Flexible working is a powerful lever for talent attraction with the ultimate aim of driving business performance. Businesses that integrate flexible models into their operations can attract high-demand talent and enjoy diverse thinking, productivity, innovation, and retention gains. Choosing the best flexible working structure for your business goals is vital.
Here are eight flexible working models, each explained with practical application and business advantages.
1. Hybrid working: structure with autonomy
Hybrid working blends remote and in-office time. It gives employees a choice over how and where they work, while maintaining essential face-to-face collaboration.
- How it works in practice: A marketing team meets every Tuesday and Thursday in person for planning and creative sessions, while working remotely on individual tasks the rest of the week. A client-facing team may be on-site during client onboarding phases, but remote once the relationship stabilises.
Read: Best practices and guidelines for implementing hybrid working
- Business advantage: Hybrid working will reduce office space costs, support diverse working styles, and increase agility. It also allows you to build culture intentionally around shared in-person time, not outdated routines.
2. Remote working: location without limits
Remote work allows employees to work from anywhere, whether at home, in a co-working space, or across borders, while remaining fully integrated with the business.
- How it works in practice: A SaaS company hires a senior project manager who lives two time zones away. The project manager works asynchronous hours but delivers projects on deadline, checks in via daily stand-ups, and collaborates in shared project tools.
- Business advantage: Remote work will widen your recruitment pool, reduce hiring costs when hiring from cost-efficient countries, and create continuity even when your team is spread across locations. With the right systems, remote workers are often more focused and easier to retain.
Read : Bridging The Remote Work Gap: Align Productivity Perceptions Between Employees And Management
3. Flexible hours: Rethinking the workday
Flexible hours allow employees to shift their start and finish times around core business needs.
- How it works: A customer support team operates globally between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.. Team members choose shifts that match their availability, while ensuring continuous service coverage. Parents choose to work 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. to accommodate school pickups and avoid traffic.
- Business advantage: Flexible hours will improve coverage across time zones, increase operational resilience, and reduce burnout. It enables businesses to serve clients longer and retain staff who need work-life fluidity.
Sixty-Eight per cent of women seek full-time employment with flexibility. (Source: Working Women in SA Report 2025)
4. Four-Day Workweek: Fewer days, same output
The four-day work week is a reimagined approach to traditional employment, where employees work four days instead of five, typically without a reduction in pay or productivity expectations. Rather than cramming longer hours into fewer days, the model is designed around the principle of working smarter, prioritising outcomes over time spent.
It hinges on reducing unnecessary meetings, improving focus, and fostering efficiency.
- How it works in practice: A sales team moves to a 4-day work week schedule, ensuring the company has coverage 5 days a week. Employees complete their workload in four days and deliver the same productivity as 5 days in exchange for full pay.
- Business advantage: Trials across various countries and sectors have shown benefits such as increased employee well-being, lower burnout, improved talent retention, and, in many cases, maintained or enhanced productivity. It offers businesses a competitive edge in attracting top talent seeking better work-life integration.
5. Part-time and job sharing: Unlocking experienced talent
These arrangements allow professionals to contribute on a reduced schedule while maintaining high impact and continuity.
- How it works in practice: An accounting firm employs two experienced accounting professionals who each work three days per week and share responsibility for a single client portfolio. Their schedules overlap one day a week for continuity and handover.
- Business advantage: Part-time and job share models will attract seasoned professionals who value balance but still seek challenge. These models are also cost-efficient for roles that do not require full-time presence.
6. Activity-based working: space designed for the task
This model organises physical or virtual space into zones optimised for different types of work—collaboration, quiet focus, or social connection.
- How it works in practice: A consulting firm reconfigures its office into four zones: focus pods, team project rooms, video call booths, and informal lounges. Employees book spaces based on the task they are doing that day.
- Business advantage: Activity-based working will raise engagement by matching the environment to the task. It also promotes better space utilisation, encourages purposeful interaction, and supports neurodiversity and concentration.
7. Results-based work: outcomes over hours
This approach measures employee performance based on results, not time spent at a desk.
- How it works in practice: A digital agency removes hourly tracking for creative teams and sets weekly deliverables aligned to client campaigns. Check-ins focus on output, quality, and impact, not how long someone was online.
- Business advantage: A results-focused model will attract entrepreneurial talent, increase team trust, and remove micromanagement. It supports innovation by giving people space to think deeply and deliver creatively when they work best. This approach helps budgeting as a specific cost is allocated to the deliverable, no matter the time taken to complete the task.
8. Sabbaticals and extended leave: retention through renewal
Offering employees the option to take extended leave after a service period—either paid or unpaid—can lead to renewed commitment and loyalty.
- How it works in practice: A senior developer lead takes a six-week paid sabbatical after five years of service to study new technologies. On return, she leads a digital innovation stream, bringing fresh insights and renewed energy to the business.
- Business advantage: Sabbaticals will improve retention and succession planning. They allow businesses to demonstrate trust, promote long-term loyalty, and create space for personal growth that ultimately benefits the organisation.
Choosing the right flexible working model
The best model will align with your workforce structure, business objectives, and client needs. Implementation success depends on management buy-in and adoption as well as clarity, consistency, and communication across the organisation.
- Evaluate tasks and teams, not just roles.
- Equip managers with the tools to lead performance rather than presence.
- Align performance measures to outcomes.
- Use technology to connect teams seamlessly across locations and schedules.
Why flexible working will give you the edge
Flexible working is not about making concessions but gaining a competitive advantage. Businesses that embrace it will attract stronger candidates, reduce hiring costs, and retain valuable talent at every career stage.
The most successful companies are designing flexibility into their culture, not treating it as an add-on. The results speak for themselves—stronger teams, sharper performance, and a future-ready business.
RecruitMyMom has been leading in the flexible working recruitment landscape since 2012. Our in-depth local and global insights assist our clients in making smart flexible hiring decisions, albeit full-time with flexibility, in-office, hybrid or fully remote.
