A company introduces hybrid working. Marketing employees can work from home two days a week, while the finance team must be in the office four days. Customer support staff follow fixed shifts, and managers can adjust their schedules as needed.
Some of these differences may make sense. Other arrangements may reflect decisions made years ago, without anyone checking whether they are still necessary.
For employers, this creates a question that goes beyond whether flexible work is available. Who gets to use it, who does not, and are those differences justified by the work itself?
CIPD's 2025 report found that 91% of employers offered some form of flexible working. But that doesn't mean everyone could use it: two-fifths said flexibility was available to only some or a few employees.
The distinction matters. A company can offer flexibility on paper without making it a realistic option for much of its workforce.
So how can employers make flexible working arrangements fairer without disrupting the business?
1. Check Who Actually Has Access to Flexibility
Start by comparing the company’s written policy with what happens in practice.
An employee handbook might allow flexible hours, remote work, or adjusted schedules. But employees may have very different experiences depending on their department, job level, or manager.
For example, a marketing specialist may be able to shift hours around personal commitments, while an administrative employee must follow a fixed schedule even when their workload allows flexibility.
The difference may be justified if the administrative role requires reception coverage or time-sensitive coordination. But if the employee could complete the work within a different schedule without affecting colleagues or customers, the restriction deserves a second look.
Employers should map the arrangements available across teams and compare them with the arrangements employees actually use.
Ask:
- Which teams can adjust their working hours?
- Who can work remotely, and how often?
- Which roles have predictable schedules?
- Are there employees who could benefit from flexibility but have never been offered it?
The aim is not to make every job identical. It is to identify restrictions that may no longer serve a clear business purpose.
2. Look Beyond Working From Home
Flexible work is often discussed as if it means working remotely. That leaves out employees whose jobs require them to be on site.
A warehouse worker cannot necessarily move their work to a home office. A retail employee needs to be available when the store is open. A healthcare worker may need to be physically present to provide care.
That doesn't mean these employees don't need flexibility.
A business might offer more predictable shift schedules, shift swaps, compressed working hours where operationally possible, or greater control over start and finish times. It could also give employees more notice when schedules change.
The UK government's latest survey found that working from home is still much more common in some jobs than others. Office-based professionals are more likely to have that option, while people in hands-on and customer-facing roles have fewer opportunities to work remotely.
These differences partly reflect the nature of the work. However, they also show why employers should not use remote work as the only measure of flexibility.
For an employee who must be on site, knowing their schedule several weeks in advance may be more useful than a remote-working policy that doesn't apply to their job.
3. Check Whether Managers Follow the Same Rules
A flexible-working policy may seem fair on paper, but managers don't always apply it the same way.
One manager may approve a change in working hours, while another refuses a similar request. When that happens, employees may feel that getting flexibility depends more on their manager than on the work they do.
Consider two employees in different teams who need to leave early for an appointment. One is allowed to make up the time later in the week. The other is told to use paid leave, even though both jobs offer similar opportunities to adjust their hours.
There may be a practical reason for the difference. If there is not, the employer should be able to explain why the requests were handled differently.
Managers need clear guidance on which arrangements they can approve, what operational factors they should consider and when they should consult HR.
Managers should still be able to make decisions based on individual circumstances. The key is to give them clear guidelines so similar cases are handled fairly across the company.
Employers should also give employees a way to ask for a decision to be reviewed if they believe similar requests are being treated differently.
4. Separate Genuine Business Needs From Workplace Habits
Some restrictions are necessary. Others remain in place because nobody has questioned them.
A company might require employees to work from the office five days a week because that was the arrangement before remote work became widespread. Another might insist that everyone be online at the same time, even when teams work across different locations and most tasks do not require simultaneous communication.
Employers should examine the reason behind each requirement.
For example, a team may need two hours of overlapping availability to resolve customer issues quickly. That does not automatically mean everyone needs to follow the same eight-hour schedule.
Similarly, an employee may need to attend certain meetings in person without needing to spend every working day in the office.
Managers can start by identifying the parts of a role that require physical presence, fixed hours or real-time collaboration. They can then consider whether the remaining work can be organized differently.
This approach keeps the discussion focused on business needs rather than personal preferences about where or when people should work.
It also makes decisions easier to explain. Employees are more likely to understand a restriction when they know what it is intended to achieve.
5. Consider the Effect on Recruitment and Retention
Flexibility can influence whether a candidate accepts an offer or an existing employee decides to stay.
Indeed Hiring Lab’s January 2026 report, What Workers Expect When They’re Expecting Better Work, found that the share of US job postings mentioning flexible schedules rose from 7.1% in early 2020 to 14.4% in November 2023, before slipping to 13.7% in October 2025.
