How to make flexible working part of a leading employee engagement
What are the benefits of flexible working?
Flexible working comes in many guises but for employees it’s one of the most desirable perks around at the moment. In a survey by payroll company, Remote, over three quarters of employees (77%) said flexible working was the most important benefit to them when considering a job move. And the reason for individuals will be personal – their partner might do shift work. An important volunteering commitment might need to happen during the day. Or childcare. The list goes on. But what about organisations? What’s in it for them?
Flexible working has been proven to increase innovation by 14%, ramp up positive perceptions of culture by 36% and reduce burnout by 22%. Stanford found that people felt they were 7% more productive at home than the office. And a recent study by Gallup revealed more than nine in ten employees prefer the option to work from home – either exclusively or as a hybrid arrangement. It’s great for business and it’s valued by employees. Clearly then, this is not something to ignore.
What has to change to make flexible working, work?
For us we had a good practice during the pandemic to find out where we need to put in to make it all work. And the brilliant thing is we can apply these learnings to our consultancy with clients who are interested to know more about compressed hours, the 4-day week and more.
Pre-pandemic H&H had a relatively robust hybrid set-up with the tools, technologies and channels to make the transition during lockdowns smooth.
What was clear was that during the pandemic there were other behaviours becoming just as critical as the technology and platforms.
First up is Trust.
For us results matter more than where or when we work and everyone needs to take ownership of their contribution.
So, at H&H, we trust our people. We treat them as adults. As reliable professionals who take pride in their work.
They in turn act with integrity, they deliver, they act responsibly. There has been a couple of times where this trust hasn’t quite worked two ways. For us it’s been important that we’ve not let those rare occasions impact the rest of the team.
Because autonomy on this level comes with greater responsibility. With remote working, people need to apply discipline and self-control. We know not everyone thrives in this situation. That’s why we recruit very carefully.
Ultimately, we’re a team. A team of creatives who collaborate. So, we can’t just come and go as we please. Being thoughtful, considerate and mindful of how our working patterns impact others were behaviours we started to really value.
We all agreed to be virtually present between the hours of 10am and 3pm. Which made life much easier when planning team and client meetings.
We streamlined our comms channels to minimise the deluge of information coming our way and stripped back our Teams groups to the bare minimum to avoid losing those documents that are inevitably shared and hard to track.
We started using notifications and tagging to flag urgent messages so that people were alerted even if they weren’t at their desks.
Finally, it was also key that we needed to be transparent and diligent about our working hours. Using diaries, clear and specific status updates and calendar entries to let people know exactly when we’re around.
What’s next for flexible working?
We’re big advocates of flexible working – in fact we’ve embraced a range of benefits over the years.
Flexitime – letting our people choose when their working day starts and ends.
Compressed hours – reallocating contracted hours into fewer and longer blocks.
Part-time working – working less than full-time hours.
Along with fully remote or hybrid working – working from home all the time or a mix of office and home. But with no rules around how many days, or which days are office based. It’s totally down to the individual to choose.
But we’ve also looked at the 4-day working week – it’s been written about a lot in the UK and global media. Belgium has even written it into law and the results of the UK trial were really positive. But for us it didn’t feel like the right fit.
Firstly, with clients we need to ensure our service level is the same – whatever day of the week it is, so giving everyone a shorter week say Friday’s off doesn’t work and we still need to offer the same amount of hours to our clients every day. This led us to the 9-day fortnight – a version of compressed hours that still gave people the opportunity to have more days off work to do things that they wanted to do, and they could choose which day they have off every two weeks. The trade-off is adjusted annual leave and slightly extended working days. We also ringfence Mondays and Fridays as sacred H&H days because we need some days where everyone would be available for team meetings.
Will flexible working improve the employee engagement?
- Compressed hours or a shorter working week are not right for everyone – it works for some and not others.
- Our version worked for us and there wasn’t an impact to clients but by regularly measuring and monitoring our trial we know that our clients are interested and intrigued by what we’re doing which we think is a good think.
- So far there’s not been an immediate impact on wellbeing, which was a surprise – but it’s also not had a negative impact on anyone – in or outside of the trial so we’re watching closely to see if anything changes.
- Measurement across the whole agency – and not just those taking part – is integral to knowing if this type of flexible working option is sustainable.
- Ask your employees if flexible working options are something that would make them consider . Engage with them on the subject – you never know you might be surprised by the answers.
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