Job flexibility is the key to keeping workers happy, productive and loyal to the company, a new study shows.

Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, found that workers who enjoyed more work flexibility were also less likely to say health problems affected their performance at work.

"For managers, the results suggest that implementing flexible work arrangements can contribute to the bottom-line," said Joseph Grzywacz, a professor of family medicine at the university.

Workplace flexibility refers to the ability of employees to modify where, when and how long work their work is performed.

Telecommuting, flexitime and job sharing were the main types of flexibility cited in the study published in the Psychologist-Manager journal.

The researchers studied a health survey completed by 3,193 employees of a large multinational pharmaceutical company. They used the information to determine how increases or decreases in perceived flexibility from one year to the next were associated with a variety of factors.

Decreases in flexibility over the year were associated with reduced job commitment, but had little impact on absence, they said.

Offering a variety of alternative work arrangements and training managers and supervisors to be supportive of workers' personal lives may help in creating a culture of flexibility, researchers added.

一项最新研究显示，弹性工作制对于保持员工心情愉快、高效工作以及对公司的忠诚度至关重要。

此外，北卡罗莱纳州温斯顿塞勒姆的维克森林大学医学院的研究人员们发现，享有更多工作自由度的员工称健康问题影响自己工作表现的几率较小。

该大学的家庭医学教授约瑟夫?格里兹沃茨说：“研究说明，对于管理人员们来说，灵活安排工作日程则能够带来不同的效果。”

“工作弹性”指的是员工能够灵活安排自己的工作地点、工作时间及工作量。

该项在《心理学家与管理人》期刊上发表的研究报告提到，远程办公、弹性工时，以及分工合作是弹性工作制的几种主要形式。

研究人员分析了一家大型跨国医药公司的3193名员工的健康调查。他们根据其中的信息来确定一年内工作灵活度的增加或减少对其它一系列因素有什么影响。

研究人员称，工作灵活度的减少导致了员工工作投入度的降低，但对于出勤没有太大影响。

研究人员建议，为员工提供各种灵活的工作安排，让经理和主管们多为员工的个人生活着想，这将有利于打造'灵活的'的企业文化。