The trend does not mean every candidate expects the same arrangement. It does show that flexible scheduling has become a meaningful part of the employment landscape.
Employers should consider what happens when flexibility is reduced or made available to fewer employees. A change may be necessary for operational reasons, but it can also affect morale, retention, and the company’s ability to compete for people who have other options.
A return-to-office rule may be easy for some employees to follow but difficult for others. Someone who lives nearby may have little trouble coming in every day, while a colleague with a long commute or family responsibilities may find it much harder.
If experienced employees leave as a result, the business may have to spend time and money recruiting and training replacements. For more on the costs of a prolonged hiring process, see what employers should consider when a job has been open for 60 days.
Before changing an established arrangement, employers should consider the likely effects on different groups of employees. They should also explain the reason for the change and, where possible, give people time to adjust.
6. Ask Employees What Is and Is Not Working
Managers may believe that a flexible-working policy is working well because nobody has complained. That does not necessarily mean employees find it fair or useful.
Some may avoid asking for flexibility because they fear appearing less committed. Others may assume their request will be rejected because colleagues in similar roles have been turned down.
Employers can use regular one-on-one meetings, employee surveys or team discussions to understand how arrangements work in practice.
Questions worth asking include:
- Do you have enough control over your working hours?
- Are schedule changes communicated with enough notice?
- Do you understand which flexibility options are available to you?
- Are there restrictions that make your work unnecessarily difficult?
- Do you believe requests are handled consistently across the team?
The answers may reveal problems that are not obvious from attendance records or formal policies.
Employers should also avoid treating employee feedback as a promise to approve every request. The purpose is to understand the problem, explain operational constraints and identify workable alternatives.
7. Measure the Results After Making Changes
A flexible-working policy should be reviewed like any other business process. Employers need to know whether it is meeting operational needs and whether the arrangements are working for employees.
The measures will depend on the type of work. A customer service team may need to monitor coverage and response times. A project team may focus on deadlines, quality and collaboration. A business with shift-based roles may track schedule changes, unplanned absences and staffing gaps.
Employers should also monitor turnover, employee feedback and differences between departments.
For example, if one team has significantly higher turnover than comparable teams and also offers less scheduling flexibility, that pattern may warrant investigation. It does not prove that the policy caused employees to leave, but it gives the employer a reason to ask further questions.
Reviewing results can also prevent the opposite problem: keeping a flexible arrangement that no longer works for the business simply because it was introduced with good intentions.
The goal is to make decisions based on evidence rather than assumptions about what employees need or what managers believe will work.
When Should Employers Review Their Flexible-Working Policy?
A review is particularly useful when:
- Employees in similar roles receive different levels of flexibility without a clear explanation.
- Managers regularly make exceptions to the written policy.
- Employees report that schedule changes are unpredictable.
- Turnover or dissatisfaction increases in particular teams.
- Business requirements have changed, but working arrangements have not.
- Employees who cannot work remotely have few alternative forms of flexibility.
A review does not have to result in a company-wide policy change. Sometimes the solution is clearer guidance for managers. In other cases, employers may need to redesign schedules, improve communication or introduce different options for different roles.
The important point is to understand the problem before deciding on the solution.
The Bottom Line
Flexible work does not have to mean the same thing for every employee. Different jobs have different requirements, and employers need to maintain the coverage, service and collaboration their businesses depend on.
But differences should have a clear reason. When access to flexibility depends on a manager’s personal preferences or outdated assumptions about how work must be done, employers risk creating unnecessary frustration and losing employees they could have retained.
Reviewing who has access to flexibility, explaining restrictions and considering alternatives can help businesses balance operational needs with employees’ expectations.
The question is not whether every employee can work whenever and wherever they want. It is whether the company’s rules make sense for the work being done.
As your business grows, having the right people in the right roles matters.
Sources
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CIPD, Flexible and Hybrid Working Practices in 2025. Research on employer policies and differences in access to flexible working. https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/reports/flexible-hybrid-working/
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UK Department for Work and Pensions, Survey of Employees and Self-Employed Workers, 2024 to 2025. Data on working arrangements and differences in access to working from home. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/survey-of-employees-and-self-employed-workers-2024-to-2025/survey-of-employees-and-self-employed-workers-2024-to-2025
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Indeed Hiring Lab, What Workers Expect When They’re Expecting Better Work: Findings From the 2025 Indeed Workforce Insights Survey. Research on workers’ priorities and trends in flexible schedules and remote work. https://d341ezm4iqaae0.cloudfront.net/hiringlaborg/2026/01/21114928/Indeed-Hiring-Lab-WEF-2026-1_2.pdf