There is currently a notable shift away from traditional nine-to-five working hours. From increased productivity and boosting inclusion and diversity, to providing you with an edge over your competitors when recruiting, there are numerous benefits of introducing flexible working practices into small businesses.

A massive 50 per cent of small businesses say hiring new employees is their top challenge. Delays in hiring staff have a direct impact on your business, your existing staff and your client base. Businesses are struggling to find skilled people and often miss work-life balance issues faced by their employees, thereby missing out on talent.

In a rapidly developing and vastly competitive sector such as specialist lending, demand for first-class professionals is high. When asked, 70 per cent of employees felt that jobs offering flexibility were more attractive over ones offering higher salaries.

Greater choice

Whether it’s to care for family, spend more time on hobbies, gain skills or semi-retire, people want more choice from their jobs. For example, according to new research from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, 28 per cent of temps, contractors and freelancers do so by choice and 39 per cent of Brits have performed this type of work at some point in their careers. That’s up from 36 per cent in 2014.

Rather than waiting for employees to ask for flexible working, small businesses should adopt a management regime that embraces and encourages flexible working.

The tools that enable flexible working, such as conference and video calls, are cost-effective and, in many cases, free. Smaller businesses may feel they are less able to absorb disruption to existing ways of working, but with the right mindset on the part of managers, a company-wide adoption of flexible working could involve new processes, procedures and software/workforce management solutions.

Flexible working is important for people at every stage in life and people of different ages are motivated by flexible work for different reasons.

According to the Smarter Working Initiative, sixty-five per cent of employers report that flexible working practices have a positive effect on recruitment and retention, thereby saving on recruitment, induction and training costs.

In terms of recruitment, offering flexible hours contributes to attracting potential recruits as much as attractive pay packages does. Research shows that it’s among the top considerations for employees looking for their new role. Flexible working provides benefits in productivity – because stressed and over-worked employees are more likely to take sick days – and nurtures loyalty – leading to greater staff retention. In fact, according to the Smarter Working Initiative, 70 per cent of employers note a significant improvement in employee relations.

Flexible working practices also increase flexibility for customers, whose expectations for service and access to products is growing rapidly.

The options

Flexible working also makes it easier to deal with unexpected circumstances. For instance, if you have home-working arrangements in place, the office can continue to function even during transport crises, or when people are too ill to travel in but still well enough to work.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of flexible working is that it can be tailored to suit your business and your workers. You can break out of the nine-to-five box and create working arrangements that truly reflect the nature of your business and its goals.

Unfortunately, a lot of businesses think that flexible working is just about part-time work and flexible hours. In fact, it can include initiatives such as: flexitime; job sharing; shift work; working from home; compressed working hours; annualised hours; and career breaks.

Businesses offering flexible working opportunities to all employees, irrespective of legal obligations, find that their employee engagement and satisfaction ratings are higher, and they have a good reputation for balancing business and employee needs.

It’s time for small businesses to realise the benefits of flexible working and look at introducing these practices to support growth and attract and retain the talent they need.

Rosa Hilmi, director, Stellar Select