The spread of COVID-19 has entailed many changes in the labour market. Many companies have shifted to remote work, but there are also still many places in which standard office life continues. These changes also seem to be much more frequently looked for by job seekers. If you have your own company, but remote work doesn’t seem to be the best choice for you or you are concerned that your employees won’t perform their duties well while working from home, you can try to introduce flexible working hours. What is this and how it can affect the life of your office?
Office life and the work-life balance
As we have already mentioned, the spread of the coronavirus popularized remote work worldwide. In many offices today, employees don’t have to commute to work. Instead, they can perform their duties from anywhere they want – the only thing they need is a laptop and an Internet connection. This shift leads to the discussion concerning the work-life balance and how it is affected by classic office work. Spending at least eight hours a day in the office, plus commutes, usually during rush hours, takes a statistical employee more than 10 hours a day! If they want to have a decent 8-hour sleep, this means that they have less than 6 hours for their private life. That doesn’t sound very optimistic, isn’t it?
Flexible working hours as a solution to work-life balance issues
Flexible working hours is a work organization system that enables employees to work according to the schedule chosen by them. This means that although they have a regular nine-to-five job, they don’t need to start working at the same time each day. They can start and finish their workday whenever they want. This is a great solution, e.g., for all people who are used to getting up early since they can show up in the office earlier. However, if they have something to do in the morning, for instance, they have a doctor’s appointment, they can come to work a few hours later. Employees can therefore adjust their working hours to traffic, their preferences or needs. They can usually take breaks during the day to leave the office for one or two hours if they need to.
Flexible working hours and parking issues
Although flexible working hours are treated as one of the most searched incentives these days and they offer many benefits, there is also one huge disadvantage for employees of such an organization of the workday. In many areas, especially the busiest ones, finding a free parking space during the day is almost impossible. When an employee chooses to come to work at, e.g., 10 o’clock, there is a very slight possibility that they will be able to park their car anywhere near the office. Fortunately, this problem can be solved, and the solution is easier than you might think!
Parking space booking app
If you want to give your employees a guarantee of a free parking space no matter what time they show up at work, the easiest and the most efficient way to do so is to introduce a parking space booking app in your company. It allows for a quick parking space reservation by users. The software is intuitive and can be adjusted to the needs of employers and employees. For instance, it allows you to set priorities, e.g., to assign ‘better’ parking spots to higher-ranking employees. What is more, if you want to arrive at work later and you didn’t book a parking space in advance, you can use the app to check if there are any empty spaces left.
With proper preparation, introducing flexible working hours can bring many benefits to you and your employees. Giving them more autonomy in terms of a workday schedule will surely facilitate their work-life balance.
If you’d like to introduce Parkalot – our car park management app – in your company, please contact us at contact-us@parkalot.io or book an onboarding call.Start using Parkalot in an hour. Allow your colleagues to commute by car, and park on the parking spaces assigned to those who are working from home.