Flexible Schedules: The Pros, Cons, & Surprising Outcomes

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I’m willing to bet we’ve all felt stifled by the rigid 9-to-5 work schedule — especially on our productivity both in and out of the office.

For many workers, a flexible schedule is the answer. This types of schedule allows you to work when you’re most productive and gives you the autonomy you need to create an ideal work-life balance, however that looks to you.

Here, we’ll cover what a flexible work schedule looks like and explore its pros. cons, and surprising outcomes.

It’s important to remember that flex hours doesn’t equate to less hours. In fact, as you’ll read later, employees actually clock in more hours working from home. Further, there is still structure to this type of schedule: employees must work a certain number of hours, or come up with an alternative agreement with their employer regarding office hours versus remote time.

There’s plenty of science to suggest flexible work schedules are critical for happier, more productive employees and a more successful company overall.

For instance, a recent study by Qualtrics found a whopping 93% of employees feel the way they work has “fundamentally and forever” changed since the pandemic, with the most favorable changes being flexible schedules.

According to the same study, 43% of employees feel their work-life balance has increased over the past two years, along with their overall happiness and job satisfaction.

Of course, there are pros and cons to flexible schedules, just like there are pros and cons to a rigid nine-to-five job. But, since flexible schedules are becoming more typical nowadays, we’ve compiled a list of everything good, bad, and surprising about implementing flexible work hours at your office. Take a look:

1. You can adapt your schedule to fit family needs.

If you make your own hours, you can ensure those hours adapt to your family and social life demands. For instance, we have parents at HubSpot who make their hours fit around their children’s daycare schedules: they work early in the morning, take a break in the afternoon to pick up their kids, and then resume work later in the evening.

Or, perhaps your flex schedule is less rigid than that — maybe you just want time to see your son’s soccer games, or your sister’s graduation, and you need flexibility to manipulate your work schedule without taking time off.

Emily MacIntyre, HubSpot’s former Marketing Team Development Manager, agrees that there are pros and cons to flexible schedules in regards to parenting.

She tells me, “There are often in-office events after work that I have to miss out on, because I need to be home. But I get to see my daughter, and spend time with her each night, so it’s a trade-off.”

Ultimately, a flexible schedule can go a long way towards maintaining a healthy work-life balance and protecting important relationships in your life.