Sixty percent of employers now offer occasional telecommuting for their staff. That’s a 12 percent increase over 2015, according to a new Lockton survey.

What’s more, use of this benefit has grown in companies of multiple sizes and industries, Lockton discovered.

“Every industry included in the survey reported employees working outside of the office from time to time,” Lockton said.

The range included 71 percent of healthcare employers, 65 percent of manufacturing companies, and 58 percent of transportation employers,” Lockton added.

A much bigger number of larger employers allow their employees to telecommute versus their small employer counterparts. According to the survey, 44 percent of small employers (with fewer than 100 employees) allow occasional telecommuting. But 70 percent of large employers (with 5,000 or more employees) permit the practice.

The results are from Lockton’s 2016 Human Resources Trends: A Spotlight on Absence management survey, its third annual survey on the topic that looks at challengers U.S. employers face in terms of how to manage employees’ time off. The results reflect companies with a combined 265,000 employees in multiple industries.

Among the other survey findings:

• Only 24 percent of employers in the survey offer some form of paid parental leave. Just 13 percent said they provide paid leave for secondary caregivers.

• More than 90 percent of employers provided some sort of paid sick time either with a standalone benefit or paid time off program. But many companies don’t offer the same benefit for part-time employees.

• Employees are increasingly able to take paid time off or vacation time without long waits.

• About 21 percent of employers participating in the survey offered paid time off benefits for exempt and non-exempt employees, something that could run afoul with the Department of Labor. Lockton noted that new overtime rules from the Department of Labor mean that employers with separate paid time off benefits to exempt and non-exempt employees will need to analyze how those benefits are structured to see if the new rules will require changes.

Source: Lockton