5 Tips for Leveraging Flex-Work Options in Your Hiring Strategy

Employees have raised their voice and made their opinion clear: They have little desire to return full-time to the office. 

According to recent Microsoft research, 73% of workers want flexible work options to continue after the pandemic, and 46% plan to move now that they’re able to work remotely. The LinkedIn Talent Drivers Survey found that among the things that mattered most to employees when considering a new job, “flexible working arrangements” jumped from the seventh–most important to the fourth between January 2021 and May 2021. 

This means that employers who offer flexible options will be better positioned to attract the talent they need.

LinkedIn recently conducted a webinar “Flexible work: How to adapt your hiring strategy” to explore this quickly evolving business issue. The event featured top talent acquisition executives — Adele Lomax, global recruiting transformation director for BCG; Deniz Gültekin, senior manager of recruitment marketing for Instacart; and Amy Schultz, global head of talent acquisition at Canva — who shared their insights on hiring for flexible work. 

Here are the top five takeaways:

1. Create flexible options based on what employees want 

At Instacart, leaders looked to their employees to formulate flex-work policies. The grocery delivery service became an essential service almost overnight during the pandemic, and the company went remote almost instantly too. This meant that they had to create policies quickly and continually revisit them. 

“Our decision-making started with team feedback,” Deniz says. “We did several check-ins with our employees throughout the pandemic and asked people: ‘Do you have everything you need to be productive and successful? How can we better support you?’”

Recently, Instacart asked employees, “What do you want the future to look like for you and your new reality?” Employees overwhelmingly responded that they wanted remote and flexible options. Based on the feedback, the company is now offering remote, hybrid, and in-office options when it’s safe to return to the office. 

The company has also “been hiring like crazy” during the pandemic, Deniz says — and they’ve been able to recruit from a more diverse talent pool than when employees were required to work in their San Francisco, Toronto, or Atlanta offices. Most of their new employees onboarded remotely and have never stepped foot in the office. 

2. Be creative in what you offer

By the very nature of its business — management consulting — the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has always offered flexible work options. Its consultants often traveled to projects and were able to manage their own schedules. 

Like Instacart, BCG leans heavily on its employees to find out what works best. The company conducts an annual survey. They host cohort sessions. They hold leadership discussions. 

The consensus? 

“There’s still no one-size-fits-all in terms of flexibility,” Adele says. 

BCG offers employees not only flex-time and remote options but also flex-leave, in which people can request up to two months off, once a year, for any reason. It’s different from vacation, compassionate leave, or parental leave in that it’s unpaid. “But we recognize that at some points in life, time is more important than money,” Adele says, “and if you want that time to do whatever it is that really matters to you, we support you.” The company works closely with teams to make sure that the time-off works for everyone and that the leave doesn’t hurt an employee’s career.

3. Highlight flexibility in your job descriptions

Recruiters at BCG collaborate with hiring managers about the qualifications and skills set needed for a role, and then they brainstorm about the flex-work options they can offer. They highlight these prominently in job postings. 

They’re not alone. 

Remote job posts — posts that are labeled either “remote” or include keywords like “work from home” — grew 2.4x on LinkedIn globally from May 2020 to May 2021. 

At Instacart, Deniz’s team focuses on writing job posts that raise awareness of flex-work options and drive candidates to their site. “We launched universal headers for all our job descriptions that share our philosophy and our approach to how we’re working,” Deniz says, “and we included a link to our landing page, which we constantly update, so people can learn more information.”

Companies should be clear from the get-go that they’re a flexible place to work. In the first conversations Instacart has with candidates, recruiters talk about the company’s model, its philosophy, and the particular team for which the candidate is interviewing. Specifically, they highlight whether the team is distributed or located in one place and whether they plan to meet in the office one or two days a week when it’s safe to return. 

4. Bang the drum loudly — and constantly — about your flex-work options

To broadcast their flex-work options, Instacart did an aggressive campaign across a number of channels. The company put banners on its career site, highlighting that it was a flex-remote company. It updated all its employer brand channels with language about being remote. It produced editorial content with partners, talking about its new philosophy. “And most successfully,” Deniz says, “we did a big push on LinkedIn through both organic ads and paid social ads, retargeting anybody who had looked at our jobs or been to our career site within the past year.”

Instacart’s inbounds increased to their highest point in more than a year. “We’re pretty much shouting it from the rooftops,” Deniz says. 

The wisdom here? Let people know in as many ways possible, whenever possible, what you have to offer. 

5. Tell your stories, often

Both BCG and Instacart have also tapped the power of storytelling. “It’s really important to share stories about how you make it work,” Adele says. At BCG, the company’s chief people officer talks often about how individual employees make flex-options work. 

“We like to talk about the trials people endured or the things they had to change,” Adele says. “We give practical examples and practical ideas because that really helps people. It encourages fellow BCGers to feel empowered to find the model that works for them.”

Instacart has also used its company blog to share the stories of its first year of remote onboarding and its rollout of a remote-friendly working model. 

“Continuing to spotlight your mission and vision will be really important,” says Amy from Canva, “because we know candidates more than ever are seeking meaning in the work that they do.” 

So, share your stories. They’re one more way for candidates to learn about your flex-work options and connect with your culture. 

Final thoughts: Be prepared to adapt

The last 18 months have underscored that nothing is certain. Everything is constantly changing, including the flexible workplace. 

“I think, number one, we can’t pretend that this is all easy,” Adele says, “and it doesn’t always work like we intended it to. We can all write fantastic policy that says, ‘This is how it’s going to work,’ but then real life comes in and there will be pressures and unexpected turns.” 

Her advice: Offer a variety of options and be prepared to adapt and change. 

In the midst of ongoing change, the more flexible options you can offer employees, the better positioned you’ll be to attract the talent you’re aiming for.

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