Employee Culture
29 March 2021
It’s exactly a year since Covid 19 forced the UK government to impose a nationwide lockdown. Over the past 12 months, our lifestyles have had to change dramatically (as have our hairstyles), but there’s hope that we’ll return to normality over the next few months, with Boris Johnson’s roadmap to restrictions lifting.
Something that doesn’t look as if it’ll change though is where and how we work. With most people having had no choice but to work from home for the past year, they’ve proved that it can be done and it’s unlikely we’ll go back to a traditional nine-to-five, five-days a week office set up.
Rather than squeeze onto over-crowded trains or sit in traffic five days a week, a much more flexible approach to working is expected to take place. Known as hybrid working, you can choose to offer your employees the option to split their work time between home and the office. This will create a better work/life balance, removing stressful, time consuming commutes and allow people to plan their working day around childcare, appointments or exercise. As a result, your employees will feel understood and appreciated be more productive, as they won’t need to take time off to fulfil personal commitments, but can work around them.
It’s important to also invite employees into the office, both for work and their mental health. The majority of people miss the connection, camaraderie and innovation that comes from face-to-face contact and, let’s be honest, most of us would love to look at something other than our own four walls and, much as we love them, our families!
Many companies are in the midst of making announcements to staff outlining their plans for hybrid working. Salesforce has been a pioneer in the working from home ethos from the very start of the pandemic and carried out employee wellbeing surveys during the first lockdown to monitor how staff were coping with the transition of working from home. The feedback has guided Salesforce’s re-opening strategy, with employees being offered the option to work in one of three ways: Flex – in the office one- to three-days a week for team collaboration, customer meetings and presentations; Fully Remote – working from home full-time; or Office-based – working in the office four- to five-days a week if their role requires it. The majority of employees will work Flex.
Flexible work has huge benefits for your organisation, as well as your employees. When recruiting, you no longer have to limit your search to candidates who live in a commutable distance. The world is now your catchment area and you can search for talent from new communities and geographies. Flexible schedules also remove hurdles that could make it difficult for employees to be in the office daily, or at certain times – collecting children from school or caring for sick family members, for example.
It also allows more flexibility to your clients who operate in different time zones. It’s unlikely all employees can do their jobs to the best of their abilities within a UK nine-to-five schedule. Allowing them to adapt their start and finish times to suit both their personal and professional obligations will result in a better service to overseas clients.
Workers need flexibility to be successful. And you have the means to give them that.
Cognition24 can help transform the working lives of your people, implementing and optimising technology that will allow them to work more flexibly. Our holistic approach always focused the people, process and the technology.
Contact us today and find out how our solutions can help you take the lead in fostering mental wellbeing in the workplace.
