Small businesses have the ability to take a certain degree of leverage when it comes to setting up workplace dynamics. The idea is to simply create a suitable environment which facilitates your business and employees in an effort to increase productivity and job satisfaction without having to rely on monetary investments. Flexibility within the workplace would therefore account towards tweaking working hours and procedures according to the needs of the employees.

Hence, allowing employees to work from home, setting adaptive working hours and easing-up on the fulfillment of mandatory working hours per week can all contribute towards making a workplace more flexible. Even minor changes, such as allowing a casual or “undefined” dress code within the office can fall under the same domain.

The payoff of creating these tailored relaxations for employees comes in the shape of increased job satisfaction – research shows that people who have a stronger sense of control over the way they manage their work tend to display greater levels of commitment and involvement in the tasks they perform.

Luckily, implementing flexibility into the workplace does not require any resources. Below are some simple ways in which small business owners can incorporate this sentiment into their organization.

Also Read: How to Ensure Work-Life Balance for Your Employees With Flexible Policies

Reconsider Office Space

It may be vise to reduce or minimize the physical space occupied by the business by allowing employees to work from home, or by outsourcing certain tasks to other organizations. The gains in terms of saving up on the greater cost of rent required by larger setups could be put into such changes, leaving the owner(s) with a much simpler and easier to manage office space.

Offer Choice to Your Employees

Allow your employees to choose the way they operate while working – let them decide their own schedules and working hours. The idea is to set well-defined deadlines and measurable objectives, and encouraging employees to achieve them as they please. For instance, making working hours flexible would allow you to gain the most out of employees who would be more comfortable working during certain times of the day.

Allowing people to work from home is also another way to capitalize on human resource that may not be able to otherwise work for your organization based on geographical constraints. It would also encourage employees to get some work done even if they are physically unable to show up at the office location.

Support New Ways of Working

Use technology to your advantage – integrating business operations with appropriate communications and task-management systems could allow your business to boost productivity over time. If you are looking to provide employees with a flexible schedule, it might be wise to provide them with all the tools necessary to be able to function on their own terms!

Also Read: My Employees are Leaving! What do I do?