Managers, This is How to Make Productivity and Flexibility Coexist

If someone had told me a decade ago that employers would be using special tools to detect mouse activity, I’d assume there had been some kind of global rodent outbreak throughout workplaces.

That’s almost more believable than what’s really happening, which is that many employers have adopted techniques to determine exactly how often their employees are actively engaged with company tools. Of course, the idea is to ensure people are getting their work done. In practice, it has likely insulted those who don’t need monitoring and encouraged those who do need monitoring to find workarounds. That’s a lose-lose scenario.

Rigid constraints like mouse monitoring inevitably lead to a backlash. We’re already seeing it happen. Employees don’t like being micromanaged (or “babysat,” depending on whom you ask) in the remote workplace any more than they like it in the office. If anything, it’s a tougher pill to swallow when you’re in your own space.

Here’s what employees want right now

That’s why I was very intrigued by the findings from our Everywhere Work Report . Ivanti surveyed over 7,700 executive leaders, IT and cybersecurity professionals and office workers in January 2024 to explore the deep challenges and opportunities employers face when they empower their employees to work everywhere — with no limitations on place and time.???

There were a lot of great insights in the survey, but one really stuck out to me:

Employees want flexibility even more than they want to work remotely.

Remote work is very popular, to be clear — 70% of respondents placed a high value on it — but flexibility at work ranked even higher, with 80% of respondents highly valuing it.

This isn’t the flexibility you’re used to

I know many employers will, understandably, think they’re already flexible:

Folks don’t need to ask special permission to go to a doctor’s appointment!

You can have unlimited PTO! If you want your hours to be 7-4 instead of 8-5, that’s fine!

That’s the “flexibility” of the past. It entails a bit of wiggle room within the same rigid, traditional structure that prioritizes telling employees where, when and how to work.

As a manager, I’d much rather prioritize performance and deliverables. I don’t mind if you’re crushing your work from a tropical beach, or capitalizing on a burst of late-night energy, or holed up at a busy coffee shop during morning rush because you thrive on the extra stimulation.

I don’t need to tell my employees they can go to a doctor’s appointment whenever they want. That’d be oddly specific given that my employees have entirely free reign over their schedules with the exception of a few high-priority meetings.

It’s not a free-for-all — we have deadlines, budgets, high output standards, and best practices that ensure secure, ethical operations. But within those guardrails, I want people to feel empowered to decide the factors that allow them to operate on all cylinders.

I came by the flexibility model partly out of necessity. I live in a time zone eight hours ahead of most of my employees and colleagues, so full-scale schedule alignment is a non-starter. I’ve always had to trust in the power of asynchronous collaboration — and trust my very talented employees to do what they need to thrive.

The key to facilitating productive collaboration in a flexible environment

Trust is essential to a flexible workplace environment, but trust must be enabled via the right tools. A flexible workplace model is only as strong as your available tools.

We at Ivanti talk a lot about Digital Employee Experience (DEX), empowering employees with tools to facilitate secure, seamless efficient work. DEX is even more important in a flexible environment in which asynchronous collaboration takes place at all hours of the day, all over the world.

The right tools make it easy for a night owl in Beijing to elevate a project with their unique skills and securely hand off to an early bird in New York — or for that handoff to be ready to roll if that New Yorker decides to sleep in for optimal energy.

By investing in digital infrastructure and technology, leaders can ensure that global teams have the resources to excel in a flexible work environment. Fortunately, I work for a company at the leading edge of tools and platforms that enable secure, seamless work regardless of location or time. Our technology can find, manage, secure and service any endpoint, anywhere — often without the user’s involvement. That means my employees don’t experience the disruptions that frequently come with remote connectivity, and our IT team isn’t pelted with constant remote troubleshooting requests.

Not everyone is so lucky. Although over 90% of leaders in the new survey say employees have the tools to be productive in a remote or hybrid work environment, that’s not the case for IT and security teams. Just 46% say it’s easy to access tech tools when working remotely. This disconnect has significant implications for employers — nearly one in four IT professionals (23%) say a colleague has resigned due to burnout. The right tools are essential to alleviate the burden on IT and security professionals while facilitating consistently seamless, secure, productive digital experiences for every employee, everywhere.

Skills + energy = momentum

It’s gratifying to hear our team members strategize a heavy lift together. They consider time zones. They consider who is a night owl, who is an early bird, and who will be volunteering at their kids’ school midday or taking a neighbor to the doctor. They consider the tools they have available. They consider who gets excited about project mapping, who thrives on details, who excels at establishing a cohesive vision, who can add a creative spin, and who will check in on everyone and ensure folks feel supported and have what they need.

They’re not ignoring job titles; they’re simply leveraging their individual skills and passions — plus when and where they can offer their best energy. I’m glad we’re on the front end of this trend, and by the looks of it, flexibility at work will grow in importance. Providing employees with the tools and resources to succeed in a flexible work environment can optimize performance and employee well-being. That combination leads to becoming a Destination Employer that can continue raising the bar.