HR practitioners often rely on traditional metrics – such as engagement uplift – to demonstrate the value of specific HR initiatives, such as flexible working arrangements. But if you want to create insights that will get the board’s attention, you need to shift to enterprise value creation metrics.

Despite speculation about a return-to-office resurgence, new research shows that fewer organisations are requiring increased in-office requirements compared to two years ago. 

Instead, most are maintaining the hybrid models they’ve already established, and intend to keep them for at least the next two years.

AHRI’s 2025 Hybrid and Flexible Working Practices in Australian Workplaces report shows 44 per cent of employers now require full-time employees to be in the office three to five days per week, down from 48 per cent in 2023. Four in five employers expect hybrid work to either remain the same or increase over the next two years.

This stabilisation marks a shift in focus. The question is no longer whether flexible work has a place in organisations’ people strategies, but how its impact can be more precisely understood, measured and, critically, optimised to support delivery of the business strategy. 

“HR already uses data to inform decisions. The opportunity now is to use deeper statistical analysis to better understand the data and, in the case of flexible working, to link flexibility to the priorities that matter most to leaders,” says AHRI’s CEO Sarah McCann-Bartlett.

To achieve this, HR practitioners need to move beyond traditional metrics, says Dr Philip Gibbs, co-founder of Agile HR Analytics.

“We often default to descriptive metrics like engagement and reduced absenteeism, but the problem is that almost every HR initiative is attributed to the same thing. 

“I remember speaking with a Chief Technology Officer I was working with, who remarked that whenever HR proposed a new tech vendor, they always made the same claims. The CTO said, ‘You’ve been making that argument for the past five technologies you’ve wanted to bring in. They can’t all be delivering the exact same ROI.’ That’s why we need to get more specific.”

In the case of showing that engagement or productivity improves following the introduction of flexible working arrangements, the key is determining how much of that uplift can genuinely be attributed to flexibility, he says.

“This is where we need to move away from generic, umbrella statements. Think about your audience – board members, CFOs, CEOs – they expect more sophisticated, predictive analysis that connects flexibility to future business outcomes, whether that’s EBIT, customer satisfaction, share price or the organisation’s net promoter score.

“Rather than relying on isolated figures, it’s about connecting the data back to business strategy. 

“In the example of flexible work, that means asking, how can I isolate the unique contribution of flexible work to productivity, turnover and financial performance, beyond simple correlation?”

From ROI to value creation

AHRI’s research, which surveyed almost 1000 HR practitioners from the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, provides a snapshot of how businesses are navigating the balance between flexibility and productivity, and the various organisational benefits that arise from flexible work provisions.

Reports like this are a great starting point to enter conversations with a board or executive team, says Dr Gibbs, as they can provide market sentiment, baseline data and projected future states.

To add the next layer, HR practitioners can shift metrics beyond cost-saving tactics to value creation, says Dr Gibbs.

“We don’t want to reinforce the narrative that flexibility is merely a cost-containment tactic,” he says.

Yet that’s often the unintended message HR sends to the board when the focus is solely on metrics such as reduced absenteeism or lower turnover.

“The board wants to see how flexibility becomes a strategic lever for growth, innovation and workforce readiness for the future. There’s a big difference between return on investment and value of investment.

“By introducing strategic workforce risk metrics, such as capability gaps or succession pipeline vulnerabilities, you can show how flexibility might mitigate these.

“Or explore longitudinal studies showing how organisations with high flexibility maturity outperform peers during shocks, like pandemics, for example.”

A lot of HR’s work can be hard to quantify, he adds. That’s because a lot of it sits under ‘value of investment’ rather than ‘return on investment’. That’s why this measurement mindset shift is critical.

“Move beyond linear logic to embracing predictive and scenario-based modelling to demonstrate not just return on investment, but value of investment.” 

“Board members, CFOs, CEOs… they expect more sophisticated, predictive analysis.” – Dr Philip Gibbs, Co-founder, HR Analytics

Case study: Medibank

One organisation putting elevated analytics techniques into practice is Medibank. 

As part of its four-day work week trial, launched under its broader ‘Work Reinvented’ program, the HR team went beyond surface-level outcomes to connect the results to key organisational objectives.

