Overcoming executive resistance to flex work & five other timely insights from globally recognised HR leaders

Leaving behind a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to flex

Not even Aladdin could get the genie that is flexible work back into the bottle. Beyond the hype, the fuss and the fanfare — flexibility in the modern workplace has fast become a ‘non-negotiable,’?outranking compensation and benefits?as the top priority when it comes to choosing a new job, according to the?LinkedIn Global Talent Trends 2022 survey.

In many ways, flexible work and organisational design has become a?microcosm?of what’s great (or not so great) about the modern workplace. But one thing is for sure: today’s employee no longer sees flexibility as a ‘nice to have,’ but rather as the price to get their bum on a seat (or at a standing desk).

It’s no secret that the leaders and organisations who are still going to be around to tell the tale of a time where we ‘didn’t fully understand flexible work’ tomorrow will be those who leave behind the ‘one size fits all’ approach today. Teaming up with global consultancy specialising in organisational health,?Q5, we recently unearthed five of the most critical mindset shifts still required by leaders who are looking to unlock greater efficiency, maximise value and foster an inclusive culture in their workplaces.

Insight?#1: The future of work must be hyper-personalised and employee-led

How often do you find that something labelled ‘one size fits all’ doesn’t, in actual fact, fit?you? Well, just like that ill-fitting Christmas cracker party hat, a ‘one size fits all’ approach to workplace flexibility is no longer adequate for the challenges and realities of our time, if it ever was.?

Effective leaders are making way for a?future paved with hyper-personalisation?and carefully curated roles that set people up for success.

This is not about being ‘sensitive snowflakes’ or fostering highly individualised cultures at the expense of the collective. Instead it’s about valuing and acknowledging that every person has uniquely different values, priorities, needs, challenges, and preferences, and that we increasingly have the means to cater effectively to them.

Hyper-personalisation, also known as micro-personalisation, is an approach to People & Culture or HR management that involves personalising a role according to an individual candidate or employee’s values and preferences.

We are living in a hyper-personalised employee-led environment right now; unlikely to return to a five day in-person working experience ever again. And this shift is not being driven from the top down — it’s being?led from the bottom up, by the people.?

To respond effectively to the demand for greater flexibility from prospective and in-house talent alike, leaders must find ways of approaching workplace flexibility with a hyper-personalised lens or risk losing out.

Insight?#2: Scaling a flexible working model requires a laserlike focus on role design

‘Doing flex well’ requires leaders to?rethink the way we define, plan and arrange work. However, too often we see hiring managers and leaders ‘promise the flexible world’ because they know that’s what talent is craving, without truly understanding the workload capacity, skills, and task preferences of the role.?

Spoiler: you can practically queue up the ballad of?The Employee Who Didn’t Stick Around For Long?on the jukebox.

Establishing a?robust and scalable flexible working model?requires leaders to be able to confidently and accurately deliver on an?Employee Value Proposition or ‘EVP’?in attracting and retaining talent.

An Employee Value Proposition or ‘EVP’ is the balance of rewards and benefits that a company offers its employees in exchange for their skills, capabilities and experience.

Combining tangible and intangible factors like your company values and culture as well as — you guessed it — flexible work opportunities, your EVP should explain to prospective talent why they should work for you, and remind current talent why they should stick around.?What is on your ‘flex work’ menu?

Taking the time to understand not only?what?work is being done, but?how?it is being done across different teams and roles can offer important data that can be used to bolster productivity and cut attrition. Being data-driven in this way, and listening closely to employee sentiment, are key enablers of truly flexible work environments.

“When we’re talking about attracting and retaining talent, role design becomes critical, in our view and in our experience, in order to be able to give managers and leaders the confidence to say: ‘we can offer this and we know how we're going to hit our outcomes, because we understand what works being done and who's allocated against it’. Deliberate role design is key to working in a really productive and efficient way.”

— Victoria, Co-Founder, Beamible

Insight?#3: Conversations and guidelines on flexibility must be clear, honest and consistent

Few things erode trust, and therefore efficiency, more than inconsistent and unclear communications. Though with many flexible policies and plans put in place for the first time merely as a stop-gap during the pandemic, many organisations have created a?hotbed of miscommunication and potential distrust?where long term, sustainable organisational design that truly supports flexible work is lacking.

