48% Employees Likely To Switch Jobs For More Flexibility, 53% Ready To Take Pay Cut For Working From A Remote Place

As the urban generation has become more ambitious in its careers choices, aiming higher with every passing year, their priorities and preferences have also changed drastically. Long gone are those days when an employee would spend his/her entire career in only a single company.

People not only have a plethora of career options to choose from but better educational qualifications combined with a greater need to maintain work-life balance. Corporations have also been quick to realize these behavioural changes and therefore, the startup culture has flourished worldwide.

Now employees are not just happy with a nine to five desk job. They want more challenging assignments, more mobility, better pay, more leaves and similarly greater flexibility. In the 90s or before that, companies had little to offer in terms of complementary benefits (such as after-office outings, chill-out sessions, celebration of festivals etc). There was no cut-throat competition and social media was still a decade away.

Due to absence of technology, people faced geographical restrictions. The advent of social media and popularity of messenger applications like Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, video-conferencing facilities like Skype and Google Hangouts have given people the freedom to work from different places.

Photo: BCCL

A recent survey revealed that 48% of the employees would consider switching jobs for greater flexibility. PTI reported that the survey carried out by Indeed showed that half of all the employees surveyed would consider changing their job if their current workplace eliminated their remote work policy.

The surprising part of the survey was that 53% of the employees would even consider taking a pay cut if they could have the remote work option.

The survey, commissioned by Indeed, was conducted by Censuswide, a UK-based survey consultancy, on 1,001 employees and 501 employers across various sectors like arts and culture, legal, human resource, IT and telecom, finance, sales, media and marketing, retail, catering and leisure, health care, manufacturing and utilities, architecture, engineering and building, travel and transport and education.

Employees believed that if they are provided with the option of working from remote places then they can deliver better results and strive for a better work-life balance. They also added that it helped to reduce stress and improve morale.

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56% employees held the viewpoint that having flexibility at work made them more productive. Companies are also keen on adapting better technology that facilitated flexible working style.

99 percent of the employers surveyed had invested in technology like video conferencing tools, laptops, smart phones, Slack (searchable log of all conversation and knowledge) in order to make remote working more accessible to their employees.

While 47% of the employers felt that investing in remote-working technology was a deterrent, 83% were hopeful that it could improve productivity. Indeed India managing director Sashi Kumar said, "If implemented properly, remote working can be a powerful means of engaging the workforce and attracting a wider pool of talent. Employees can channel their creativity more productively if allowed to work at their convenience.¡°