Why aren't more companies on board?
Vodafone UK recently launched its The Flex Factor report, which looks at the potential benefits for individuals, companies and the country from adopting better ways of working.
The conclusions reached were pretty dramatic in terms of the actual economic value to companies and industry. Which is great considering often it's businesses who put the kibosh on flexible working given they think that productivity will be decreased.
The report shows, using conservative calculations, that flexible working can have very positive effects on the bottom line: Better ways of working would save the average employee five productive hours a week, which works out, in average salary terms, to around £4,200 per employee per year. Employers would also save £650 per employee on the cost of the desk space they occupy and £100 on printing.
The report estimated that the UK as a whole would gain £6.9bn a year in working hours gained, and save £1.2bn a year on the cost of all that desk space and printing costs.
What this report also showed is that changing the way people work can boost motivation, increase wellbeing and lead to vast improvements in customer service.
So what are the benefits to the individual and to business?
According to Vodafone, for the individual it means greater control over their working schedules and the flexibility to bridge the gap between their professional and personal lives, which can only be a good thing when both parents are trying to juggle so much these days.
For businesses, adopting better ways of working can boost staff satisfaction and create savings through increased productivity. And for the economy, adopting flexible working has been valued (in the UK) at £8.1bn, the equivalent of building 400 new secondary schools or employing more than 200,000 nurses per year.
Vodafone says they have had great success in implementing better ways of working, not only at their UK HQ, but also across the world. And despite some initial hesitations, they've experience great results and are now "living and breathing" a more flexible way of working, which includes a complete lack of private offices, in lieu of dedicated zones, with employees of all levels being free to take their laptop to any one of the work spaces or coffee shop and they can work remotely whenever they choose. They currently have a ratio of seven desks for every 10 employees.
At CareforKids.com.au® we have flexible working arrangements too with a number of our employees working entirely remotely.
We love working flexibly with all our staff, male and female, and recently started a job share arrangement with two women juggling young children, which is working out brilliantly.
In female skewed environments it is becoming increasingly commonplace to find women working 3-4 day weeks, often with a day working from home, and they are probably getting done a 5 day job in that time.
There are downsides of course. Modern technology that keeps you constantly on call and in contact can be great but also frustrating and working from home often means people feel they can also contact you at any time of the day or night!
But with some initial rules and understandings put in place from the outset, it's reasonably easy to create boundaries between work and home life.
So why aren't more companies hopping on board?
There is a long established attitude that employees need to be office-based and be "supervised" to be productive. It's often a lack of trust on the part of employers and many old school business people still think that working from home is "skiving" which probably says more about their own work ethic than anyone else's!
But how much time do we waste trudging into the office and enduring rubbish commutes on a daily basis when we could forget all that and be at work at our home desk much earlier and with a lot more energy and motivation or if not earlier at least without having to get up at ridiculous hours to get an early enough train or bus to ensure we're in at a reasonable time?
It's easy for bosses with car park spaces and wives at home who sort out their home lives to expect that everyone else does the same as them.
But the reality of it is that a large percentage families now have both parents working, at least some of the time, or they're single parent families and have no one else as home back up. And inflexible employers can make their lives a misery.
There has to be a cultural shift and a change in attitude towards flexible working with an employer-employee relationship based on trust, with management based on output, goals and achievement, not on the number of hours spent in the office.
But as we've said before, changes have to be implemented from the top down where the higher echelons are properly supporting employees throughout the process.
The old way of working is now largely redundant. Very few businesses need to be operating with rigid hours and inflexible working arrangements. There are far better ways of working that bring very significant returns and lead to greater performance and greater productivity.
By being more flexible in terms of working time, working location and how people work, it's truly possibly to work pretty much any time, any where and by supporting employees to manage their daily family and working lives effectively, businesses can only benefit. A happy employee is after all a productive one.
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