One type of accommodation you might not have considered for employees with disabilities is offering flexible schedules. Flex schedules can be beneficial to many groups of people, and they can even be expanded to your other employees, such as remote workers, single parents, and carers. We review how flex schedules can benefit employees with disabilities.
What are flex schedules?
Flex schedules allow employees to fit their work-life around existing commitments, such as a disability or chronic health condition. The term flex schedules refer to several things, such as flexitime, remote working, a compressed workweek, personal days, job sharing, and part-time hours.
All of these things work in conjunction with remote working and can be used to excellent effect amongst your staff. For example, an employee living with a chronic illness might find flexitime useful, as they have more say as to when they have to work and when they can stay home. Personal days are also helpful for employees who need time off for medical appointments regularly.
How are flex schedules beneficial to your company?
As people living with a disability make up 15% of the world population, you’ll be opening your doors to a vast pool of talent by making employment more accessible for people with disabilities. You’ll also encourage plenty of other staff to work for you if they have more options, such as personal days to attend to elderly parents or job sharing to cope with young children.
If your employees are better supported, you’ll see a higher level of productivity, and staff that stay with you longer. This cuts down on recruitment and training costs. It also enables staff to retain their jobs despite illness, maternity, or personal circumstances.
How does flex scheduling help employees with disabilities?
Flex schedules are ideal for employees with disabilities for many reasons. People living with chronic illnesses, mental health conditions, or other types of neurodiversity often find personal days or remote working useful. Neurodiversity in particular often involves controlling habits and routines or needing a quieter space to work in. Flex-time is ideal for supporting employees with these types of conditions.
Employees living with physical disabilities might find accessing the office more difficult on some days than on others, but flex schedules offer the perfect solution for managing this. It reduces sick days and supports your staff more adequately.
Employees living with sensory impairments, such as hearing or vision loss, may require a quieter space to work. Remote working and flex schedules can help with this.
Job sharing can also be a way to support two members of staff who prefer part-time hours, at once. You don’t need to create a new position or role, and both members of staff can continue to do their job. It’s an excellent way of supporting two people with disabilities at once.
Flex schedules are the perfect solution to better supporting staff, and it doesn’t just apply to employees living with disabilities either. They’re a great tool to support parents of young children, single parents, and carers of elderly or sick relatives. Why not consider offering flex schedules to your staff?
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