The not-so-secret secret to successful flexible work strategies
Give your people what they want
Make office time about collaboration and team building
For Gadea, team building moments should be purposely programmed into your organization. Less time in the office means that time is more valuable, and should be first and foremost used for collaboration and team bonding.
“Getting teams together for more than zero days a week is very important,” Gadea tells TNW.
It’s also about employee wellbeing. In the vast majority of workplace surveys that have come out during the pandemic, the thing people missed most was the informal chats with colleagues. In many cases, this led to detachment from the team and the company. In extreme cases, this led to feelings of loneliness and depression.
Spend more time on onboarding
While some will have talent jumping ship left and right, for others it’ll be a golden opportunity to snatch up experienced talent looking for work that suits their lifestyle. Always keeping an eye on the latest job market trends, Verhage and his team at Test Gorilla have seen how this is reshaping recruitment efforts:
This is helping candidates to quickly filter through and discard job opportunities, but it also opens employers up to a much wider pool of talent:
However, while the potential for free and flexible work arrangements may be a great tool for attracting talent, actually keeping that talent is another story. Without a connection to the team or a company’s mission, the difference between one remote job and another is simply down to a difference in paycheck.
A study by Better Up found that a stronger sense of belonging can lead to a 56% increase in job performance, 75% reduction in sick days, and a50% lower turnover risk.
For Verhage, the key to fostering a sense of belonging amongst remote and hybrid employees is having a strong onboarding process in place. As he explained, at TestGorilla, they have a full remote program in place to welcome new hires into their team:
Make it easy for teams to schedule in-office time
Two of the biggest challenges companies face with hybrid work are how to provide employees the flexibility of coming to the office when they need to, and how to provide them with the right tools when they’re there.
As more teams turn to flexible working, more companies are replacing permanent desks with hot desks that can be reserved in advance. Hotdesking, the sharing of desks, can provide significant savings on office space for those who decide to downsize, but can also come with headaches for managers and individuals who want to schedule in team building time.
One of the biggest pain points for employees is making the effort to commute in and showing up to an empty office. According to Gadea:
Another common challengebusinessestoday are facing as they reopen is how to keep workers safe.
A survey by Envoy found 43% of office workers, either hybrid or full-time, are moreworried about exposureto and transmission of Covid than remote workers. For employees of color, 21% lose sleep over it compared to just 11% of their white coworkers.
Envoy Protectis a solution that allows employees to get an overview of who is working in the office and when so they can sync work schedules and optimize time in the office. They can also reserve workspace and, most importantly, certify health status. Users can upload proof of vaccination, a weekly negative Covid test, or a daily health check.
While the uncertainty of flexible work schedules may hold some companies back, the beauty of this new way of working is that it gives your company more flexibility to adapt in uncertain times — and today there’s nothing more important than that. In truth, the not-so-secret secret to flexible work strategies is simply being flexible enough to experiment and find out what works best for your team.
Story bySamantha Johnson
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