Jon Edwards does his holiday shopping at work during office hours. He says it saves him time, travel, stress, and is good for business.
"I'm able to stay on top of my inbox, able to stay responsive to vendor partners, our employees and the people I'm accountable to.”
Jon says the relaxed online shopping policy at his Washington state construction firm works well for him as an employee and a boss.
"It's not something that we feel is taken advantage of. When we look at day to day productivity? It doesn't suffer at all."
According to a new study other businesses agree. John Reed's firm surveyed more than 2,000 executives at a wide variety of companies. 17% more of those businesses allow unrestricted access to shopping sites compared to two years ago.
"Flexibility in the workplace continues to be an area that ranks very highly for employees. Employers realize you have to offer that flexibility to retain and keep your employees happy."
Edwards says enhanced quality of life matters.
"Trusting employees with this flexibility is absolutely a gamechanger."
About a third of the companies surveyed still block online shopping access completely. But that number is expected to go down in the years to come.
The company behind the survey reminds employees to log out of merchant accounts to protect personal information.
