03 June 2024
Flexibility has become a non-negotiable in the world of work with the trend forcing policymakers to rethink the regulatory frameworks, according to a survey by the World Employment Confederation. The survey polled 700 business leaders from private and public organisations.
“Flexibility has become a must as to where and when people work but it’s also emerging in how people think about their work over the course of a career,” the WEC said in a press release.
“The Work We Want” global survey by the WEC with the support of FT Longitude showed that 83% of senior executives say that, following the Covid-19 pandemic, employees place as much value on flexibility around where and when they work as they do on compensation.
At the same time, 82% consider that the idea of a person following one career path in their lifetime has gone for good while 83% believe that there is a need to build awareness of the diverse types of labour contracts available to workers today, and to enable individuals to choose what suits them best.
Meanwhile, 38% of business leaders feel fully empowered to get the optimal mix between diverse forms of work and 37% to recruit agency workers at the scale they would like.
Denis Pennel, managing director of the World Employment Confederation, said, “In the past, we had to adapt our life to fit it in with our work. Today, that script has flipped: we expect our work to adapt to our lifestyle and our life stage.”
Pennel added, “Creating and embedding truly sustainable flexibility demands a new paradigm and creates a need for policymakers to ensure that legal frameworks recognise the value of diverse forms of work. Labour market reforms are needed to both offer workers more diverse ways of working and a rewarding experience, regardless of their contract – and meets the resourcing and talent needs of business.”