Stem staff turnover with flexible working

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The survey, canvassing the opinions of more than 20,000 senior executives and business owners across 95 countries, confirms that in South Africa flexible working can be used to avoid employee churn - and the consequent expense of recruitment agencies - as 75% of respondents point to flexible working as a perk that attracts top talent.

Expensive process

Recruitment is an expensive process that many global businesses are keen to reduce. It's cheaper to keep your employees than to lose them. A new recruit only achieves up to 60% output in the first three months of employment and takes at least six months for an employee to become value-adding. What measures should businesses be prioritising to slash hiring costs, attract and retain top staff? Flexible working, respondents reveal, provides a solution to all three.

The research also found that:

• 74% of respondents say offering flexible working makes employees more loyal;
  
• 59% of workers would actually turn down a job that ruled out flexible working; and
  
• 62% say they would have stayed longer in their last position had flexible working been an option.

Commenting on the study, Kirsten Morgendaal, area director at Regus says: "Hiring and retaining top talent is an age-old priority for successful businesses, but not all companies can afford to offer golden bonuses or mouth-watering salaries while remaining competitive. Stemming churn is also vital to avoid incurring recruitment agency costs and the inconvenience of starting the hiring process.

"Flexible working, which is lower cost than fixed office working, offers the attractive perks of lower stress and better work:life balance to existing and prospective employees, and provides a low cost solution to attracting and retaining those top workers. It's also striking how mainstream the perk of flexible working has become, with many respondents actually choosing their jobs on the basis of flexibility."

Demand has increased

In South Africa demand for flexible office space has increased sharply in 2013, with enquiries in July and August reaching an all-time high. Overall demand for offices was 43% higher than the 2012 average, and Regus' new locations in Stellenbosch, along with five new centres in Gauteng will help meet that demand.