Kelly Marsden and Tracy Michael are Co-Directors of The HR Team South Coast LTD – a small, friendly HR Consultancy based in beautiful Branksome Park, Poole. This dynamic duo provide a truly personalised HR support service to a wide range of SME’s across the South Coast, helping business owners and senior managers to find effective solutions to all their employment issues.
The Benefits of Flexible Working for employees AND employers
We caught up with Kelly and Tracy, to find out how they perceive the changing landscape of working practices following the Covid-19 lockdown and the shift to a more flexible workforce.
Flexible working – giving flexibility over where, when and the hours people work – is increasingly in demand.
With latest government advice being that we only leave home for work purposes where it is unreasonable to work from home, flexible working requests are on the rise.
Work performance today is a flexible, on-demand service. Thanks to digital tools and the rise of cloud-based communications, work is no longer somewhere we go, but something we do. The consequences this has for both employees and employers is huge.
Companies are seeing more and more the benefits that come with flexible and remote working. Here we list some of the benefits of flexible working for both employers and employees:
Retention and recruitment
Recruiting and retaining a broader pool of talent, reduced recruitment costs (due to lower attrition) and retaining employees’ skills, leading to financial gains and a potential competitive advantage for the organisation.
Employee engagement and loyalty
Employees are more likely to be flexible for the organisation (for example, changing their working hours when the need arises), and show more loyalty.
Avoiding negative employee outcomes
Avoiding work-related stress, reduced sickness absence, and other negative employee outcomes.
Enhanced work performance
Increased productivity and better quality of work, more efficient ways of working, with employees managing and organising their workloads better.
Improved work-life balance
Flexible working arrangements can help people balance their work with other life priorities, whether it’s moving house, starting a family or taking on care responsibilities.
Adaptability and openness
Employees of organisations that offer flexible working arrangements tend to find themselves in a more agile, responsive culture that is open to new ideas and concepts.
Diversity and collaboration
Different flexible working arrangements such as job sharing, or shift-swapping can help bring different people together and create opportunities to collaborate.
If you want to enable flexible working for your employees, here are some tips and things to consider:
Invest in good technology!
If you allow your employees to work remotely you will need to invest in software that will allow your workforce to communicate instantly, as well as access important files and documents outside of the office. Skype, conference calls, emails and virtual meetups are imperative.
Monitor performance and set deadlines.
Though the statistics show that remote employees are actually more productive than their non-remote counterparts, it is still imperative that Managers monitor performance remotely. Set targets, deadlines, plus track progress and updates.
Check in regularly.
It does not matter if it is a quick hello over instant message each morning, or a weekly progress video call with the whole team, feeling connected and part of a team is still important for your employees.