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Seattle is the 4th most flexible metro area in the United States and Washington ranks 3rd among states, according to a new index from Scoop Technologies. Rankings were tallied from around 4,000 companies with 25,000 office locations and 100 million employees.
“Work’s future and success depend largely on flexibility – the single most important ingredient in today’s workplace culture and tomorrow’s best teams,” said Rob Sadow, CEO and co-founder of San Francisco-based Scoop. He said the Flex Index “aims to become the single source of truth for workplace models, policies, and patterns,” adding “As company approaches to flexibility evolve, insights from the Flex Index will be instrumental in informing where and how people choose to work.”
The company used various criteria for its database, including location, size, industry and other metrics to enable employees, prospective hires, recruiters, researchers, and journalists to uncover companies’ workplace flexibility policies from a single, comprehensive resource.
Coinciding with the publication of its Flex Index, Scoop also unveiled the Flex Report, which it plans to produce quarterly. It contains information on hybrid and remote work by industry, geographic areas, and company size in an effort to bring transparency to employers’ office requirements and flexibility.
Most Flexible Metros
Least Flexible Metros
| Metro | % Fully Flexible | State | % Fully On Site |
| Portland, OR | 68% | Memphis, TN | 71% |
| Boulder, CO | 67% | New Orleans, LA | 60% |
| Austin, TX | 62% | Riverside, CA | 58% |
| Seattle | 60% | San Antonio, TX | 56% |
| Denver, CO | 59% | Oklahoma City, OK | 54% |
| San Jose, CA | 58% | Jacksonville, FL | 53% |
| San Francisco, CA | 57% | Greenville, SC | 53% |
| Charleston, SC | 56% | Virginia Beach, VA | 52% |
| Boston, MA | 54% | Greensboro, NC | 52% |
| Durham, NC | 53% | Ogden, UT | 52% |
Among states, Washington ranked only behind Oregon (No. 1) and second-place Colorado. Some 59% of companies in Washington were reported to be fully flexible; Oregon’s figure was 66%. Scoop listed Alabama as the least flexible state, where 69% of companies are fully onsite.
A comparison by industry had technology as the leader in being fully flexible, followed by professional services, media & entertainment, and financial services. Not surprisingly, retail & apparel, restaurant & food services, and manufacturing & logistics, were at the bottom of the “fully flexible” rankings since they are more reliant on in-person interactions.
In gathering information, Scoop found wide variability when comparing policies. Slightly more than half the companies in the report (51%) have flexible policies, with 49% requiring full-time, in-office work. About one-third are fully flexible, allowing employees to choose whether and when to work from an office. The dynamic database allows for updates and additions by companies that are listed, as well as for the addition of new entries.
On its website, Scoop explains the terminology used in its information-gathering, distinguishing fully remote from employee’s choice, minimum days, specific days/week, minimum % of time, and full time in office.
Scoop, a privately-held company, offers two pricing plans: Basic, which is free and described as best for individual or teams, and Enterprise, “best for organization.” The Enterprise plan is more robust, with features covering workplace management, customer service & support and directory/roster integrations. Pricing is based on the number of users.