Remote Work: An Opportunity or a Threat?

As Y?ld?z Holding People and Business Support Team, we organize monthly meetings where we come together with subject matter experts and discuss issues regarding the future of work. Aziz Revnaki, our Talent and Reward Management Director and Nida Karako?, our Performance and Talent Management Specialist, contributed to the organization of these meetings. With the support of Aziz and Nida, we came together with Ernst & Young Türkiye Consulting Department Partner G?zde ?zkale Bila? this week. At our meeting, Ms. Bila? shared the results of the “Work Reimagined” research they carried out on a global scale and answered our questions.

The results of this comprehensive research, in which approximately 20 thousand people from 22 countries participated, are very interesting. The most surprising result of this research, which focuses on new working models and their effects, was the differentiation of the experiences and expectations of employees and employers. I think that special attention should be paid to this difference in the implementation of new working models. I will try to address these issues under six headings.

What Does the Employee Want? What Does the Employer Expect?

Hybrid and Flexible Work

In line with many research results, this research also shows that hybrid and flexible work is a permanent part of our lives. 80% of the employees participating in the survey state that they want to work out of the office at least 2 days a week. The increase in this rate, which was 66% last year, is also an important indicator.

Another interesting result is that this request is related to the time employees spend while commuting. The result of the research shows that employees who have less than 30 minutes to commute prefer to work from the office 1.5 times more than others.

In terms of employers, 22% of employers want their employees to return to the office full time. It seems that the great majority of employers have put new working models on their agenda. We have seen how accurate and timely the UYDU-New Ways of Working, which we started to work on at Y?ld?z Holding with the onset of the global epidemic, are in this respect.?

Everything is as expected in the research results so far. However, the views of employees and employers on the benefits of face-to-face interaction are changing. While 72% of employers think that the face-to-face effect is worth the time spent on the way to the office, this rate drops to 64% for employees.

Moreover, employers and employees’ views on the impact of new ways of work on career opportunities vary. 46% of employers think new working models will increase access to career opportunities. Only 29% of employees agree. The great majority say they are undecided.

When I heard about this difference, the first factor that came to my mind was the employees’ need for visibility. While we all worked in offices in the past, employees’ performances were more visible. Now, could it be that they think their managers are not seeing their performance in new working models?

This may be possible, especially in companies where effort rather than output is rewarded. However, if you have a performance system that focuses directly on output, you are not likely to see this difference at your company. Especially in new working models, performance systems that provide transparency and make the communication between the manager and the employee sustainable become very important. It is possible to say that the OKR method, which we have put into practice together with the UYDU-New Ways of Working at Y?ld?z Holding, is exemplary in this respect.

In addition, we have recently been working on a system where we can offer insights to all our employees for productivity and performance monitoring. Thus, we will both move our timekeeping system to a mobile platform and offer a self-service reporting.?

Side Benefits

Although the experience and expectations of employers and employees regarding new working models vary, there is one thing they agree on: side benefits. 83% of employers and 79% of employees think that the total rewarding mechanism should be changed.

Nowadays, when we talk about talent wars in the digital age, I am one of those who think that this issue is getting more and more important. At a time when the physical barriers in front of talents are removed with new working models and employees can work in another country while living in one country, many advantages such as wages, performance bonuses, side benefits and long-term incentives must be presented holistically in order to attract and retain talent.

Compensation and benefits policies stand out as a differentiation factor, especially as technology companies make the wage market competitive. Companies that can present their wage and rewarding policies in a holistic way and explain this to their employees can also gain an advantage in this regard.

One of the steps we have taken in this direction at Y?ld?z Holding has been to diversify and make our rewarding mechanisms flexible, as well as our current wage and bonus policy. We have made the Anl?k ?dül (Instant Awards) application, which has been in effect in our companies for many years, completely digital, flexible and "instant". Thanks to our new application, when our employees complete a successful work, both their managers and teammates can request rewards through our digital system. As soon as the request is approved, the electronic certificate is automatically sent to our employee and the reward is sent through our business partner Sodexo Flexogift. Our employees can access thousands of products from e-commerce to fuel, clothing to technology on this platform.

