2 Years Flexible: Top Benefits From the World’s Most Flexible Companies

This month marks two years since the COVID-19 crisis forced the world to shift almost overnight to a new way of working. But far from being a temporary transition, flexible working has never been more in demand than it is right now.

Recent data shows that 54% of workers are planning on leaving their current jobs if they are not offered flexibility post-pandemic, proving that flexible working opportunities are not just a nice-to-have, but an essential requirement for most employees.

Now, flexible working has always been an “option”. However, pre-pandemic flexibility was mostly seen within reach only to those who had a specific reason for requesting it. Since seeing that flexible working not only enhances the productivity of the workforce, but also significantly impacts people’s work-life balance, people no longer feel the need to have a “valid” reason to want flexible working. 

Aren't a great work-life balance, less commute time, better mental health and more time spent with family good enough reasons for not wanting to return to the outdated 9-5, Monday-to-Friday office culture?

It is clear that with flexible working culture becoming the new normal, offering competitive flexible working benefits is becoming essential, not only for improving efficiency, retention and overall happiness of your employees, but also for attracting new talent.

So, what kind of benefits will set you apart?

At Flexa, we work day-in, day-out with flexible companies across the world, and recently released the Flexa100 - ranking the top 100 most flexible companies to work for in 2022. Here are some of the not-so-usual perks and benefits that the world’s most flexible companies are offering to their teams right now. 

Shared parental and pawternity leave

Most high-ranking companies in our list offer wonderful parental benefits, such as enhanced maternity leave and enhanced paternity leave. Some companies also offer “shared parental leave”, offering new parents greater flexibility and choice over how they care for their newborn. 

Another popular new benefit is “pawternity leave”. Just as it sounds, pawternity leave allows people to take a few days off, in addition to their holiday allowance, to settle a new, four-legged family member into their home.

This benefit is only going to grow in popularity too. The share of UK households that own a pet is now at an unprecedented high of 59%, and with many offices, residential buildings and co-working spaces now being dog-friendly, people have more opportunity to involve pets in their daily lives.

Annual development budgets

Numerous companies are now offering annual education, growth and training budgets to their teams. Unlike traditional development funds, employees are often given the freedom to choose how they would like to use their budget to develop themselves - be that professionally or personally.

Maybe you have employees in marketing who would like to learn more about finance, or IT employees that would like to do a design course? No matter the training, this budget is accessible for everyone to use in their own way, how they wish, when they wish. 

Company spotlight: Primary PPA Cover

One particular company stands out when looking at a broad range of flexible perks - Primary PPA Cover, which ranked as the no. 1 most flexible small company to work for in the Flexa100 rankings (2022).

Among their top benefits, Primary PPA Cover offer sabbaticals and summer hours, are open to job sharing, and provide their employees with a Hofy home office set-up for comfortable home working. 

Primary PPA Cover also take a stand when it comes to fertility, offering pregnancy loss leave and fertility treatment leave. Many companies are following suit on supporting families through pregnancy loss, which is a wonderful thing to see. Fertility treatment leave, on the other hand, is something a lot more rare to see on a list of company benefits. 

Primary PPA Cover’s benefits package reflects an organisation that cares for their employees, not just in terms of flexibility, but truly caring for their personal lives too. We hope to see many more companies adopting this approach when designing their benefit packages. 

The annual company retreat

Last but not least, the perk that seems to be most popular among remote-first companies is an annual, all-expenses-paid company trip abroad. 

When your employees are spread across multiple countries, it can be harder to feel like you’re all a part of the same company, working towards the same purpose. To tackle this, global companies connect all their teams once a year for team building activities, games, competitions and training, all in once! 

Some remote teams get to meet once a week, some once a month, and some don’t get to physically meet at all. So an annual trip can be an incredible way to get international teams together and give back to your hard working employees, who work autonomously and independently everyday.

Create an inclusive and competitive culture with Flexa

With flexible working here to stay and companies going above and beyond for their teams with various flexible benefits and perks, company culture and employer branding has become crucial in attracting new talent. 

Flexa allows companies to show off their working environments to hundreds of thousands of people searching for their next role by uniquely verifying their flexibility independently. 

By continuously collecting data from candidates on exactly what type of working environment they are looking for, we help companies improve their flexible working policies and create an inclusive, diverse and attractive culture for today’s competitive talent search.