Flexible work practices mean getting back to basics
With a skills shortage looming in some areas, and clear and present in others, there's only really one way out – change work practices, or lose business, says Penny Holt.
When it comes to flexible working conditions we're in a bit of a stalemate. There are companies which need staff, but can't get them because they won't rethink the way they operate. On the other side we have highly qualified, highly skilled staff who can pick and choose who they work for, and who are opting for the roles that let them maintain their work life balance.
A lot has been said about the benefits of flexible work practices, in terms of productivity, staff morale, retention rates and growth. But the message simply isn't getting through.
The companies that are doing it, are doing extremely well and will continue to do well as the skills shortage worsens.
But most companies are simply not getting the message, and wondering why they can't recruit the skilled staff they need in a rapidly expanding economy.
By Penny Holt
When it comes to flexible working conditions we're in a bit of a stalemate. There are companies which need staff, but can't get them because they won't rethink the way they operate. On the other side we have highly qualified, highly skilled staff who can pick and choose who they work for, and who are opting for the roles that let them maintain their work life balance.
A lot has been said about the benefits of flexible work practices, in terms of productivity, staff morale, retention rates and growth. But the message simply isn't getting through.
The companies that are doing it, are doing extremely well and will continue to do well as the skills shortage worsens.
But most companies are simply not getting the message, and wondering why they can't recruit the skilled staff they need in a rapidly expanding economy.
And it's only once they get desperate that they start to rethink their approach.
For starters, we need to stop thinking of the role that needs filling in terms of the type of person, and begin by focusing on outcomes. There's this enduring idea that a worker is a person who comes in at 9am, leaves at 5pm and sits at their desk all day. But this idea has nothing to do with what employers actually need when they hire staff.
If you're having trouble filling a role stop thinking about the person you need, and start thinking about what tasks the role actually requires.
Look at the outcomes, and the critical success factors. What do you actually need done within the organisation, and when do you need it done by? What benefit does the role bring to the company and how will it be rewarded?
In most cases what you end up with is very different from a single person sitting behind a desk for eight hours a day, five days a week.
It will look more like: someone to respond to incoming calls and allocate them appropriately, someone to process incoming orders within a certain timeframe and assign work schedules accordingly, someone to invoice completed projects and chase payment, and so on and so forth.
Thanks to the internet most of these sorts of administration tasks can be fulfilled from just about anywhere in Australia. In some cases creating more flexible working patterns will require a little investment in technology, but you'll recoup this by filling the role in a timely fashion, rather than advertising for months on end.
By going through a proper process of job design, and going to market seeking outcomes, you can attract a much broader pool of people faster.
By looking at arrangements such as working from home, part time positions and job sharing, you can open the role to new mums, or older people who aren't interested in working full time, but have skills and experience which would otherwise be lost.
The idea of a job being a full time role carried out to a specific time table in a specific place just isn't fitting with the way people live their lives any more. More importantly it's not attracting the sorts of skills and dedication companies need.
The problem facing corporations is that the best and brightest staff know they are in demand, and can pick and choose their employers, and most corporations are lagging way behind what is happening in terms of families and communities.
And with a skills shortage looming in some areas, and clear and present in others, there's only really one way out; change work practices, or lose business.
The choice is yours.
Penny Holt is a former lawyer with more than 15 years experience in the recruitment industry. She has worked with clients across the professional services and financial services sectors to design and deliver innovative recruitment solutions. Penny is the Founder and a Director of Seed Recruitment & Search, a specialist recruitment agency which places professionals into meaningful, permanent, flexible positions with forward thinking employers. Please visit http://www.seedrecruitment.com.au/
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Douglascomms
April 23, 2008 at 6:55 am
All hail mighty Creon…
One afternoon I arrived to pick my son up from his day care mum's place to find one of the other mothers in tears. Her boss was insisting that unless she immediately returned to work full time she would loose her job. She had been there 10 years, and had returned to work three days per week when her son was eight months old. In order to make the arrangement work she was effectively doing five days work in the three (which is often the case for women returning to work on shorter hours after having a child), and the only reason I could tell for her boss wanting her back full time is to have her sitting there and entertaining his old fashion paternalistic work practices.