At the same time, we made many innovations in our SenSe? Flexible Side Benefits Platform this year. In addition to products such as health insurance, private pension, check-up, personal accident insurance, ?ok Market and istegelsin checks, we have added Sodexo Flexogift to our options. Thus, we created a side benefits platform with access to thousands of products.

We have also implemented Ergonomics Support so that our friends who work remotely and in hybrid working models can create an ideal working environment outside the office. The ergonomics support we offer to all our employees throughout the year is also included in the advantage package we offer for new hires.

Well-being

Although financial well-being is an essential component of employee well-being, it is not enough on its own. The flexibility brought by the new working models also provides an advantage in this respect. Those who participated in the research agree that their well-being increased in this process.

Although the new working models have such an advantage, we are now talking about work-life transition beyond work-life balance. Together with remote and hybrid work, we carried our work to our home. In addition, with the global pandemic, we went through a period where all the rules were broken on a global scale and we are still experiencing its effects. Of course, this has many social, emotional and psychological effects. This is exactly why companies increased their investments in employee well-being. 89% of employers participating in the survey also say that their investments in this area have increased.

As a company with the understanding of "Make Happy Be Happy" at the core of its corporate culture, we also do a lot of work on this subject. We focus mainly on well-being in our internal communication activities and work to contribute to the professional, emotional, psychological and social well-being of our employees. Considering the work-life transition, it is not only for our employees; we also carry out activities for the families of our employees, especially children.?

Another initiative that we have implemented in new working models, with the opportunities offered by digitalization, is the Global Y?ld?z Cup. With the Global Y?ld?z Cup, all our employees from Türkiye and abroad come together at the digital game tournament and have the opportunity to socialize outside of work. It also became a platform for our top executives to come together with our employees. For instance, a store employee from ?ok Markets and Salman Amin, CEO of pladis, came together in a chess match.

In addition to all these, we have increased the number of social events we come together with, along with the normalization process in the global pandemic. As part of our events we call Mutlu Ak?amüstleri (Happy Evenings), we come together with our managers and employees on the terrace area of ?aml?ca Campus and have a pleasant time.

We will soon implement our corporate well-being program, on which we approach employee well-being with a holistic perspective and on which we are working carefully.

Strategic Workforce Planning

Another critical result of the research is that the talent shortage is increasing day by day. A research by Manpower in 2010 shows that the rate of employers who said they could not fill open positions on a global scale was 31%, and today this rate is 69%. This result shows that upskilling & reskilling will continue to be one of the priority agenda items of companies. Likewise, according to the results of this research, 52% of employers say that they have implemented skills development programs for existing talents, taking into account the changing business and technological needs.

At Y?ld?z Holding, we also continue the Analytical Academy program, which we have started implementing in 2020, in order to develop skills especially in the area of digital technologies and data literacy in line with our understanding of "investing in people". At the same time, we have recently launched the Digital Collar program to increase the technological competence of all our employees. Within this program, our employees will have the opportunity to receive education on many different topics, from digital customer experience to agile project management, from artificial intelligence to big data.

At a time when the talent shortage has increased so much, it is of great importance to focus on the future of organizations as well as skills development programs. In this context, strategic workforce planning researches come to the front. In the results of the research, this issue has come before the development of competence. 58% of employers say that they put strategic workforce efforts on their agenda for the sustainability of the work.

At Y?ld?z Holding, this issue is also at the top of our agenda. In talent management, we adopt an approach consisting of three titles: know the talent, grow the talent and flow the talent. Very recently, we have renewed our Human Resources Planning process using digitalization and big data and we have moved to a new process called OPeRa (Organization and People Rating). OPeRa encompasses an end-to-end process where all data about our talents and organizations are included, organizational climate is measured, development plans of our talents are determined, and succession plans are made. Thus, while we focus on the future of our talents, we create our action plans today by focusing on the future needs of our organization.

We also apply this approach in our recruitment policy. We are working to attract talents with critical competencies who are more adaptable to the conditions of the new era and to ensure that they join us. We evaluate our talent pool comparatively on the axis of different competencies with the inventory researches we implement.??

Culture and Efficiency

The data of the research on corporate culture is also quite remarkable. While employers and employees are optimistic about corporate culture, there is a critical difference. With the new working models, 61% of employees say that the corporate culture is positively affected, and this rate is 48% in 2021. Conversely, for employers, this rate drops from 77% in 2021 to 57% in 2022.

