As the return-to-office wars continue, a new report offers a case for flexibility: Companies offering flexible schedules—including fully flexible and hybrid—are adding to headcount at about twice the pace of companies requiring employees to be in-office full-time.
In fact, companies requiring employees to come into the office just one day a week grew headcount by 4.8% over the last 12 months, compared to 3.8% for those requiring four days in office and 2.6% for five days in office, according to a new report from Scoop, a remote work platform. Meanwhile, fully flexible companies increased headcount by 5.6%.
Scoop combined data from its Flex index, which tracks 4,000-plus companies’ work schedules, with hiring data from People Data Labs to see how office requirements corresponded with headcount growth.
“There is a strong correlation between days required in office per week and headcount growth,” Scoop’s report reads. The trend held true regardless of company size, and even if tech companies (which typically grow faster than other companies) were excluded: Over the past year, flexible companies outpaced hiring over companies requiring employees to come into the office full-time.
The results aren’t exactly surprising. Survey after survey has found how much employees value flexibility. In fact, according to a Future Forum report, it ranks second only to compensation in determining job satisfaction with 76% of knowledge workers desiring flexibility in where they work.
The good news is Scoop previously found that more and more employers and workers are reaching a truce on remote work. A majority of companies, 51%, offered hybrid work arrangements in Q2 of this year, compared to 43% in the first quarter.
Rob Sadow, Scoop’s CEO and cofounder, notes that those offering flexible work have a larger talent pool to choose from; there’s only so far employees are willing to drive to go into an office. Sadow notes that headcount growth isn’t a perfect proxy for a company’s revenue or earnings growth. But typically, adding employees is a good indication of how the business is doing.
“Companies that are more flexible have an easier time attracting talent,” Sadow tells Fortune. “If the companies that are flexible are growing at a substantially higher rate, those are the companies that are going to win.”
He also notes that headcount growth remains similar at companies mandating one to three days in the office. But when the requirement goes from three days in-office to four days, there is a “steep” dropoff in growth, from 4.5% to 2.6%.
“Most employees are relatively comfortable going in a few days a week,” he says. “Going from three days to more than three days is maybe a bright line. Workers will go seek a company that is more flexible if they have the opportunity.”
Sadow encourages executives to “think carefully” about their remote-work policies and how they might affect hiring talent in the future.
“Companies that are hybrid will keep growing over time,” he says. And companies “are going to feel compelled to match the flexibility of their peers and competitors if they can’t beat them on talent.”