Hating every minute of it, she changed everything around and went back full time. Put her son in long day care, and plotted her revenge.
Being a terribly efficient PA, with more than 10 years experience behind her she soon found work with another company, who were willing to let her work from home – so that she could pick her kids up and drop them off from school. It was as simple as diverting calls to her mobile and providing her with access to her workstation from home. So she left, and was offered her old job back about three months later – three days per week with an extra $20K on top of her old wage.
She turned him down, and really enjoyed it.
And unfortunately that's the only way these tired old Creons are going to learn. Those who want to see people sitting at computers in order to believe they are actually working, who want to have their staff wander into their office and talk with them at a moment's notice, who can't understand flexible work practices simply because they don't understand the technology, will loose this debate.
They will loose good staff, they will loose smart, experienced people who are vastly more productive than the newbies they'll need to find in the first place and then train up from scratch.
And quite frankly – it serves them right.
The major stumbling block to more flexible work practices being widely adopted is the paternalism of traditional workplaces – and just like the old workshops which died out in the wake of production-line specialisation, they will struggle and dissappear, crying all the way that they can't find staff becase there's something wrong with the rest of the economy. Simply because they can't understand that talented peole don't want to waste ten hours a week travelling to and from work. That's more than a full working day!
Another friend of mine – very similar situation – goes into the office once or twice a week, works from home the rest of the time, and is able to collect her kids from school and drop them off without any trouble. She began doing bits and pieces from home upon returing from maternity leave, and the her role simply rebuilt itself around her family committments, because her boss acutally saw the benefits of retaining experienced staff.
Those are the companies which will survive into the next decades – and those are the managers who will continue to improve their productivity, while the rest will simply fall into a skills shortage hole.
I admire Penny's attempts to reach those who don't "get it", but I don't like her chances of actually getting them to pay attention.
alison
April 24, 2008 at 3:47 am
But…
Great points, HOWEVER – in my favourite role as devil's advocate, there is some understanding of the employer's position required in these cases.
YES it's important to embrace modern workplace practises and changing what is "acceptable" and "do-able" and so forth. YES it's important to offer parents options when it comes to working arrangements. I will certainly appreciate it when my turn comes.
BUT, I believe an employer has a right to truly assess whether it is possible to reduce the number of working days and hours of a particular role – be it for Mums or otherwise.
In terms of fulfiiling job requirements, it simply might not be possible that a previously full-time role be squeezed into less hours – especially for senior roles. Then again, it might be possible, which is fabulous – but in either case, the employer has every right to ask whether such a move is going to add or remove value from their business as a whole.
It is not always about being slack or behind the times, perhaps a particular role genuinely requires a full-time person to properly fulfil it? Perhaps it's simply not possible to work from home, maybe this role needs to be where the action is, day in, day out? Perhaps the employer needs to consider its other employees and how such an arrangement might affect them and their workloads?
You might say job sharing is always an option here – and it certainly is – but I think it's more complicated than that sometimes, especially, as I've said, for more senior roles within larger businesses. I can appreciate why sometimes it is hard to accomodate all the different needs every employee has.
I'm all for work / life balance, taking advantage of technology and being flexible, I believe it can only make a staff member more passionate about their work and more effective in doing it, but as is always the case in scenarios like this, it helps to put the shoe on the other foot and at least acknowledge where the other party might be coming from.
Douglascomms
April 29, 2008 at 12:50 am
mistaken assumption…
The assumption that more flexible work practices lead to a less effective or less productive work force is quite simply wrong.
I've spent about half my working life working in offices – and half working from home. My measurable output increased three-fold when I'm working in a flexible arrangement, partly because I don't lose 2 hours a day to travel – and because I don't have to put up with the mindless interruptions an office environment invariably throws up.
As Penny points out, in order to properly design a role it has to be rebuilt around outcomes, rather than physical presence, but the benefits for those companies that have been able to make that jump are substantial.
Sure it's not suited to all roles, but the vast bulk of administrative, professional and office work could quite easily be redesigned to take advantage of flexible work practices – and would result in an increase rather than a decrease in productivity.
