Your employer might still be forcing you to use Internet Explorer, but if they’re letting you work from home there’s a good chance you’ll stick around for longer.
That’s according to new research released today by Deloitte Access Economics and Google that finds a workplace with strong IT policies in place could be a hidden attraction for staff, and key to retaining employees outside of ‘perks’ and ‘pay’ motivation in the war for talent.
The study, The Connected Workplace – War for talent in the digital economy, found that flexible IT policies that include personal laptop use in the workplace, access to social media during work hours, encouraging collaborative use of technology and flexibility to work from home, are key areas that all contribute to employee satisfaction in the workplace.
“These report findings highlight a broader trend which we’ve been seeing for some time now, which is that people want to work the way they live,” said Claire Hatton, Industry Director at Google in a statement accompanying the report.
The report found that one-third of employees who are happy with their workplace IT policies are less likely to leave the company than those who were unhappy. Eighty three percent of employees who have access to flexible IT policies said they were satisfied at work in comparison to 62% who do not have such access and said they felt satisfied.
Many employees also said their home internet was more user-friendly, up-to-date and faster than what they access at work, which has raised employee expectations of their workplace IT. And those who spent their time using the work internet for personal things offset this time by using the internet at home for work.
Over 500 employees from Australia and New Zealand participated in the online survey, which also consulted with CIOs and Senior IT Managers of Westpac, Fairfax, Woolworths, Air New Zealand and NSW Trade and Investment
The report also found that investing in flexible IT policies that keep employees satisfied also saves companies money. According to the numbers, flexible IT policies could save a small business up to $22,000 in hiring costs a year, while large companies could save up to $350,000. For an average large-sized business, this adds up to a saving of around $2.6m over ten years.
So there’s a good business case to work from home next week.