4 Flexible Workplace Options That Accommodate Different Working Styles and Preferences

Our EAs structure their 8-hour day however works for them. The only non-negotiable is availability during core hours — 09:00 to 15:00 CET. Beyond that window, we genuinely don’t care how they organize their time.

Some start at 7 and finish by 15. Others split their day — work the morning, take a long break, finish in the evening. Some are night owls who front-load core hours and do deep work later. As long as clients are served and quality stays high, the structure is theirs to decide.

The option that’s been most valuable: protecting deep work blocks from interruptions. Our Account Managers actively shield EAs during focus time. If a client sends a non-urgent request during someone’s deep work block, it waits. The EA isn’t expected to context-switch every time a message lands.

This works because we hire people we trust and then actually trust them. Most companies offer “flexibility” but then monitor keystrokes and expect instant replies at all hours. That’s surveillance dressed as a perk. Real flexibility means giving people control over their schedule and judging output, not activity.

When you institutionalize optional work as an actual measurable agreement rather than a perk, your retention goes from 71% to 88% over the course of a couple of years. Because I run software dev orgs but also very high-volume sales teams, I see the different competing needs of work styles. You have people who want to do asynchronous heavy work late at night, and you have outbound sales leaders who need to have strong collaborative blocks in the AM.

The greatest innovation that your operationally minded leader can adopt to accommodate all of this without creating chaos is the 90-day Flexible Work Trial. Rather than approving or denying a request to work in a non-traditional manner, you instead implement it in a 3-6 month strictly temporary way.

Then, at the end, you measure it via the Flexible Work Arrangement Evaluation, a standardized framework for scoring the flexible work setup across three variables of operations: business output (did our sales lead response times stay under 5 minutes?), team communication (peer/manager feedback on accessibility) and the individual’s own self-reported wellbeing/quality of life.

The idea of putting everything into a beta test removes all hesitation to department heads, who can worry that if they approve ANYTHING outside of the status quo, then it’ll set a precedent. Instead, it’s just a temporary go. If the trial works well, the agreement is then active and on an annual review basis. If it creates bottlenecks (like someone trying to do a 4-day split schedule that’s causing handoff delays across departments), then you can use the evaluation data to slightly adjust the parameters, but not revoke them totally.

Or back to a 5-day week with flexible start times, etc. Having a formalized off-ramp and a mandatory evaluation period means you can say yes to a lot more types of work styles upfront and keep everything operating smoothly.

One way our workplace accommodates different working styles is by not forcing everyone into the same communication rhythm. We use Asana for async work with clear owners, deadlines, and response windows, which gives people more room to work in the way they think best. The flexible option that has been most valuable to me is async collaboration itself, because it protects focus without making the team less accountable.

At The Nebo Company, all new hires take the DISC assessment paired with a Motivators assessment. Behavioral research shows that leaders who understand their strengths and limitations are better equipped to intentionally leverage their natural style while adapting to the demands of their environment.

The DISC Assessment examines behavioral preferences across four domains: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Compliance, providing valuable insights into how you communicate, your preferred pace, how you make decisions, handle conflict and interact with others. The Motivators Assessment reveals the values that underlie your behavior. Together, these tools offer insight into how you behave, what motivates your behavior, and how your style impacts others.

At Nebo, we believe that we can be most effective in our roles by developing our self-awareness and understanding how we are experienced by others. With this knowledge, we are equipped to adapt in order to work more effectively with our colleagues and our clients. By introducing the DISC and the concept of adaptation at the start of employment with Nebo, we have created a culture where flexing to the needs of others is the norm.