Yet another survey has come out extolling the merits of flexible working schedules for companies, most especially small businesses.

A report recently published by the Small Business Research Trust has revealed that six out of ten firms now offer flexible working arrangements with their staff. Additionally, more than half of the respondent companies also believe that the offer has had a positive effect in terms of employee relations.

Flexible working is defined, among other things, part-time working, flexitime, job sharing, telecommuting and provisions for career breaks. The survey is considered to be the largest quarterly survey involving small to medium sized enterprises in the UK.

The survey showed that of 7000 random firms questioned, 58% offers some kind of flexible working arrangement to their employees. 50% felt that by offering this arrangement, they are also improving relations between the company and the employees. Only 8% of the firms surveyed said that flexible working will have a negative effect on the business.

One interesting fact that came out is that while flexible working arrangements are offered by many employers only a few of the companies have an actual formal process that allows the said arrangement. The report said that this lack of a formal process or procedure for flexible work may only work for small companies because it also gives managers a chance to be flexible in implementation.

The growing trend for flexible work arrangement and outsourcing has also been reflected in the growing practice of outsourcing key company functions to other professionals and firms that specialize in these certain tasks – like company formation firms and business solutions companies.

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