“Find the thing that deeply matters to your organisation,” says Kylie Bishop, Group Lead of People, Spaces and Sustainability at Medibank. “For us, there’s a natural connection to health and wellbeing because we’re a healthcare company. But there’s an ethos in every organisation that’s already really strong and culturally embedded – that’s the place to start.”

Medibank launched a series of experiments trialling new, flexible ways of working, including a successful four-day work week trial, which has just entered its second phase.

Following the first phase of the trial, Bishop’s team was able to demonstrate that performance had remained stable or improved, with manager ratings of outcomes increasing over the course of the program. Engagement increased by 6.7 per cent, overall health increased by 16.3 per cent and unplanned absences among frontline employees reduced by a third.

Tangible, business-centric metrics like these provide the kind of evidence that resonates with boards and executive teams, shifting the conversation from sentiment to strategy, she says.

To measure the impact of flexible work trials at Medibank, Bishop’s team uses regression analysis, a statistical method that helps quantify the relationship between flexibility and other variables. This technique involves starting with a desired business outcome, such as increased performance, and working backwards to establish whether flexible working is a predictor of that outcome.

“You’re essentially looking at performance and asking, what’s the strongest predictor that’s driving performance? For us, it was engagement. Then we say, what’s the strongest predictor of engagement? That was health and wellbeing – which is predicted by flexibility,” says Bishop.

“To test that, we measured anything that moved – and our hypothesis turned out to be true. The regression analyses showed there was a predictive relationship between flexibility and wellbeing, which then flowed into engagement, and then into performance and outcomes.”

By using statistical analysis to connect initiatives such as flexible working practices with positive business outcomes, HR practitioners can build a richer, multi-layered picture of how flexibility links to long-term financial performance.

Read more about Medibank’s learnings from its four-day work week trial here.

Stories as an entry point

At Medibank, stories from employees have helped illustrate how these changes in flexibility are reshaping the way people manage their time and wellbeing.

“People say they’ve now got time to put an exercise plan in place, or do meal prep, or visit parents in aged care without having to keep an eye on the clock,” says Bishop.

“We’ve also heard beautiful stories about how people have started volunteer work and giving back to their community – things they’ve always wanted to do, but haven’t felt like they’ve had time for.”

These individual narratives helped the HR team make sense of the statistical relationships uncovered through regression modelling. But when you communicate these narratives back to the board, only use them as an entry point, says Dr Gibbs.

“Find the thing that deeply matters to your organisation… there’s an ethos in every organisation that’s already really strong and culturally embedded – that’s the place to start.” – Kylie Bishop, Group Lead of People, Spaces and Sustainability, Medibank

“You’ve got to triangulate that with advanced data insights and broader macro and market evidence,” he says, as Medibank has done.

“You can also reference external benchmarks, academic research and global studies that show causation between flexibility and organisational performance.

“For example, you might cite studies that connect flexibility to increased innovation outputs, reduced time to market or customer satisfaction gains. That will resonate a lot more with the C-suite and boards who are focused on competitiveness and growth.”

Custodians of value

Businesses are no longer debating whether or not flexibility works – they’re focused on how to optimise it. 

For HR leaders, the task now is to refine the analysis to identify which aspects of flexibility are delivering the strongest returns, and how those insights can be used to shape broader workforce strategy.

“We didn’t set out to prove flexibility was valuable – we set out to understand what drives sustainable wellbeing and performance,” says Bishop. “Once we started measuring, it became clear that flexibility was a part of the answer.”

To move this conversation forward, HR needs to first adopt a broader analytical mindset. Rather than positioning themselves solely as advocates for specific initiatives, HR leaders should see themselves as “custodians of workforce value data”, says Dr Gibbs. “If we take the example of flexible work, it should be treated as one variable in a much broader model that explains patterns in talent, productivity, risk and organisational value.”

McCann-Bartlett agrees.

“HR’s impact extends well beyond traditional boundaries. The ability to integrate data, identify the right levers and use predictive analysis to shape executive and board-level conversations is becoming a core strategic capability,” she says. 

“Flexible work is just one example of where this lens applies. The same advanced, evidence-led approach can enhance every aspect of HR’s work.”

Learn how to move from traditional metrics to predictive analysis with AHRI’s Advanced People Analytics and Insights short course. Register now.