Reimagining Workplace? Employee Autonomy is the key

Flexible workplace is the buzz word organizations use to describe the novel hybrid work model, aimed at employee work life integration.

Pre-covid, for most organizations, the concept of flexible workplace were mostly limited to reduced work hours, option to choose to work from office 2-3 days a week. While this use to be a privilege for employees in a few organizations, it was far from reality for the others. The real game changer was the pandemic since organizations were forced to think beyond their personal convictions to keep business afloat and operational in the midst of the pandemic while ensuring employee safety. Even those organizations who never allowed their employees to operate remotely were forced to do so. Ultimately, it proved so effective that several organizations are now considering changes to their work model to allow more flexibility to employees.

“Flexibility” is so widely used and popular across organizations globally that there exist several interpretations of “flexibility”, more so in the recent pandemic times. For some, “flexibility” means “work from anywhere”, while to others it means “option to work from home couple, or more times a week”. However, this novel concept of flexibility is changing and today when employees talk about flexibility, they are not just referring to their work model alone, but the work itself. Employees are wanting to have the ability to decide where and when they do their work, and the autonomy to execute their work. ?

The Power of Autonomy

In the pre-covid context, some leaders and organizations couldn’t have ever imagined that their employees could be productive even when they are not co-located. Thanks to a COVID driven emergency that forced organizations to allow employees operate remotely. It’s been close to a couple of years now that teams and organizations are working remotely. The data shows a remarkable increase in productivity among its employees even though they are not co-located. Why do you think this worked? Employee Autonomy

Several researches have pointed out "autonomy" as the key driver of human behaviour, even a little can go a long way. One of the important theory worth mentioning is the self-determination theory (SDT). According to SDT, intrinsic motivation is a key driver of human motivation – that is, an individual’s autonomous motivation for personal, psychological growth is the catalyst for his/her success and fulfilment. Self-determination is made up of three components: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The researchers defined autonomy as “the desire to be the causal agent of one’s own life”. If organizations were to leverage this definition to impact employee motivation and engagement, entrusting employees with greater autonomy, they could expect a greater degree of employee satisfaction, commitment and engagement at work since employees would perceive the outcome as the result of their own innate ability. While this finding in no way disregard extrinsic motivators like the compensation and benefits, any motivators that employees perceive as “controlled” motivators will not elicit intrinsic motivation. This is very much in line with the findings from a recent study on hybrid work models. 59% of the employees rated “autonomy” as more important to them than the compensation and benefits. 77% of the employees stated they would prefer working for a company that allow them autonomy to work from anywhere. Anything that employees feel is a mandate is assumed to violate their autonomy and considered a threat to their intrinsic drivers.

For organizations and leaders considering re-evaluating their workplace models and future of work, employee autonomy will be paramount to a successful transition to the workplace of the future.

References:

Holger Reisinger and Dane Fetterer (2021). Forget Flexibility. Your Employees want Autonomy. viewed 4 Nov 2021, <www.hbr.org>