Is the 9 to 5 working week behind us?

While in some ways it may feel like not a lot interesting has happened in the last year, if we reflect on it from the perspective of the working world, a lot has happened. The way we all worked during the last 12 months compared to the months prior to that changed - not because we all wanted to, but because we had to. Now, as businesses globally start reopening, we’re all facing the same challenge of thinking about how we all return to “normality”.

But what if we were to say that normality is no longer as we thought; that now we have a new normality? Cloud-based software company, Salesforce, shared in a blog post their beliefs that “the 9 to 5 is dead”, and it got us thinking, is the traditional 9 to 5 working week officially behind us? If you keep up-to-date with our blog posts or have read any of our recent blog posts, you’ll know that our views on the working week are very much in line with Salesforce’s stance. So our answer to the question above? Yes, the 9 to 5 is behind us (or at least, it should be).

Our overriding belief, which if you’ve read our previous blogs you’ll have heard before, is that as we all come out of this lockdown, we shouldn’t just return to work, we should reimagine the workplace. Reimagine working hours, reimagine the set up of your workforce, reimagine how the office looks, the list goes on. If your organisation is on the fence as to whether to adopt a flexible, hybrid working model moving forward, we’re encouraging you to jump down from the fence into this new, modern way of working, and there’s a few reasons for this…

You can do it

We’ll start with the most obvious one - if your employees have been working from home for the past 12 months, you’ve seen that you can do it. So why go straight back to the office 9 to 5? There’s a long list of benefits for embracing remote working and adopting a hybrid working model including less commuting to work or meetings, higher productivity, quicker meetings, saving on office costs - to name a few.

Satisfying a new generation of workers

As we emerge from this lockdown, more of Gen Z are going to be taking up a chunk of the workforce. Gen Z’s are some of the most tech-savvy and entrepreneurial people in the workforce, but they can also be a confusing generation to satisfy. Why? Well, because they’re one of the most hard-working generations who will often work overtime, but also highly prioritise flexibility; they expect their employer to embrace the use of technology but then also equally value face-to-face interaction.

To sum it up simply, Gen Z sees less of a line between work and life than other generations; their aim is to balance the two seamlessly so that they can work anywhere, anytime without having to compromise one or the other. Sometimes they want the interaction of being in the office with their colleagues, other times it’s more convenient for them to work productively at home. This is why adopting a fully flexible approach to satisfy the needs and priorities of your employees is so important if you want to attract and retain great talent.

Extend working hours

We feel this one may sometimes get overlooked when considering implementing a fully flexible working strategy. You may have some employees that find themselves more productive early in the morning, and others who work better later in the day. By allowing employees to choose their hours, you will probably find that you can extend your business hours and in some cases offer longer support hours for your customers. It’s a win-win situation for all.

Now, we know adopting a fully flexible working strategy is just not physically possible for certain industries but making the right changes that are possible will still make a huge difference for your organisation. For the majority of us though, it’s time to wave goodbye to the 9 to 5 working week, reimagine the workplace and fully embrace a flexible and hybrid working model for your employees. We fear if you don’t take the opportunity to do this now, you’ll risk not being able to attract and retain talent in the future.

To find out more about how Sign In App can help your business adopt a flexible working week and manage a hybrid workforce, get in touch! Browse the rest of our website to find out more about our features, or click here to find all of the ways you can get in touch with our friendly customer experience team.