In 2012, the government announced a plan to expand the ‘Right to Request’ flexible working patterns to all employees. Previously this was only available to parents with children under 16. The main aim of the initiative was to boost the job market and make it more inclusive to mothers and single parents.

A recent survey of over 2,600 employees by FlexJobs found that 76% think the office is not their most productive work environment. 50% of the survey respondents would choose to work from home to be most productive or on important projects. The top five reasons why flexible working was deemed more productive were:

To help employees and managers alike decide if flexible working could be the right solution for you, we at Honeydew have written a guide to flexible working for you, right here. Please share!

Some time ago, we came across an article that suggested it is sometimes better not to have an absence policy. The subject of criticism was strict attendance policies, which were said to breed discontent. They can also be counter-productive to employee engagement among other things.