flexible work schedules, employees and employers both experience benefits. For employees, flexible schedules allow flexibility to meet family needs, reduce commuting time and costs, avoid rush hour traffic and stress, and increase a sense of control over their schedule. Depending on the schedule, it can also decrease childcare costs. For employers, flexible schedules increase employee morale, engagement, and commitment, reduce absenteeism and turnover, and allow employers to attract outstanding applicants and extend hours of operation. However, flexible schedules must also meet the needs of the business and address organizational challenges.

1. Advantages of Flexible Work Schedules for Employees
With flexible work schedules, employees experience these benefits:
Flexibility to meet family needs, personal obligations, and life responsibilities conveniently.
Reduced consumption of employee commuting time and fuel costs.
Avoids traffic and the stresses of commuting during rush hours.
Increased feeling of personal control over schedule and work environment.
Reduces employee burnout due to overload.
Allows people to work when they accomplish most, feel freshest, and enjoy working. (eg. morning
person vs. night person).
Depending on the flexible work schedule chosen, may decrease external childcare hours and costs.
improved employee retention, eg home working can help retain working parents with childcare
responsibilities
a wider pool of applicants from which to recruit, eg disabled people who may prefer to work from
home
possible productivity gains through fewer interruptions and less commuting time
increased staff motivation with reduced stress and sickness levels
savings on office space and other facilities
ability to locate sales staff near clients rather than in your premises
Advantages of Flexible Work Schedules for Employers
With flexible work schedules, employers experience these benefits:
Increased employee morale, engagement, and commitment to the organization.
Reduced absenteeism and tardiness.
Increased ability to recruit outstanding employees.
Reduced turnover of valued staff.
Allows people to work when they accomplish most, feel freshest, and enjoy working. (eg. morning
person vs. night person).
Extended hours of operation for departments such as customer service.
Develops image as an employer of choice with family friendly flexible work schedules.
There are also key organizational challenges you need to address to make flexible work schedules
support your business. In and of themselves, as a positive benefit for employees, flexible work
schedules support employee engagement, positive morale, and retention. But, flexible work schedules
must operate to meet the needs of the business, too.
See more about the challenges inherent in life and family friendly flexible work schedules.
Employees working from home
Advantages and disadvantages of employees working at home
With increasing numbers of employees working at home - or using home as a working base for at least part
of the week - it's clear there are a number of benefits for business, such as:

2. improved employee retention, eg home working can help retain working parents with childcare
responsibilities
a wider pool of applicants from which to recruit, eg disabled people who may prefer to work from home
possible productivity gains through fewer interruptions and less commuting time
increased staff motivation with reduced stress and sickness levels
savings on office space and other facilities
ability to locate sales staff near clients rather than in your premises
Allowing employees to work from home in order to encourage a better work/life balance can lead to
improvements in health and well-being.For more information on the benefits that this can bring, see the
page on the business benefits of promoting employee health and well-being in our guide on how
to improve employee health and well-being. However, there are a number of potential
drawbacks:
difficulty of managing home workers and monitoring performance
possible deterioration in employees' skills and work quality
initial costs of training and providing suitable equipment, including adaptations to meet health and
safety standards and the needs of disabled employees
difficulty of maintaining staff development and upgrading skills
risk of information-security problems
increased telecommunications costs
risk of communication problems and a sense of isolation among home workers
can be harder to maintain team spirit
working from home is unsuitable for certain types of job
A shift towards home working doesn't mean employees have to work only at home. Often splitting time
between home and the workplace is the most productive solution and you may want the homeworker to
attend meetings to keep them fully involved and informed.