Flexible Hours & Productivity: Stats and How to Track Your Team

Are you one of those team leads or managers who think that no one can be super productive in their pajamas, drinking coffee at 2 pm and taking a 20-minute nap after lunch?

If that’s the case一no judgment there一you might be right.

But you also might be totally wrong. 😬

A flexible work schedule gives freedom and autonomy to your employees, allowing them to sleep in and dodge rush hour traffic. But having more time doesn’t guarantee the absence of daily productivity challenges.

Flexible work time isn’t a magic wand that eliminates all unproductive habits; it just gives you a new perspective on productivity, a more individual, objective one.

So, on the one hand, your employees get to manage their own time, but on the other, there’s no warranty that they'll know how to manage their own time properly. Don’t be surprised if you catch them saying, “Oh no, I’ve spent the last hour and a half reorganizing my desk. Sorry ‘bout that!”.

That being said, should you even think about implementing a flexible work schedule? Is it about trusting your employees to manage their time or is something else on the line?

Well, in this article, we’ll examine the relationship between flexible work hours and productivity, and explain how you can make flexible hours work for your business, no matter the industry, no matter the company size.

Let’s roll.

Statistics on flexible working hours

To give you the most comprehensive data on the impact of flexible working hours on productivity, let’s take a look at several research pieces from 2021 and 2022, followed by Gallup's 2023 Global State of the Workplace Report and new 2024 findings.

According to the Gartner 2021 Digital Worker Experience Survey, 43% of the respondents said that flexibility in work hours helped them be more productive. Similarly, 30% of participants said that less or no time commuting increases their productivity, as well.

The 2023 Gallup data shows that remote and hybrid employees worldwide (in over 140 countries) were more engaged than on-site employees and had higher productivity levels and improved performance.

But what about last year, 2024? Is a flexible work schedule all that is cracked up to be?

Well, according to Airtasker, remote employees with flexible hours actually work more:

• On average, remote employees work 1.4 more days every month, counting up to 16.8 more days every year, than those who worked in an office.
• Remote workers also got more things done. Office workers reported 37 minutes each day not working (having lunch or going on standard breaks), while remote employees lost 27 minutes of each workday to distractions.
• When it comes to screen and mouse tracking, 39% of remote and 56% of office employees found ways to avoid working, suggesting that office employees were more dissatisfied with such an approach, compared to remote employees, which indicates higher resistance to employee monitoring in office settings.

Plus, let me add to this: a Gallup survey of over 21,000 U.S. employees conducted throughout May 2024 found that a majority (61%) of on-site workers working a full-time job with remote options would prefer a hybrid work arrangement. An additional 28% would prefer to be fully remote.

So, does that mean that although remote employees actually work more, they prefer it that way? Is a flexible work schedule THE way to achieve greater productivity?

Pros of flexible working hours

As you’ve seen, flexible working hours apparently have multiple pros. Here are some of them:

Are there any cons to flexible hours?

Of course there are. Here are a few:

• Flexible hours can blur the line between work and personal time. Your employees may struggle to call it a day and turn off their computers, leading to burnout.
• Your employees can feel isolated. If you allow working across various time zones and outside a standard schedule, your employees might miss out on social interactions with coworkers.
• There could be communication issues and a lack of coordination. When people have different working hours, it can be difficult to coordinate meetings or discuss projects during “standard working hours”.
• There could be a drop in collective productivity. If your employees are used to working as a team and rely on collaboration to achieve goals, flexible hours can disrupt that and affect the overall project progress.

Your employees might feel pressured to overwork. Your employees could want to prove themselves when working flexibly, overworking, or constantly being online to meet unrealistic expectations they put on themselves.

So, as you can see, flexible working hours are a great way to promote freedom and boost team productivity, but implementing such a working arrangement requires discipline and good communication from all sides.

So, should you try implementing flexible hours to boost your employees’ productivity?

Well, if you follow the statistics blindly, the answer is yes.

Studies have shown that remote employees with flexible work hours have greater job satisfaction, a higher sense of autonomy, and overall, are more engaged. These factors naturally increase their productivity.

BUT.

Implementing a flexible work schedule isn’t just about freedom. It’s about creating a foundation that supports your employees and understands their needs, without compromising your business goals.

The way I see it, it’s about creating a framework that will balance your employees’ freedom with effort and consistency.

But how can you know if a framework you plan to implement will work? 

The only way to know is to track your team. And I don’t mean implementing employee monitoring tools to track them. I mean allowing your team to track their productivity and take accountability for the tasks and projects completed.

How to track flexible work

Before you fully commit to going the flexible route, you need to find out if your team is more or less productive with a flexible working schedule.

You can do so by introducing a “trial period” to see how well your team adapts to the new schedule.

Your job during this period is to assess their output and gather feedback. This trial period should allow you to identify what works and what doesn’t, so you can determine if a flexible work schedule could benefit your team and the company’s overall productivity.

The quickest way to track their output is to track their time spent on projects. Let your team do the work and log their times.

I highly suggest you use Memtime for this purpose.

Memtime is like a digital diary combined with a time tracking app.

We created it to help individuals and teams analyze where their time is going throughout the workday.

Our app automatically tracks all your employees' activities across desktops, browsers, and offline apps, giving them insight into how they spend their time. From meetings to project work to those little, 60-second distractions, Memtime captures it all.

The thing is, Memtime keeps all user data on their devices, meaning you, as a manager, don't have access to your employees' automatic timelines. We built a time tracking app, not an employee monitoring tool. 🙂

So, here's how you would get time data from your employees:

• Your team tracks their time and logs it under specific tasks and projects, ensuring accurate insights into where their efforts are focused.
• You, as a manager, can review the time spent on each project, identify areas for improvement, and optimize workload distribution.
• Additionally, you can encourage employees to monitor their working habits and share detailed Memtime reports with you. These reports offer valuable insights into their individual work patterns, helping you decide whether transitioning to a flexible working schedule would enhance productivity.

Here’s how Memtime can help guide your decision on whether flexible work hours could work for your team.

Ultimately, Memtime allows you to test your theory on flexible working hours.

As mentioned before, you don’t have to commit to a fully flexible schedule. Introduce such a schedule for a month and ask your employees to use Memtime to track the impact.

In a month, you’ll be able to see if your team is getting more done or not, whether they are burning out or collaborating effectively. Based on that data, you’ll be able to make your final decision.

So, are you ready to find out if flexible hours are right for your team? If your answer is “yes”, sign up for our team trial now.

A few notes before you go

Hopefully, you understand now that tools like Memtime can help you make all the difficult decisions regarding remote and flexible work, time management, and profitability.

So, before you go, let me just remind you of three things:

1. As a manager, you’re dealing with a group of people (your team) but you also work with individuals. What works for one team member might not work for the other. That’s why you have Memtime, which gives you insights into their individual habits so no one feels pressured to abandon their unique working style.
2. Flexibility only works if you are open to setting clear expectations around deadlines and performance goals. You need to do your part as a manager. Otherwise, you risk lowering your team’s productivity.
3. Consider your company’s culture before making any decisions regarding flexible hours. For some businesses, flexibility is like their core value (just think of dynamic tech startups); for others, a more structured approach is the way to go. No shame in either of those games.

Flexible working hours can work for your company as long as you tailor the approach to the specific needs of your team and business goals.

After all, productivity isn’t just about when employees work, but how well they’re supported in achieving their best work, no matter the hours. 🙂