Busting 4 Scary Myths About Flexible Working

When it comes to flexible work models, organizations are often cautious and worried about opening that can of worms. Pre-pandemic, it was a pure play employee benefit that often masqueraded as a paid holiday. It was frowned upon and assumed that the employee was simply taking time off and not really being productive while opting for work-from-home.
 
                                  
But the pandemic has been a test case for us all. It has shown organizations that there could be tremendous advantages in adopting a flexible work culture. It has been shown to: 
 
  • Reduce costs, including the costs of infrastructure, supply supplies, electricity, other overheads, etc. 
  • Increase productivity as the employees are happier and can design their days according to their convenience
  • Help in hiring diverse teams as geography is no longer a constraint 
  • Access to the top talent pools globally
  • Increase rates of retention as employees are quoting flexibility as the benefit they are looking for 
  • Reduce absenteeism as employees can better manage their work-life balance
 
                              
 
In spite of many studies, surveys and research efforts gleaning these myriad benefit lists of flexible work models, some organizations are still sceptical about flexible work options becoming a permanent feature. 
 
Being a remote and flexible organization from our inception, we often hear, ‘Flexibility is great in theory, but it is not for us or everyone.’ Though we are leading by example, some organizations are still on the fence about flexible work. 
 
For many organizations, this was a forced option that they had to adopt during the peak of the pandemic months and they were eagerly waiting to return to ‘normal’ - like how things once were. 
 
But the definition of ‘normal’ has changed today. 
 
While today’s normal includes hybrid work models, geographically distributed teams and a focus on employee work-life balance, there is some fear among organizations about losing control, culture and more. 
 
Here are the top 5 scary, hairy myths busted: 
 

  1. Losing Control

 
This is by far the biggest fear of most organizations. They tend to feel that if they have all hands on deck and physically present staff, it is easier to manage or control the outcomes versus working with a virtual or hybrid team. There is a general fear around allowing a few employees to work remotely or all employees to work remotely for some part of their days or weeks. 
 
                                                                                       
 
What will we do with our office spaces? Will it be lying empty?
How will we manage to keep up productivity?
What if employees take advantage of this policy and slack off? 
 
These are the kinds of questions that often plague an employer’s mind. 
 
But it doesn’t have to be so. 
 
The answer to this predicament is to create clarity, structure and open communication. Organizations can provide clear policies and set standards for what employees can expect in terms of flexibility. For example, defining the core working hours when everyone is expected to be available, providing reduced work weeks, or work hours, giving employees autonomy to design their own days and work hours, etc. 
 
Once organizations arrive at how they want to adopt flexibility, the next step is to train and educate the employees on these policies so that the expectations are set right. 
 

  1. Dip in Productivity 

The next big fear is that there might be a dip in productivity as employees might not put in their best efforts while working remotely. This closely ties in with the first fear of losing control of the employees and the outcomes organizations want to achieve. 
 
There is a general misnomer that remote employees might not meet their deadlines and put in the work required, as they are not monitored. 
 
While recruiting remote talent, we often get asked, ‘How will we know if they are really working?’
 
Even if your employees are sitting in your office cubicles, they could be doing many different things other than work, while looking busy! They could be on social media, looking for new jobs, etc. 
 
It boils down to creating an atmosphere of trust and then letting the chips fall where they might. In all honesty, you cannot really control what anyone is doing whether they are at work or at home. What you can do is define timelines and deadlines that employees are expected to meet and evaluate effort based on the outcomes, and not where one is working from. 
 
                                                                        
 
And if we look at the recent research from the pandemic years, it has shown us that productivity has only increased. 
 
A study by Stanford of 16,000 workers over 9 months found that working from home increased productivity by 13%. This increase in performance was due to more calls per minute attributed to a quieter, more convenient working environment and working more minutes per shift because of fewer breaks and sick days.
In this same study workers also reported improved work satisfaction, and attrition rates were cut by 50%.
 

  1. Lack of Team Camaraderie

A few months into working from home, many organizations felt that employees were fatigued about being isolated. Employees were missing the water cooler conversations, informal chats, and bonding over meals or a cup of coffee. 
 
Though this was partly true, there is an easy remedy for it. 
 
                                               
 
To ensure their teams feel connected, organizations can have virtual meet-ups, informal sessions and more. It is critical to keep the lines of communication open, even if it is virtually. One can engage team members in virtual breakout sessions, informal chats, brainstorming sessions and more so that everyone is involved and updated on the happenings within the organization. 
 

  1. Lack of Collaboration

Often many teams need to come together. This is easy in a physical office where all the departments and colleagues are sitting together and things can get done quickly and efficiently. Or at least, this is what everyone was used to. Now, to pivot this to a virtual team and environment can seem challenging. 
 
But with the availability of various technologies and platforms, it is much easier to keep teams connected and talking to each other. 
 
                                                            
 
For example, one can choose to use Asana, Jira or Trello. Teams can stay connected via internal messengers that might already exist or use applications like Slack. Google also offers a lot of different options for video team meetings and virtual whiteboards like Google Jamboards which provide virtual collaborative spaces. 
 
Even core in-person activities like networking are seeing a change in the preference of their participants. 
In a recent survey conducted by BNI of over 2,300 people from around the world, the networking organization asked the participants if they would like their meetings to be: 1) in-person only, 2) online only, or 3) a blend of online and in-person meetings. 
 
The results show this change in preference. One-third of the participants surveyed said that they wanted to go back completely to in-person meetings. However, 16% wanted to stick with online meetings only, and almost 51% of the survey respondents were in favour of a blend of meeting both in-person and online. 
 
This is a substantial transition from the organizational practice prior to the pandemic, with a full two-thirds of the organization saying that they would prefer some aspect of online meetings to be the norm in the future.

Conclusion

With the world opening up its markets and accepting Covid-19 as a part of our everyday life, it is imperative for organizations to rethink their employee work policies. 
 
In a recent study, 74% of workers said they would quit their current jobs to switch to an organization that offers remote and flexible work options. That’s a huge majority! Hence, it becomes imperative for organizations to adapt to flexible models to retain top talent. In fact, flexible working options can be a win-win organization's needs today. 
 
We, at FlexiBees, provide experienced remote & flexible talent, via affordable models so organizations can try it out and see if this is the right fit for them. Drop us a line today to explore how you can incorporate flexible talent into your teams.