The Invisible Tradeoff Behind
“Flexible” Work

For years, flexibility has been framed as the future of work. Remote options. Flexible schedules. Outcome-based performance instead of clock watching.

But when you look at how work actually happens inside most organizations, the picture is more complicated.

Recent large-scale productivity research suggests this question is becoming harder to answer precisely because the workday itself no longer has clear edges. Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index describes what it calls an “infinite workday,” where work increasingly starts earlier, stretches later, and fragments across email, chat, meetings, and documents rather than fitting neatly into a defined window. In this environment, flexibility doesn’t eliminate structure so much as dissolve its boundaries, making work feel continuous even when schedules appear adjustable on paper.

To better understand how time is structured, managed, and experienced at work today, Buddy Punch surveyed U.S.-based business owners and individuals working in HR roles about schedule policies, day-to-day work patterns, after-hours expectations, and how flexibility really plays out in practice.

This data-driven look at when people work, how schedules are managed, and who truly controls their time helps answer a bigger question many employers and employees are quietly asking:

Is 9 to 5 really dead…or has it simply become less visible and harder to disconnect from?

Flexibility Exists, But Within Tight Boundaries

Despite years of conversation about flexibility, nearly half of organizations surveyed say they still operate on a traditional schedule. Almost half of organizations (47%) report standard 9 to 5 or fixed daily hours for most or all employees. This underscores how deeply entrenched conventional work hours remain, even as flexibility is discussed more openly than ever.

Another 21% use core hours with flexible start and end times, a model that allows some movement while preserving predictability and coverage. In other words, flexibility exists, but within clearly defined limits.

And true schedule autonomy is rare. Only 9% of organizations say employees set their own hours entirely.

Taken together, these findings suggest that while flexibility has entered the conversation, it hasn’t replaced the traditional workday. In most organizations, structure still comes first.

Policy and Practice Tell the Same Story

One of the more striking findings is how closely formal policies mirror day-to-day reality.

A similar share of organizations report mostly standard hours in practice (42%) as those that formally define work as a traditional 9 to 5. This suggests that expectations are not just written into policy, they are actively reinforced in how work gets done.

Flexibility, where it exists, tends to show up as modest adjustments rather than fundamental change. Nearly three in ten organizations (29%) say employees commonly start earlier or later, indicating informal flexibility layered onto standard schedules.

One in five organizations (20%) report a mix of fixed and flexible schedules by department or role, indicating that flexibility is often uneven and role-dependent rather than universal.

This unevenness becomes more pronounced in large organizations. Nearly three in ten large organizations with 500 or more employees (29%) report mixed schedules, compared with just 17% of smaller organizations.

Fully self-directed schedules remain rare in both policy and practice. Just 9% report wide variation in how employees set or shift their hours, exactly matching the share that formally allow full flexibility. That symmetry matters. It suggests that when autonomy exists, it’s intentional. And that true autonomy remains the exception rather than the norm.

Most Flexibility Requires Permission

For most employees, flexibility isn’t something they independently exercise. It’s something they have to request.

Nearly two thirds of organizations (62%) say employees may adjust hours only with manager approval in advance. This reinforces a consistent theme across the data: flexibility typically operates within oversight rather than individual discretion.

This approach is even more common in large organizations. Seventy percent of organizations with 500 or more employees rely on manager approval, compared with about 60% of smaller organizations.

Independent flexibility is far less common. Only 20% allow employees to adjust hours on their own as long as goals are met, and just 6% say employees freely manage their schedules without prior approval.

While one in five organizations overall allows independent adjustment, who gets that autonomy varies sharply. It’s most common in organizations with mostly salaried workforces (29%), compared with just 15% of mostly hourly organizations and 22% of organizations with a fairly even mix of hourly and salaried employees.

Notably, this pattern doesn’t extend to organizations that are entirely salaried. In those environments, flexibility is more tightly constrained. One third (33%) say schedule changes are not permitted except in special circumstances. Independent adjustment is also less common overall, reflecting higher coordination, compliance, and operational complexity.

