Recruiters: Why Are You Hiding Your Flex?

 Flexible work options are a growing trend in recruitment and retention. Over the last decade, telecommuting, for example, has grown 35 percent, and is projected to continue growing despite recent high-profile bans by Yahoo! and HP. Increasingly, qualified professionals are searching for jobs based on the type of flexible work options they offer, and smart employers are quick to embrace work flexibility. Why, then, are so few employers advertising their flex-friendly policies to potential hires?

Hiding Your Flex-Friendly Jobs

Step into a job seekers shoes for a moment. You’re visiting the career websites of company after company, searching for keywords like telecommute, remote work, flexible schedule, and so on, with few results coming back. Yet, you’ve read quotes from company CEOs and HR directors who routinely tout their company as flex-friendly and focused on work-life balance. Why, then, can’t you find any flex-friendly job listings?

The disconnect between what companies say and what they do is often lamented by job seekers, but in this case it’s a very easy fix. And the benefits for companies that openly offer flexible jobs are real.

The Benefits of Work Flexibility for Employers

A recent survey of over 1,300 job seekers found that professionals would take pay cuts, give up vacation time, forgo employer-matching retirement contributions, and even opt out of health benefits for flexible work options. Working from home and working alternative schedules are clearly important to job seekers and beneficial to employers’ bottom lines.

In addition, flexible work options are a deal-breaker for many candidates, with big impacts on recruitment and retention. Forty-six percent of respondents have turned down a promotion, have not taken a job, or have quit a job because of a lack of flexible work options.

Professionals who actively seek flexible work options are an in-demand crowd, typically being well-educated with extensive work experience. In order to attract top candidates, why don’t employers make their flexible work options more apparent.

Make Flexible Job Listings More Obvious

Yes, candidates are searching for jobs that openly offer flexible options like being able to work from home, have a flexible schedule, work a compressed workweek, and others. The fix for recruiters is easy: Choose the keywords that best match what you’re offering (for example: telecommute vs. remote work) and include them in job postings so that they’re searchable.

If your company supports work flexibility already, stating that in your job descriptions and even job titles will help you more easily connect with the large and growing number of professionals seeking this type of work.