Flexibility key to retaining and motivating employees

Working from home, satellite offices, job sharing and flexibility around when job hours are worked. With the traditional 9 to 5 workday becoming extended around increasingly busy lifestyles, new thinking about how work is undertaken may need to enter the workforce faster than is now occurring.

International studies have shown that flexible work environments increase job satisfaction, enhance employee loyalty, lower stress and reduce staff turnover rates. So what do organisation’s need to start thinking about and more importantly, what’s in it for them?

Pivot talked to Sydney-based Nathan DeFries – Director, Compensation & Benefits, Asia Pacific – from Luxottica, the world’s largest designer and manufacturer of eyewear (including brands like OPSM, Sunglass Hut,  Ray-Ban and Oakley), for his views on this rising trend. 

“There is a real opportunity for organisations to start practicing flexible workplace policies now so employers are on top of their game before it becomes more of a necessity in future,” says Nathan.

He says organisations could start looking at expanding the use of technology used in the office into the home, and, if feasible, even set-up satellite office locations.

With Australia’s population growth rate set to double within 20 years, Nathan says it’s time to think about the way we work and how better efficiencies must be achieved. “Factors such as rising office lease costs in city centres, infrastructure deficiencies and urban spread due to housing affordability, single parent families and access to childcare will see the work/home boundaries blurred like never before. Companies who become good at this now will gain a competitive advantage and reputation in the labour market for the future”.

“What we’re seeing, and will increase with population growth, is the labour market spreading out from major cities.  Housing affordability will be finally declared an unsolvable phenomenon as governments struggle with infrastructure investment choices.  If an employee has to travel up to three hours each day to the traditional location of offices today then surely that can’t be a long term proposition for them and their families”.

Investing and practicing in remote working environments to provide access to files and emails, as well as looking at incorporating provisions in the employment package for equipment for virtual meetings, conference calling and access to remote office space are just some of the options companies could look at to start with.

“In the future I suspect the common wall in the home office will become dedicated to instant video connection to allow employees to work with peers more effectively. This medium provides excellent visual and verbal contact to share ideas, documents and presentations.”

“As much as people try and work from home and organisations try and provide those sorts of environments for staff now, how good are we at maintaining that? A lot of companies may already have these provisions, but how well are they working and culturally how do managers perceive their staff’s performance when working remotely?”, Nathan asks.

He says it depends on the type of company and the roles within it as to whether such strategies would be worth implementing or not. “Larger companies tend to be right in the city centres and have high real estate costs. They may also spend more on travel such as flying to international meetings, so implementing some of these programs now would be an easy benefit to bring in without adding significant costs to the company”.

Not only do organisations need to look at costs, Nathan says, but processes also need to be well understood. “It’s about looking at how well you can accommodate change in the ways your staff work. How do we analyse a job and decide if it’s something that can be done remotely? What approach would the company take and would managers need to be trained to help this work for their team? The traditional work control mechanisms for a manager currently need to be reviewed and the skills of the manager will need to change to make a success of the new workplace.”

It’s also important he says, to look at core HR processes such as performance reviews and the role technology will play in enhancing the interactions with staff outside the office. “Applying technology to automate and enhance processes certainly has its benefits – especially when you have staff working remotely. Being able to access documents and perform core HR processes remotely will become more common and I think technology will be a huge enabler of this”.

To reduce risks, Nathan believes organisations should practice flexible workplace strategies now so that as it becomes more prevalent, companies are not taking unknown risks. “Companies could be practicing now so they can see business results are getting achieved with new processes, instead of saying I wish we had built these processes earlier or rushing into the changes without the right culture to support them”.

“At the moment organisations sometimes try and find a nice balance between work and lifestyle, whereas in the future it will be a great necessity just for families to survive. I think we will see flexible working conditions become more commonplace, and be a deciding factor when it comes to job offer acceptances”.

With workplace flexibility increasingly being used as a staff retention strategy, Nathan says companies could be perceived as poor employers if they’re not offering some sort of flexibility around working conditions. “If your employer is not able to offer you conditions that allow you to meet all your commitments, then you may end up looking elsewhere for a job”.

“Flexible working conditions have shown to result in happier and more motivated employees who end up staying in the job longer, so if you are an employer that’s set-up to cater for that, surely you’ll be ahead of the recruitment game”.