In contrary to your assertion flexible work practices are more suited to senior roles than junior positions, because senior roles are usually held by highly motivated productive individuals. The global CIO of Citibank runs an international team from her home office in Sydney – she has dinner with her kids then logs on and starts up her day at 9am New York time and works through the Australian night.
As she pointed out to me when we spoke about the role a few years back, it's very rare for a global manager to be in direct contact with the bulk of her staff, so there's not much difference between managing a Houston datacentre from New York, or doing so from Sydney.
So long as you can find your way around basic communications technologies like chat, email and collaboration software you can recreate the essential ingredients of the office environment on line, and there's no reason to waste time commuting to and from an office environment.
alison
April 30, 2008 at 4:10 am
So it’s all individual then
So, what you have described above is a situation that has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Not every CIO or senior level manager would want to work through the Australian night, nor would they be successful at doing so. Clearly these sorts of examples show that a certain type of personality and capability is required to make the most of these sorts of arrangements. Though hats off to the company for having such an accommodating approach.
I wave the flag strongly for flexibile workplace practises, all I am saying is that you can't have "blanket" expectations when it comes to managing jobs, at whatever level, and organisations. Every role, every company and every person that fills a role is different in professional nature and can work under different arrangements.
Yes, some people would prefer home to the office environment, but some are the opposite, as they aren't disciplined enough to ignore the washing, ironing, Oprah….so it's all relative to who the person is and how they work best.
alison
April 30, 2008 at 4:32 am
As a quick follow-up to my previous comment
Flexible workplace practises don't only have to mean working from home options. People who couldn't care less whether they work from home or not may find flexible start/finish times or access to a gym or childcare facility more useful to their lifestyle. Even the option to have a monthly rostered day off instead of a pay rise at salary review time is a good way to achieve work/life balance for some. Again, all individual.
Penny
May 1, 2008 at 12:52 pm
It’s about accessing the best then …
By offering flexible work options, and thinking about how a role should be structured, allows an organisation to access the best available talent – whether it be on a full time arrangement or flexible. I see every day the fantastic talent which may be overlooked because it may be seeking to work flexibly – I call it 'defaulting to the full time option'. There are other things which are important in people's lives – its not just about work and career, but also children, parents, family, community, school, sport, voluntary work…. These things make our lives rich, and real. Its shouldn't have to be an either/or choice. And the most overwhelming difference I see in my work, is the perpective our candidates bring about what is really important to them – relationships, a little time, humanity. It is not just about getting ahead, but rather, meaningful work, capitalising on talents and skills and making a difference in so many different ways. How can this not be good for any workplace?
nicchick25
May 2, 2008 at 2:28 pm
SKILLS SHORTAGE
I was once an apprentice, i am 22 years old, as a first year apprentice 4 years ago I was on an hourly wage of $5.20. That is the problem, people are motivated by money, I understand that apprentices are unskilled but the government need to make it more appealing for young people to do traineeships and apprenticeships. Working a 40 hour week i was bringing home $225 a week and paying $23 tax, it is near impossible to support yourself on that kind of money. the government needs to eliminate tax for people in this position, i know its only a small ammount of money but when you are ending up with $202 a week that $23 makes a world of difference, people might be more motivated and the idea of becoming an apprentice may soon become much more appealing for Australias youth. Rather than taking the easier option, even people on the dole earn more than apprentices!
Sonia
September 12, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Job Share Love-in
I've just started a job-share position, and I am loving it. I'm a part time post-grad student, the other person I share with is a new mum. We're both keen and bring great experience to the role and we both have other areas of our lives that we want to put our time and energy into… and imagine, that doesn't have to be an insurmountable obstacle. We give the benefit of two perspectives, two sets of professional experience. It's refreshing to be in a workplace where that isn't a problem, it's an opportunity to make it work out well for everyone.
My view is that it's a generational thing – I'm in my 20s, and I have a hunch that as the next few years progress, it will just become the norm to incorporate flexibility and a 'can do, let's compromise' attitude in the workplace. (ha, maybe it's part of being the apparent 'selfish generation' – we just expect a non-slave approach where there doens't have to be one)