As workplaces fumble a return to some sort of normality in the wake of Covid-19, an issue that has confounded HR for years has been given a new lease of life – just how flexible should flexible working policies be?
If the global pandemic has shown us anything, it is that the long-held beliefs of many managers that remote or home working would bring their businesses to a grinding halt are simply not true. Remote working has been shown to be a feasible approach for many organisations, with minimal impact to productivity and employees enjoying more flexibility in structuring their working days. Of course, once the Pandora’s box has been opened, it’s hard to put the lid back on. Many employees, having now had a taste of a much more flexible approach to work locations and timings, are protesting the attempts of their bosses to get them back into the office. In recent months, firms like JPMorgan, PwC and Ford have announced stricter policies around working from the office. Even tech companies with a historically flexible approach to home working, such as Apple, Google and Amazon, are tightening the reins.
HR is therefore facing something of a conundrum: How to find a solution that keeps both of our main stakeholder groups happy? Is this even possible? There is an assumption built into this debate that some level of home-working is probably a good thing, at least from an employee engagement and well-being perspective. However, the challenge is reconciling this with managers’ desires to see rows of faces peering up at them from the office floor.
If HR is to broker a solution to this challenge, there are some management concerns that need to be addressed, or even debunked, before the positive aspects of gone working can be touted.
- The “T” word – Trust. Some employers may worry that their employees won’t work as hard or be as productive if they are not in the line of sight of their boss. There are also concerns that there are too many other things competing for employees attention at home, whether that be family issues, or just the X-Box!
- Communication challenges: Even in this hyper-connected world, managers worry about being able to communicate with employees who are working at home. Some bosses like to be able to drop by an employees desk to ask a quick question, believing it to be quicker and more effective than sending an instant message. Some just prefer “the human touch” with meaning and context being better conveyed in a face to face conversation.
- Technological challenges: Remote working requires a reliable and secure internet connection, and some employers may not have the resources to provide the necessary technology to their employees. This can make it difficult to manage remote workers and ensure they have the tools they need to do their jobs effectively.
- Loss of team cohesion: When people work remotely, they may feel isolated and disconnected from their colleagues, which can lead to a lack of teamwork and collaboration. Some employers may worry that this will lead to a decline in the overall performance of the team.
- Lack of control: When employees are working from home, employers may feel like they have less control over their work and their behaviour. This can be particularly challenging for managers who are used to having direct oversight of their teams.
Some of these issues are more feeling-based than fact-based, so HR must come prepared to address all of these points effectively, using data wherever possible to get managers more comfortable with the idea of adopting more flexible working practices. However, some of these, like team cohesion, are hard to measure. There is no direct metric for cohesiveness, so other data points need to be considered. These may include quality of work, completion time and customer satisfaction scores.
A compromise between what employees desire in terms of home working and what managers are willing to allow may be a useful way to influence leaders into adopting a more progressive approach. This will require some careful navigation on the part of HR. To further management allay fears, the compromise approach can be run as pilot within a team or even across the whole company for a period of time. Reminding managers that remote working was mostly effective during the pandemic and understanding their concerns about any specific work issues they arose during that time may help. That way, these concerns may be addressed as part of the pilot.
The remote / home-working debate has been around for years, but the global pandemic has given it a new lease of life. Solutions are possible, but not necessarily easy, and expectations on HR to find these solutions are high!
