It shouldn’t take a global pandemic for firms to see the benefits of flexible working
News that the coronavirus outbreak has sparked the world’s biggest work-from-home experiment in China, alongside advice to Brits returning from Italy to “self-isolate”, will have been met with mixed reactions.
Some will be delighted to avoid the risks to their own health and maximise their productive hours from the relative comfort of their own homes. Others will feel cast adrift and less effective, perhaps a little lonely to be working away from the hubbub, chatter and background noise of an office.
There will, of course, always be those who resist the idea of working from anywhere other than the office. Opinions pervade that people who work from home “aren’t really working”, no matter how much some of us are able to demonstrate otherwise.
With a crisis like coronavirus, the benefits of home-based working become obvious. But this should spark a more general conversation in our workplaces about the benefits of a truly flexible approach to work. Organisations that go further, pandemic or no pandemic, will enjoy improved productivity, higher job satisfaction, and a renewed ability to attract top talent.
As the culture change lead at a “big four” consultancy, I witnessed first-hand the struggle to attract and retain great people, particularly working parents. The work environment did not allow people who needed flexibility to succeed, while the model of charging for time drove high expectations of consultant “face-time”, rather than delivering client value.
Expectations of additional sales and practice development created an “hours worked” culture, which effectively screened out people who did not have the flexibility to dedicate to these additional demands.
Businesses would do better to focus on outcomes delivered, rather than hours worked, enabling employees to practise flexible working. This is not just about working at home — a flexible working model, based on delivering the expertise clients need when it will add most value, should enable people to commit time to “side hustle” passions, too. Too often in traditional workplaces, I see people feeling the need to hide external commitments to conform to workplace expectations.
Working from home is a start. But businesses can, and should, go further.
Speaking for myself, I have at times felt penalised as a single mother. But valuing the external commitments people have should be seen as advantageous, rather than a distraction.
Who can negotiate better than a parent used to managing the unrealistic demands of a four year old? How much resilience and advocacy does someone caring for a parent with dementia develop that could be applied within the workplace?
Clients are — sometimes surprisingly — open to more creative ways of working too. Whether it is providing people in short “sprints”, offering access to experts on a part-time “value added” basis, working around a client’s holiday, or being creative on location, often their needs can be met far better with a little lateral thinking and open-mindedness.
There is, of course, a business case for embracing a flexible approach to work. Research has found that productivity increases by at least 2.5 per cent when people are given the autonomy and trust to manage their own workload. Some 39 per cent of workers also report a marked improvement in their mental health after starting to work more flexible hours.
Practically, it can also reduce organisational costs, with decreased need for expensive office space and associated overheads. But for me, it simply feels like the right thing to do.
Working from home is a start. But businesses can, and should, go further. It shouldn’t take a global pandemic for employers to wake up to the benefits of allowing staff to work when and how it best suits them.
Try it. Perhaps this is the next stage in the great experiment.