Your Employees Use This Hidden ‘Flexible Work’ Trend — And It’s Costing Your Business More Than You Realize

If you have employees, you’ve probably experienced a team member or two ‘microshifting.’ It starts with someone stepping away to handle something personal while you think they’re working on a project or “clocked in.” You don’t normally even notice until you’re sending a Slack message and not getting a response, or you can’t get in touch with them at a random time they would never expect you to be reaching out.

There’s, of course, the commentary on social media where the perspective is that if someone is getting their work done, then why does it matter when they’re doing it. But that perspective doesn’t take into account the overall negative impact it has on the business, other team members and ultimately the client results.

To be clear: I am not against flexibility when it’s transparent and agreed upon.

When teams work across departments and time zones, the problem is not whether people are working, because they certainly are. The problem is visibility. Leaders constantly need to know who is available, who is responsible for what, and whether work is moving without any bottlenecks. When that breaks down, microshifting becomes a real operational issue.

Presence and alignment matter

Most leaders think about microshifting as a culture or work-life balance issue. For me, it is more of an execution issue.

I have personally seen this with senior staff and management. A critical meeting happens, but not all the key people are there. The team moves forward, and the missing person gets filled in later. However, getting “filled in later” is not the same as being part of the conversation when decisions are made.

This is the main reason things start to slow down. People miss context, next steps become less clear, and the likelihood of rework increases. In a fast-moving company, even one missed conversation can create a ripple effect. I hate it when decisions have to be revisited, when teams lose momentum due to back-and-forth, and when work needs another round of “approval.” Aside from being preventable, it also drains people and wastes resources and effort that should not have been spent in the first place.

Define the limits of autonomy

This is where a lot of companies get it wrong. They try to apply the same flexibility policy to every role, and that just doesn’t work.

If a role is customer-facing or directly tied to delivery, microshifting is much harder to accommodate. Clients are paying for reliability. They expect people to be available when the work requires it, so flexibility cannot come at the expense of response times or service quality.

On the other hand, senior leadership roles are different. In many cases, they can be more flexible in how they structure their day because they are also expected to work beyond normal hours. They usually take calls in the evenings, handle issues on weekends, and stay available when something urgent comes up. That kind of flexibility is not about working less but working differently.

There are also internally focused roles where greater flexibility can work, since the job is measured more by output. But even then, it only works when expectations are clear and ownership is defined, which may need managers to stay close enough to the work to make sure nothing slips.

That is why I don’t use flexibility as a blanket approach — it has to match the requirements of the role.

At scale, informal flexibility stops working

In a smaller company, managers may be able to handle flexibility informally because they know their people well and can see problems early.

But again, that changes as the business grows.

At scale, policies need to be clear enough, must be documented, and enforceable. Otherwise, different managers start making their own rules, teams start comparing treatments, and resentment builds. In my experience, resentment is usually less about flexibility itself and more about fairness. If one group has more freedom and another does not, people notice.

For most of the workforce, especially in client delivery environments, there has to be structure. Time off needs to be recorded. Availability needs to be understood. Exceptions need to be justifiable from an HR perspective. Without that, things get messy — believe me, I’ve been there.

AI and microshifting make a dangerous combo

A lot of leaders assume AI will make flexible work easier to manage because it helps people produce faster. Technically, yes, but it also creates a new layer of risk.

When people use AI to speed up tasks, the review process becomes more important and time-consuming, not less. If employees are also working in fragmented schedules, you reduce the oversight around what AI is producing and whether it is actually accurate and appropriate.

There is also the security issue. Employees working more independently are more likely to use ad hoc AI tools that the company has not approved. If you are handling sensitive information or operating across countries, that is definitely not a small concern.

Leaders need to think about microshifting and AI together, because the oversight gap widens when both are happening at once.

My advice is simple

Again, I am not against microshifting. I just don’t recommend making it a blanket benefit across the company. If you allow it, make sure it applies only where the role can support it, where managers can monitor it closely, and where it does not put deliverables or client trust at risk.

That requires clear work ownership, defined deadlines, regular check-ins, and performance reviews that identify trends before clients feel the impact. It also means being honest about which roles can handle flexibility and which cannot.

Flexibility can work. But only when accountability outweighs convenience.