A survey by Gartner Inc. found that 60% of “non-knowledge workers” want their organizations to provide them with greater control over when, where and how much they work. However, most of these workers don’t have this flexibility.

“Even employees in roles that have not traditionally been thought of as flexible, such as retail employees, on-site essential personnel or IT field technicians, are seeking more flexibility and ownership over their work,” said Alexia Cambon, director in the Gartner HR practice.

Employers can take some steps to improve flexibility, such as determining activities within roles that can be flexible, according to Gartner.

“There are often hidden opportunities for flexibility in all roles, even those commonly considered ineligible,” Cambon said. “For example, while the role of IT and tech support often has an inflexible on-call component, some tasks like answering queries can be done successfully under a more flexible arrangement. Identifying these hidden pockets of flexibility will go a long way in providing the sense of autonomy that employees crave.”

The data comes from a January 2021 survey by Gartner of 5,000 employees.

A separate report from Gartner released earlier found that 51% of knowledge workers worldwide expect to be working remotely by the end of this year. Knowledge workers are defined as those in knowledge-intensive occupations such as engineers, accountants and writers.