Dive Brief:

• Nearly 4 in 5 professionals surveyed by global staffing firm Robert Half said they can make use of windowed work — the ability to break up their day into chunks of professional and personal time. Of them, 73% said the arrangement helps them be more productive, according to the results of the June 30 survey.
• The arrangement is particularly beneficial to workers who have kids; 78% of those with children said windowed works help them increase productivity, while 66% of respondents without children agreed.
• Workers older than 55 tended to prefer a traditional schedule (39%), compared to workers aged 41 to 54 (32%) and 25 to 40 (22%).

Dive Insight:

Employers may appreciate that windowed work boosts productivity, but there's another business initiative sources say the arrangement improves — belonging.

Range, a software platform company, instituted windowed work when working conditions brought on by the pandemic made it difficult for its working parents to comply with its core hours policy, Range CEO Dan Pupius told HR Dive in May. "Windowed work is a way to reconfigure the workweek to make it more flexible by breaking up the week into disjointed work blocks," Pupius said.

The new policy pushed Range to develop belonging initiatives that suited its spread-out workforce. Activities included get-to-know-you questionnaires, virtual lunches and "MTV Cribs-style" tours of each other's home during Friday happy hours, Pupius said.

Many companies have initiated or refreshed their efforts toward belonging and other facets of diversity and inclusion since the May 25 killing of George Floyd and subsequent protests. As HR departments examine business practices — from schedules to dress codes to leave policies — that exclude or discriminate against certain groups of workers, it's important they ask employees about their experiences and listen, one source previously told HR Dive.