Our Journey Towards a Flexible Work Culture

Why we embraced a flexible workplace policy

Ninety-three percent of employees are keen to have flexibility in the way they work, a study indicates, as burnout continues to be at a global high since the pandemic affecting 42% of the workforce. The option to work flexibly is not only seen to reduce burnout but also enhance productivity while building a strong workplace culture that is steeped in positivity and trust.

Running a business successfully entails navigating seismic shifts at various levels including the fact that 75% of today’s knowledge workers and 92% of youth are expecting to work flexibly. Those are shifts in workplace culture that we must embrace to not only hire but retain talent in the long run.

As a people-centric organisation, we intuitively understood that post pandemic, our people became acutely aware and more eager to focus on their wellbeing and strike a work-life balance. A flexible work culture guarantees just that – the independence to organise our day factoring in priorities.

With the realisation that hybrid arrangements are here to stay, we decided to embrace a flexible workplace policy. A step closer to strengthen our resilience and agility therein building a conducive work environment for young talents while equipping our leaders to efficiently manage hybrid and remote teams.

What we are doing to strengthen our workplace culture

When we first launched our flexible workplace policy in 2020, in response to the pandemic, it was received well by our people. We noticed higher productivity despite existing challenges, more job satisfaction and loyalty, and ultimately better business outcomes. However, some people were still finding it challenging to individually manage their work and time in a flexible or remote arrangement. To assist them, we put in place clear policies, comprehensive guidelines, and tools to maximise efficiency, facilitate social interactions, and prevent possible burnout.

While putting these changes in motion, we also decided to periodically evaluate the outcomes. That’s why in 2022 we conducted an internal survey to understand how our people felt about the flexible workplace policies. The intention was to understand challenges and improve where we could. Sure enough, the survey helped us to launch a revised and more comprehensive policy around flexible working in 2023 incorporating further guidelines and structures to harmonize implementation across the Group. Importantly, we are now upskilling our leaders further to improve their efficiency, enhance their teams’ productivity whilst instilling a deeper sense of collaboration while managing hybrid teams. We have also introduced trainings for all employees on how to embrace flexibility as a team and leverage on such arrangements to improve their productivity.

Our approach has been guided by the principle of measuring outputs rather than inputs, ensuring that our efforts are results focused and in alignment with our Group objectives.

How we are fostering a culture of trust

As we embeded more flexibility in our ways of working, we trust that our people are capable of managing where, when and how they work. This has created a heightened sense of accountability as our leaders and teams took ownership to balance their workloads – sometimes collaboratively and sometimes individually.

As business leaders, we have also learned to micromanage less and clearly agree on expectations and timelines. At a more individual level, I have personally learnt to use some of my time to connect remotely with other stakeholders across the region where we operate. It is important to note, research also shows that flexible working structure not only enhances engagement and efficiency but also reduces staff turnover by 87%. These statistics are too significant to be ignored!

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Flexi working structures are here to stay

As the business landscape evolves, we are aware that many organisations are reconsidering their decisions on flexible working arrangements. As a Group though, we firmly believe that flexible working is not just a passing trend, but rather a long-term shift for our teams that is here to stay. Our Group recognises the inherent benefits and value that flexible working brings. We remain committed to fostering a flexible work culture that meets the needs of our people while also driving organisational success. Our approach acknowledges the changing needs of the modern workplace and embraces flexibility as an integral part of our long term workforce strategy.