Flexible work rankings: How does your region stack up?

If you’re an employer debating whether to offer workplace flexibility to boost talent acquisition efforts or an employee seeking a role that offers flexibility, understanding the trends in your region can be a valuable tool.

Maryland, Colorado, and Vermont have the highest percentage of employees who work away from the office some, based on recent U.S. Census Bureau data. Mississippi, followed by Wyoming and North Dakota, have the lowest percentage, according to web hosting provider Hostinger. It analyzed census data from the Household Pulse Survey to calculate the percentage of employees in each state reporting that they worked at least one out of seven days at home between Jan. 9 and Feb. 5.

“It is fascinating to see such a big difference in the number of remote workers in each state,” a Hostinger representative said in a news release. “Many states with fewer remote workers, such as Mississippi, have economies that heavily lean on industries such as agriculture, manufacturing, and services that require physical presence. This limits opportunities for remote work compared to sectors like technology or finance, which are more prevalent in states such as Maryland.”

The Scoop on company data by metro area

While the Census Bureau data about remote work comes from what employees reported, the quarterly Flex Report by Scoop features data from thousands of employers who do business in a given state. While the ranking of states in the Flex Report for the second quarter of 2024 mostly aligned with the census data, the gap in percentages reported by employers versus employees shows that while some companies offer some flexibility, they don’t offer that flexibility to all employees.

In Maryland, for example, census data revealed that early in 2024, 44.2% of employees worked from home at least one day out of seven. According to the responses of employers during the second quarter of the current year in the Flex Report, 85% of companies in Maryland reported offering work flexibility.

Hostinger’s analysis of census data showed that the percentage of employees working at least one day at home ranged from 44.2% in Maryland to 11.4% in Mississippi. The percentage of companies in the Flex Report offering some flexibility ranged from 91% (Massachusetts) to 59% (Mississippi).

The Flex Report drilled down deeper to reveal which metro areas have the highest (and the lowest) percentage of companies offering flexible work arrangements. The top five areas for companies offering flexibility were:

• San Jose, California
• San Francisco.
• Austin, Texas.
• Boulder, Colorado.
• Boston.

Discover where your region ranks in the Flex Report.

— To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Bryan Strickland at Bryan.Strickland@aicpa-cima.com.