We’ve all heard about flexible hours, remote working and working from home. Even if these concepts were foreign to you prior to Covid-19, they should be very familiar by now. As employers navigate their way to a new normal, it’s clear that flexible working arrangements are crucial if you want to retain top talent. In this article, we’ll look at some strategies to help you manage flexible hours and retain your best workers.
Focus on outcomes, not hours
For many employers, the rise of remote work requires a significant mindset shift. Traditionally, people have been paid hourly rates for the time they spend at a workplace. But when you consider any kind of flexible working arrangement, you need to think about job output rather than hours worked. Whether it’s the hours worked or the location of work, flexibility requires employers to judge a person’s performance on their work, not the hours they spend at a desk.
If you’re lucky enough to have top talent on your team, and they can consistently meet their targets while working different hours, encourage them to do so.
Structure daily hours differently
Just because somebody wants to work flexible hours doesn’t necessarily mean they want to work fewer hours. Consider if there are ways you can structure your workforce differently to allow for unique daily hours requests. For example, let’s say a parent wants to work earlier in the morning and later in the evening, but they require two longer breaks for school pickup and dropoff. As long as you aren’t breaching any labour laws and the employee receives appropriately spaced breaks, this is a win for everybody.
Depending on the size of your workforce, you may even decide to structure daily ‘shifts’ differently to cover more hours of the day while not requiring any individuals to increase their hours.
Consider requests on a case-by case basis
Flexibility is one of the keys to retaining your top talent. So, if your workers have specific needs regarding hours or work conditions, try to approach each request from a ‘yes’ point of view first. That is, try to approve all requests as a general rule, as long as they fit in with business needs. If they don’t, you’re within your rights to negotiate other arrangements with the employee. But flexibility isn’t bad, so it pays to be open-minded. Assess each flexible hours request independently, based on business needs, employee needs, and employee performance. Flexible arrangements aren’t always the best option if someone has performance issues in the office.
The balance between flexibility and fairness
With regard to the point above, you also need to find some balance between rules and flexibility. When you assess requests individually, there is a risk of perceived favouritism or bias. However, the only way to stop this is to come up with a restrictive set of rules and guidelines for what will and won’t be approved. This creates a stifling work environment.
Always try to balance being flexible and being fair to everyone.
Rethink your office setup
Changing your office setup is another way to offer more flexibility and appeal to a wider range of top industry performers. Do you really need to rent a large office space if your employees enjoy working from home? You might consider downsizing to a smaller office or even a co-working space. Serviced offices and co-working spaces are great for hybrid workforces, as they allow staff to attend the office sometimes but still enjoy the flexibility of working from home. For companies, it represents a big cost-saving on rent.
Sell the benefits
Finally, if you want to retain your top talent and think you’ve got some great flexible work arrangements in place, you have to sell it. Staff members can get negative at times and often don’t realise exactly what benefits they receive. If you offer flexible arrangements, do some research into how much money a person could save on commuting to work each day. Share stories of employers and employees working together for flexible work outcomes. Make sure people see the value of what you offer as an employer, because it always needs to be a two-way street.
Need help retaining your top talent?
Salexo offers expert consulting and recruiting services for the sales industry. As HR professionals and industry leaders, we’re big on helping businesses retain their top talent. Flexible hours are just the tip of the iceberg, so if you need further help to find the best talent out there, contact Salexo today.
