Are you facing challenges in filling your open positions? There are many steps that businesses can take to make their recruiting efforts more successful. You may have implemented some of these already, but have you considered adjusting your scheduling demands?

Offering alternative or flexible schedules could make your company more attractive to prospective hires and help you compete with other businesses for top talent.

What Are Alternative Schedules?

Alternative schedules are work schedules in which employees do not work a standard five-day week at set hours. These schedules generally give workers some ability to adjust when and where they work according to their needs.

Some popular alternative schedules include:

• Four-day workweeks
• Alternating Fridays off
• Flexible schedules

Around 15% of companies have adopted a four-day workweek. Many others offer different types of scheduling flexibility.

3 Key Recruiting Benefits of Alternative Schedules

It’s clear that flexible schedules are attractive to job seekers. Below are three reasons why.

1.   Removes a Barrier to Employment

When you offer workers the opportunity to work flexible schedules, you may help relieve or eliminate major barriers to employment. These include:

• Childcare costs
• COVID-19 risk concerns in crowded offices
• Caregiving duties
• Commute issues and fuel costs
• Concerns with accommodating school and work schedules for other household members

If you are losing job candidates because your scheduling is inflexible, consider that you may fill positions faster by offering this perk.

Even better, you could retain good employees you would otherwise lose to competitors who offer the flexibility they need. Employee retention is a definite bonus, considering the cost of acquiring workers vs. retaining them.

2.   Indicates the Company Respects Work-Life Balance

Now more than ever, workers are viewing work as something they do. That’s in contrast to previous generations, where more people considered their work to be a significant part of their identity.

Offering employees the benefits of alternative scheduling shows them that you respect their desire to spend time with family, pursue interests, or simply enjoy a schedule that works for them.

As an employer, you may also benefit from offering flexible schedules, as workers who maintain a good balance between their work and personal lives tend to be healthier, stay on the job longer, and feel a greater sense of engagement.

3.   Promotes a Healthier Work Culture and Management Style

Workers today are attracted to companies that offer a culture that emphasizes flexibility, autonomy, empathy, and accountability.

When your company offers alternative schedules, you demonstrate that you empathize with varying needs your team members may have, are willing to give staff the autonomy to choose their own schedules and trust them to accomplish their duties without having their hours micromanaged.

The managers who function best in an environment with these flexible schedules tend to work better with the two largest demographic groups of job candidates: millennials and Generation Z.

Younger employees tend to work best with outcome-based management rather than techniques that focus on processes. With alternative schedules, leaders must focus on whether team members are producing good outcomes, not how long they are sitting at their desks.

How to Offer Alternative Scheduling

The process of implementing alternative scheduling begins with your existing staff. You don’t want to offer this benefit to new hires without making it available to your current employees.

Start by examining your current job descriptions to see where flexibility might be an option. Keep in mind that you may have had an opportunity to gain some firsthand experience with this during the pandemic. The goal is to determine which jobs in your company can be totally or partially flexible and which must adhere to an exact schedule.

Once you know where flexibility might work, you can try rolling out the new schedule options. This will allow you to make adjustments until the schedule works for you and your team. At this point, you can begin offering it as a perk of employment.

Help with Talent Acquisition from AssetHR

Talent acquisition is one of the biggest challenges organizational leaders face each day. Recruiting, screening, and hiring new staff is an intense and competitive process.

Fortunately, AssetHR is ready to step up to help your team. Our team can help you to develop a recruiting strategy to help you achieve your goals. Connect with Chris Kelly for more information and a free consultation.