Organization size matters as well. Smaller organizations are more likely to allow independent adjustment when goals are met, while large organizations are notably more restrictive. Just 11% of organizations with 500 or more employees allow independent schedule changes, compared with over one in five smaller organizations.

Once again, true autonomy exists at the margins, not the center.

After-Hours Work Is the Norm

Flexibility is often framed as control over time. But for many employees, that control comes with expanded availability expectations.

After-hours availability is the norm, not the exception. More than seven in ten organizations (71%) say employees are sometimes, often, or very often expected to be available outside standard business hours, underscoring how blurred work time boundaries have become.

This expectation shows up clearly in observed behavior. Nearly seven in ten organizations say employees actually work outside standard hours at least sometimes, indicating that extended work time is a common reality.

True protection from after-hours work is rare. Just 4% of organizations say employees are never expected to work outside standard hours, and the same small share report that employees never actually do so.

Viewed alongside earlier findings, this helps explain why flexibility often feels additive rather than freeing. Schedules may shift, but total work time rarely shrinks.

Why Employees Work Outside Standard Hours

When employees work outside standard hours, it’s rarely because they prefer to.

The most common reason is unfinished work. Nearly half of organizations (45%) say employees extend their workday to catch up, pointing to capacity strain rather than choice.

Structural demands also play a major role. Thirty-nine percent cite time zone or shift coverage requirements, highlighting how global or always-on operations stretch the workday.

Over one third say employees work outside standard hours to handle personal or family responsibilities during the day. This suggests flexibility often shifts work rather than reducing it.

And preference ranks last. Only 22% say employees work outside standard hours because they want to. This reinforces a consistent theme across findings: most time flexibility is bounded, reactive, and workload-driven rather than truly self-directed.

Gallup’s research points to the same dynamic. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025, only about one third of employees worldwide describe themselves as thriving in their lives overall, with wellbeing declining most sharply among managers. Gallup attributes much of this decline to expanding demands, blurred boundaries, and sustained pressure rather than lack of motivation or effort. When availability extends beyond formal work hours without a reduction in workload, flexibility shifts from a benefit to a source of cumulative strain.

Who Bears the Burden of Extra Work

Overwork is widespread across both salaried and hourly roles, but its intensity is not evenly distributed.

Nearly all organizations report at least some employees working beyond what their role typically requires, with only 4% of salaried and 7% of hourly workforces reporting no overwork at all.

The intensity gap favors salaried employees. Nearly one quarter of organizations (24%) say most or all salaried employees regularly work extra hours, compared with 18% for hourly employees, suggesting that overextension is more deeply embedded in salaried roles.

This gap helps explain why flexibility often feels one sided. Salaried roles absorb more spillover, reinforcing longer hours and blurred boundaries rather than true autonomy.

The Takeaway: Flexibility Shifts Work, Not Workload

Flexibility hasn’t replaced structure. It’s been layered on top of it.

Across most organizations, flexibility takes the form of limited adjustments, manager oversight, and expanded availability rather than genuine control over time. True schedule autonomy exists, but it remains rare, intentional, and often confined to specific roles or contexts.

The 9 to 5 may look different than it once did, but it still sets the baseline for how work is organized. Recent reporting in Forbes offers a useful way to describe the shift. The traditional workday hasn’t disappeared so much as it has fragmented, breaking into smaller windows spread across mornings, evenings, and personal time. This can create the appearance of autonomy while quietly extending the span of the workday. When work is redistributed rather than reduced, boundaries become harder to see and easier to cross. The result is flexibility that changes when work happens, without changing how much is expected.

For many organizations, the next step isn’t introducing new flexibility policies. It’s reassessing the structures that shape workload, coverage, and accountability in the first place. Without that clarity, flexibility risks becoming cosmetic rather than corrective.

If flexibility is meant to give employees more control over their time, it has to be designed with the same intention as schedules, staffing, and performance expectations. Otherwise, it simply redistributes work across the day…while leaving the total unchanged or sometimes quietly increasing it.