Flexible work is about much more than work-life balance and productivity. For some, it is about the ability to work at all. Enabling remote, hybrid and flexible work is a major step toward creating more equitable and inclusive organisations (Forbes).

The most effective organisations treat?flexible working as the default, not something that will fade away over time. How can you do this? By finding ways to:

• Create transparency and clarity?across all levels of the organisation on how flexible arrangements are going to ‘work’;
• Promote safe spaces?for individuals to voice and advocate for their work-life balance needs;
• Enable containers or mechanisms?for leaders to also state what the business needs and their expectations when it comes to performance and output.

Transparency is fast becoming one of the?hallmarks of doing better business, and effective leaders embrace this need by providing?clear and consistent guidance?to employees on?when,?where?and?how?work can be done to maximise wellbeing, engagement and productivity, whilst still allowing for the organisation to reach its goals.

Insight?#4: Leaders must steer the way to flexible work heaven

Humans, as a general rule, don’t love change. Our brains are just?not wired that way. So, requiring leaders to transition beyond ‘traditional’ ways of working and lead the charge for?‘non-traditional’ or progressive operational models?can be challenging, in any environment.

The key to making flexible work, well, ‘work’?often comes down to manager capability, culture, creativity, and a?willingness to test and iterate on?solutions.

“Even before COVID, we had all the standard offerings around flexible work, like part-time, job sharing, compressed work weeks — but there was actually very low take up. During COVID……we were a little bit worried about where engagement was heading.?

“When we thought about, optimally, where we wanted to be, we didn’t want to mandate anything, but we did want to find a middle ground and engage our leadership on the journey.?

“So, we started building personas for individuals to reflect the type of work that they did, based on the activities that they're doing on a day to day basis, and design solutions for them. We’ve built the framework, we’re provided guidelines and now we’re just about to roll it out and test it to see if it encourages greater take up.“

— Chief People Officer, global IT company

One effective way of encouraging take up of flexible work is to have leaders in the organisation ‘walk the walk,’ not only adopting flexibility but demonstrating it working well.?

This ‘active role modelling’ (and not ‘ad hoc role modelling’) can help to retain top talent and even bring diverse talent through the ranks. In fact, we see the extent to which leaders work different forms of flex as a powerful marker of how robust an organisational culture is.?

And if you’re not sold on?the business case, there are ways to measure improvements in productivity, employee engagement, talent retention, and overall wellbeing. There’s this great platform…?Beamible, we think it’s called… that comes to mind.

It turns out that a pandemic is a real game changer. Businesses standing strong on the traditional 9-5 are getting left behind and feeling the squeeze. How is your leadership adapting to these Volatile Uncertain Chaotic and Ambiguous (VUCA) times?

Insight?#5: Being intentional about time spent in the office leads to 'magic moments'

While we’re not advocating you walk around sprinkling pixie dust over the office (or are we?), after significant periods of time working from home, being intentional and thoughtful about?when?and?how?employees are invited to spend time in the office can lead to what HR Lead at a leading global tech company calls ‘magic moments’.

These moments are those that?foster connection, engagement and collaboration?between teams, independent of how frequently they come into the office. The secret to their wizardry is in the?intention?and thinking through how their time will be spent and what benefit it will provide.?

Companies who are successfully doing the hybrid dance have a strong and comprehensive understanding of each employee’s roles, activities and responsibilities, and a keen knowledge of?when and where a person’s best work is done?(at home, in office, on-site etc.).?

But just before you go mandating ‘all staff in-house creative brainstorming sessions’ (please don’t), know that:?self-organisation is key, and so is?making these insights visible.

Leave no workplace unflexed

Together, we stand on the precipice of a new era, one where individuals can shine by working in a way that’s suited to them. As workplaces, we need to look at flexible work from both a role design and leadership capability perspective to ensure that we’re leaving no workplace unflexed.

Through?tooling, data and intelligent insights, Beamible and Q5 are partnering up to provide solutions for HR teams and managers to enable flex at scale. We’d love to see how we can help your organisation take a more nuanced and curated approach to workplace flexibility and role design.

If you're interested in learning more about how the?Beamible?work design platform or Q5 org design experts can help your company change their flex mindset,?get in touch.