To Attract and Keep Workers, Employers Continue to Offer Flexible Work Arrangements

While many companies have, in recent years, encouraged workers to return to full-time office attendance, corporate employers in the U.S. continue to offer flexible working arrangements at high rates, according to research from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans’ “Flexible Work and Part-Time Benefits: 2025 Survey Report.”

Corporations and single employer plans surveyed reported their motivation for offering flexible work arrangements included: creating work-life balance for workers (78%, up from 70% in 2017); attracting a talented workforce (68%, up from 28%); retaining high-performing workers (64%, up from 29%); enhancing worker morale (61%, up from 24%); and boosting productivity (33%, up from 6%).

“Since 2017, the motivations for providing flexible work arrangements have grown—many quite substantially,” said Julie Stich, vice president of content at IFEBP, in a statement. “The findings [in IFEBP’s report] highlight that flexibility has become a key factor in staying competitive when it comes to attracting and retaining talent.”

Meanwhile, Bank of America Workplace Benefits’ “2025 Workplace Benefits Report” revealed that workplace benefit offerings increasingly factor into talent retention. Nearly one-quarter (24%) of employees surveyed said they recently left, or considered leaving, their company because their workplace benefits were lacking, up from 15% who said the same in 2023. An average of two in three employees reported staying at their company for “good work-life balance.”

Arrangement Types

Hybrid and fully remote work ranked among the three most frequently offered workplace schedules, at 80% and 53%, respectively.

In addition to most employers reporting that they offered hybrid schedules—defined as “working in the office with designated remote days”—respondents shared several other flexible arrangements that feature on their benefits lists:

• Flexible work hours/flextime, meaning alternative starting and ending times within a definitive time frame (62%);
• Fully remote work (53%);
• Part-time schedules (43%); and
• Compressed work schedules, characterized as working a traditional 40-hour workweek in fewer than five workdays (25%).

Hybrid and fully remote work, which became commonplace out of necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic, were not included as responses in IFEBP’s 2017 survey for comparison’s sake.

According to Bank of America, caregiving is a key driver for work-life balance demands. The firm’s “2025 Workplace Benefits Report” found that almost six out of 10 employees were caregivers. Among employees surveyed, the top caregiving benefits they desired were flexible scheduling to accommodate caregiving needs; leaves of absence or sick days to give care; and financial wellness programs to help with the financial impact of caregiving.

While helping with caregiving expenses was deemed a “lower priority for employers,” companies may be implicitly benefiting caregiving employees by implementing flexible work arrangements. Employers surveyed reported that offering flexible work schedules was their second-highest driver of attracting top talent, as well—which may become increasingly relevant as the number of working caregivers continues to grow.

Public Employers

The extent of workplace flexibility may vary by sector. The prevalence of flexible arrangements in the public sector trailed that in the private sector, according to IFEBP. In comparison to 80% of corporate employers offering hybrid schedules, only 63% of public employers did the same. Meanwhile, slightly fewer (by five percentage points) public employers offered flexible work hours/flextime than did corporate, while drastically fewer public employers (18%) than corporate employers (47%) offered remote work.

The primary reasons for public employers to offer flexible work arrangements varied to a degree from those cited by corporate employers. As with corporate employers, the top reason (67%) was to create work-life balance for workers. However, the next-highest reason was to enhance worker morale (57%). Attracting a talented workforce and retaining high-performing workers each came in at 41%, lagging corporate employers’ citing those as top reasons by 27 and 23 percentage points (68% and 64%), respectively.

Public employers tended more than corporate employers to cite making efficient use of facilities, desks, computers and “other” reasons as reasons for offering flexible work arrangements.

Barriers to Offering Flexibility

While flexible work arrangements have risen across the board, each of the four most-cited barriers to offering them has also grown in prominence since 2017: 45% of corporate employers stated that their workplace culture valued in-person interaction, up from 16% in 2017. Almost half of respondents (44%) said flexible work arrangements made it more difficult to foster a sense of team, up from 8%; 42% expressed concern about flexible work’s effect on achieving fairness for all staff, up from 37%; and 41% said all or a portion of the job could not be done remotely, up from 25%.

Employees of public corporations most often cited achieving fairness for all staff (55%), that all or a portion of the job could not be done remotely (49%) and that it makes it more difficult to monitor and manage workers (49%) as challenges.

Notably, public employers were 22 percentage points less likely than corporate employers (44%) to say it made it more difficult for them to foster a sense of team, and four percentage points less likely (41%, compared with 45%) to say their workplace culture values in-person interaction.

Despite ongoing challenges, more employees intend to stay at their company in the near term, according to Bank of America’s research. The top driver of that decision was, “by far,” good work-life balance. That held true across generations and genders.

“In today’s flexible workplace environments, employers have expressed concerns about preserving workplace culture, fostering team building and ensuring fairness,” IFEBP’s Stich said in a statement. “As flexible work becomes more widespread, finding ways to overcome these challenges will be crucial to effectively managing flexible work arrangements.”

IFEBP surveyed U.S. members representing 204 corporations and single employer plans and 29 public employers and public employer plans in June and July.

Bank of America Workplace Benefits, in partnership with the Bank of America Institute, surveyed a national sample of employees and employers from large and small companies between December 2, 2024, and January 13. The respondents consisted of 962 full-time employees who participated in a 401(k) plan and 800 employers with sole or shared responsibility for decisions made in the 401(k) plans they offered.