UK Employees Rank Flexibility as The Most Important Employee Benefit

Flexible working hours and the ability to work from home; flexibility is what UK employees say they want more than anything else. This finding is revealed in The Benefits & Engagement Report: A European employer’s guide to the employee experience of the 2020s – a study exploring what benefits are most important for different employee groups, how benefits are related to employee engagement, and what effect HR tech platforms have on benefits appreciation and the overall employee experience. The study was commissioned by award-winning benefits technology provider, Benify, and conducted by global public opinion and data company, YouGov.

When asked which employee benefit would make them consider changing employer if their offering was better than their current employer's offer, 42% of participants in the UK said flexibility. Flexibility is the most desired employee benefit for women and men across all ages and industries and is particularly desirable amongst employees under the age of 30, with more 50% of this age group making it their number one choice.

This finding may come as a surprise when many workforces across the UK are working from home due to COVID-19 and are already likely to have greater flexibility than previously. Even so, UK employees value flexibility, including flexible working hours and the option to work from home.

“I think flexibility has changed meaning; flexibility pre-COVID-19 meant working from home, making sure your work could fit around your life and that’s even more relevant now.  Work and home lives are now blurred lines and juggling your family commitments, elderly care, children, and being able to go for a run in the middle of the day takes a different level of flexibility.  Getting into the headspace of being able to separate your work and your life when it’s all in one place is a challenge. The flexibility of being able to differentiate between those two things is really important to people”

says Katie Goodwin, Head of Client Relations International, Benify.

About the study
The survey was conducted in April 2020 by YouGov, on behalf of Benify, in the form of an anonymous online survey with approximately 5,000 participants aged 18 and older in the United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden. To learn more about the study, please request a copy of The Benefits and Engagement Report via the contact information below.