One of the factors that I think will most affect the future of new working models is corporate culture. Although the ratio of employers and employees who think that the corporate culture is positively affected in the research results, the ratio of employers and employees is almost equal, opening this gap in the future will cause the risk of giving up new working models.

In this respect, it is of great importance that the top management embrace and lead this process. Our Chair of the Board Ali ülker, our Vice-Chair & CEO Mehmet Tütüncü and our Board Member Murat ülker have always encouraged us while we were constructing the UYDU-New Working Models at Y?ld?z Holding. At the same time, we have implemented a comprehensive adoption program so that our employees, who are in different working models, can work in coordination and cooperation. Within this program, all our employees received education on remote effective working, digital customer experience and digital facilitation. At the same time, we carried out workshops on digital platforms in the areas of project management and task tracking, collaboration and cooperation tools, focus and efficiency, and increased the adaptation in this regard.

Efficiency becomes more important in new working models. Project management and task tracking applications such as Asana provide a serious advantage in this respect. Y?ld?z Ventures CEO Yahya ülker is leading the way in the use of Asana at Y?ld?z Holding. My teammates, who are involved in the same projects with Yahya ülker also actively use these applications.

Since this process requires adaptation to digital tools and new technologies, we have recently implemented the digital mentorship process. We match our senior executives with our young digital talents from our companies and contribute to the exchange of ideas on these issues.

The Future of Offices

Another issue that caught my attention in Ernst & Young's research was the implications for the future of offices. 78% of employers surveyed say they will redesign their office space. It turns out that the expectations of the employees from the offices are mostly shaped by social factors. Especially for the Z generation, the biggest advantage of being in the offices is stated as socializing, while it shows that it is preferred for working together more for the previous generations.

Considering that there are generations with very different expectations in business life, employers need to rethink their office designs to meet the needs of different generations.

At Y?ld?z Holding, we started to renew our offices with the UYDU-New Ways of Working. In this process, we also increased the number of socializing and co-working spaces by switching to the shared table use. For example, we have a large meeting table in the People and Business Support Office, and over time we began to witness my friends using this table to work together, even if there is no meeting. I believe this interaction is very valuable. I often sit next to them and get involved in their work.

Balancing Needs and Expectations

If Ernst & Young had done this research before the global pandemic, would the rate of companies planning to switch to new working models have been 78%? I am not sure. New working models, which are not on the agenda of most companies, except for some technology companies, suddenly entered our lives with the global pandemic.

I am one of those who think that the future of work is hybrid. I find that I feel better when I get together with my co-workers. I think a very different bond has been established. On the other hand, having the flexibility to work remotely is critical. This is the feedback I also get from my colleagues. They enjoy coming to the office, but they also prefer the flexibility to work from home. ?

I think the essence is to find the balance. While providing business continuity on the one hand, it is not easy to achieve this adaptation in terms of infrastructure and culture on the other. I liken it to changing wheels while a car is on the move. Moreover, this is a process that can have critical side effects if not handled holistically. Therefore, the size of each wheel you change should be equal (at least close to each other) so that your risk of accident is minimized. Otherwise, the gap between employer and employee expectations will continue to widen.

Considering this process as a change management, acting by taking the opinions of all stakeholders, "hurrying slowly" while implementing actions and balancing expectations are critical success factors. At this point, I believe that managers have a great responsibility. It is essential to adopt an inclusive approach, without making the remote worker feel bad (by avoiding expressions such as "I see you are at home today"), without giving the illusion that those who come to the office are working harder, by seeing the difference between effort and output.

Before I end my article, I would like to mention another interesting point. In a research I read recently, it was said that in the hybrid system, women prefer to stay at home more because of their care work, while men prefer to go to the office more. It is foreseen that there might be a trend in the future that men might be prioritized in promotion. ?

In short, it's much more than just working from home or the office. The bottom of the iceberg goes much deeper. This is probably a transformation that no institution has experienced so extensively before, a first for all of us. For this reason, I think it is very valuable to share experience and learn from each other.

Considering all these discussions, I will end my article with a question. What do you think are the critical success factors in new ways of working??