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Companies That Benefited from Flexible Work Environments

Remote_Work_ComputerWearing pajamas to work isn’t a fantasy anymore. According to The New York Times, a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management revealed that more companies were planning to offer telecommuting in 2014 "than any other new benefit.”  

Why is telecommuting on the rise? Well, besides having a cool name, there are tons of benefits for employees and employers.

From an employee standpoint, working from home encourages results-based work, limits the number of interruptions, and enables a better work-life balance. From an employer standpoint, flexible work schedules reduce turnover and hiring costs, widen the talent pool to hire from, and reduce the company’s carbon footprint.

While this may sound like pure sunshine and rainbows—the question is: does it really work? To help answer this, we investigated three companies that are shining examples of successful, flexible work environments.

Three Companies With Flexible Work Schedules

1. Colgate-Palmolive

About

Colgate-Palmolive Company is a multinational consumer product company that serves people in more than 200 countries and territories. They have four core businesses: Oral Care, Personal Care, Home Care and Pet Nutrition. With more than 37,000 employees, the company follows a tightly defined strategy to grow market shares for key products.

Flexible Schedule Inspiration

At Colgate, they believe the workplace should be exciting, motivating, supportive, and rewarding. Each employee is encouraged to have a healthy balance between work and personal responsibilities. By trusting their employees, they have created an environment that enables their employees to feel connected.

Colgate-Palmolive was named the top company on Indeed’s list of 25 best big companies for work-life balance. Some of the benefits Colgate-Palmolive offers their employees are:

  • Flexible work hours.
  • Telecommuting options.
  • Nearby back-up childcare centers.
  • Seven fully paid weeks off for primary caregivers who adopt or foster a child, or become surrogate parents.
  • Academic Advisory Service and Tuition Assistance

2. Agilent Technologies

About

Agilent Technologies helps analytical scientists and clinical researchers fulfill their most complex laboratory demands. There are nearly 12,000 employees who work for Agilent—a leader in sciences, diagnostics and applied chemical markets.

Flexible Schedule Inspiration

Business Insider ranked Agilent Technologies as the number one company that offers flexible scheduling, time off, and other programs geared toward a sustainable work-life balance. More than 15 percent of their employees don’t work traditional Monday through Friday schedules.

Agilent offers a wide range of benefits to their employees—from health coverage and child/elder care referral services, to income protections and retirement savings. To manage work-life balance, the company offers:

  • Flexible work hours.
  • Flexible time off.
  • Paid holiday time.
  • Flexible work arrangements.
  • Leaves of absence.
  • Adoption assistance.

3. Convergys

About

Convergys is a world-class customer management firm. Made up of 125,000 employees, they specialize in providing customer and HR management services. The company also offers a variety of career opportunities for their employees.

Flexible Schedule Inspiration

The Convergys Anywhere program allows employees to work at the call center from the comfort of their own home. During the hiring process, the company uses a Lifestyle Benefits Calculator to calculate how much money the employee would save by telecommuting.

Convergys takes pride in offering flexible schedules to their employees. The benefits of working for The Convergys Anywhere program include:

  • Hourly pay.
  • Option to work from home.
  • Full benefit package with medical, dental and vision coverage.
  • Reimbursement for college tuition.
  • Virtual training.

So is work flexibility a good fit for your company? I’ll leave that conclusion up to you.

Although it’s a big transition to start offering a flexible work schedule, consider giving it a try. If you’re still not convinced, do a little more homework to see which flexible work benefits would be valuable at your company (Tip: Take a look at these 100 companies who offer remote jobs for inspiration).

For more information about working remotely, check out these other, super helpful resources:

Does your company have any interest in a flexible work schedule? What are your motivations and hold backs to the transition? Share with us in the comment section below.

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Image Source: Kathy Ponce via Flickr

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Chirag Ahuja
Chirag is the Marketing Manager at WorkflowMax. Every day he strives to educate more and more business owners on how to do business better. From their first visit to the website or the first email they receive to the first video they watch – he is passionate about delivering a seamless, beautiful and personalized experience that people love and that converts strangers to leads to customers and finally into fans! Chirag loves listening to techno music, reading vedic scriptures, leading teams, building relationships, and discussing the big questions in life.

Chirag Ahuja