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When it comes to returning to the office, many companies have taken a prescriptive approach, telling employees exactly and which days of the week they should work in person.
But some companies have broken away from the pack and instead let workers choose when they want to come into the office—or if they want to come in at all. SurveyMonkey, best known for its online survey tools, is among employers taking a less authoritative approach to flexible work, and has allowed workers to choose their own work arrangements since 2021.
Dubbed by the company as its “choice model,” Survey Monkey’s flexible work deal was introduced after 84% of employees said in an internal survey that they wanted to work from home at least two to three days per week. Today, around 96% of employees are either fully remote or hybrid, up from 4% before the pandemic.
The results so far have been positive. In a recent internal survey, 84% of SurveyMonkey workers said choosing where they work improved their work experience. Voluntary turnover at the company declined by 62% between 2021 and 2023, and average productivity for sales representatives increased by 66% in the same time frame.
“It has worked well for us,” Becky Cantieri, SurveyMonkey’s chief people officer, tells Fortune. “It allows [workers] to integrate all things in their life in a better way than they had when they were commuting for long periods of time or balancing lots of different responsibilities at home.”
But Cantieri says SurveyMonkey created several other policies or benefits connected to their flexible work policy to make sure that it worked well.
In 2021, the company established “Focus Fridays,” removing any internal recurring meetings except for external or business-critical meetings. The amount of time employees spent in meetings on Fridays decreased by 50%, and employees now spend just an average of 19 minutes in meetings on the day.
SurveyMonkey also offers a “C.H.O.I.C.E.” fund, that each employee can use for up to $1,800 in expenses annually to spend on any eligible lifestyle purchases. Those include office equipment, gym memberships or exercise equipment, or child care costs. While the benefit is not remote work specific, Cantieri says the fund helps give employees the resources they need to be most productive.
The company also recently established semi-frequent in-person gatherings between teams, similar to offsites, where individual teams meet with the aim of boosting collaboration, learning, and team-building. Cantieri’s team meets once or twice annually. Gatherings are divided into training and further developing HR expertise, discussing the company’s talent strategy and programs, and engaging in casual relationship-building activities.
Cantieri says the choice model is still a work in progress, and her team will continue looking for programs or benefits to best support workers while meeting business goals.
“We’re continuing to invest in choice, we are still continuing to iterate on all the things that we need to do in support of choice to continue to make it successful for the team, and the business overall, she says. “It’s not perfect yet, by any means. But we’re still very much playing with it.”
Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion
Today’s edition was curated by Azure Gilman.
Around the Table
A round-up of the most important HR headlines.
-Gen Z is less likely than other generations to apply to fully remote jobs, but almost two thirds still say they are more likely to apply to a role with a flexible schedule. Axios
- Inflation and a search for more stimulation are spurring older people to abandon retirement and go look for work again. About one out of eight retirees plan to go back to work this year. Wall Street Journal
- Some companies are cutting their DEI jobs as the topic endures scrutiny and legal pressure. The Washington Post
Watercooler
Everything you need to know from Fortune.
Stood up. Gen Z is treating their job search like casual dating, skipping interviews and sometimes even the first day of work. —Orianna Rosa Royle
Too much. Some companies including Olive Garden and FedEx are forcing job applicants to take detailed personality quizzes for entry level jobs. —Chloe Berger
Tough talk. One day after Ford's CEO said that union activity was making him think twice about where to put the company's factories, United Auto Workers threatened a strike at the company's most profitable factory. —AP, Irina Ivanova
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