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What does it mean to have flexible work, and how will that affect the future of work? That was the question discussed by community members this week. Everyone has their own idea of what flexible work actually means, but for the most part it means being able to work anytime you want, anywhere you want.
Employees want flexible work. It’s especially important to millennials and younger workers. They love the idea of being able to work without being chained to a desk or a 9-5 schedule. As Director, Global Partnerships at Benefex Gethin Nadin points out, with every other aspect of work changing over the last 100 years, it’s crazy that the standard work schedule hasn’t been updated with the times. Companies with flexible work programs are able to attract and retain top employees and keep morale and productivity high. Employees tend to stay longer at companies with these types of programs and actually get their work done.
However, flexible work isn’t a perfect system. Some executives believe that employees can’t be trusted to get their work done when they are given so much freedom. Flexible schedules also take away the potential for collaboration and teamwork between employees and gives away some of the control of the organization to the employees. Employees who aren’t in the office everyday may also feel disconnected from the purpose of the organization and not as passionate about their work.
So is workplace flexibility worth it? Almost all of our community members said it absolutely is! Not every company is going to have the same flexible program—it’s all about finding the system that works best for your employees and organization. Some companies need employees to come into the office a few days a week so they can work together, while others have a successful system of employees telecommuting from around the world. When done correctly, workplace flexibility means having managers lead a team they can’t see, which adjusts their leadership style and often gives employees more autonomy.
In order to make a flexible system work, however, there are certain obstacles to overcome. One of the key issues with flexibility is accountability—how do you ensure employees are actually working if they aren’t in the office? Head of HR Strategy & Implementation at Employees Provident Fund Rizal Razali believes that no matter the system, there will always be some abuse, but education is still the best way to get people to understand the principles and expected outcomes of workplace flexibility—if they understand how their role contributes to the overall goals of the company and what the organization is trying to achieve by being flexible, they will be more likely to not abuse the system.
Many managers don’t like that they don’t have as much control over employees when they can’t see them. According to Founder & CEO of Forshay Sally Thornton, one way to overcome that is to provide ways for management to measure employee outcomes. They might not be able to see what an employee is working on every minute of the day, but they can see that they are meeting their daily or weekly goals and hitting various benchmarks.
Workplace flexibility obviously can’t be done everywhere. There will always be some industries and positions that require actually coming to work and sticking to a set schedule. Can you imagine if your grocery store or bank employees just showed up to work whenever they wanted? It would be chaos! However, as Senior Consultant at EY Jad Kachmar points out, future technology and the growth of e-commerce could make it so that sales associates don’t actually need to be physically present in retail stores.
What most community members agreed on is that appropriate flexibility is the key to the future of work, but it is built on a strong corporate culture. “The foundation is a culture of mutual trust and accountability,” said Director of Market Education at Kimball Office Kent Reyling. “Leadership, management and peers must all be in sync and work together to earn the trust and make it work. Easy said, takes diligence to do.”
Companies that can find the flexible system that works best for them will likely see the greatest success in the future of work as they bring in and keep strong, productive workers.
My new book, The Employee Experience Advantage (Wiley, March 2017) analyzes over 250 global organizations to understand how to create a place where people genuinely want to show up to work. Subscribe to the newsletter here or become a member of the new Facebook Community The Future If… and join the discussion.
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