Flex goes underground
In my hometown, I get more unsolicited emails and messages from one particular organisation than any other. The chief executive is known to be anti-flex. The emails and messages I receive are from frustrated employees and leaders who wish they had access to the kind of flex work that other similar organisations now take for granted.
Everyone knows how inflexible this organisation is in reality. Only yesterday I got a message from someone who has been offered a fantastic job with them, but they don’t know if they can accept it because they’ll lose the flexibility they rely on to manage a demanding job and everything else life has in store.
Flex goes underground
What’s happening in reality is that flexibility is being offered, but leaders are doing it under the radar. Clandestine arrangements are being put in place so that leaders can do what they can to attract and retain their team and avoid the pain and cost of losing them to a competitor down the road. The problem is, deals are being inconsistently applied, determined by what leaders think they’ll get away with. Perceived top performers are often given better deals and resentment is building across the business.
It’s a losing strategy
The organisation is missing out on potential productivity gains from openly offering flexibility and they’re accepting a higher risk of burnout across their workforce. They’ve also given themselves one less lever in their carbon emissions reduction strategy.
If you’re not prioritising flex, this is the kind of scenario you can expect. Your leaders will be giving people flexibility, under the radar, and they will be doing it inconsistently. They’ll be undermining what you thought was going on by putting flex deals in place. These bad habits eat away at your leadership trust and cohesion. You’re also missing out on the kind of benefits you can expect if you were to bring flex out into the light.
You’re probably spending eight percent more on salary than you need to and selling yourself short when it comes to attracting and retaining the right people, especially with underrepresented groups including women, people with disabilities, and people from minority backgrounds.
You might expect that I’ll tell you to release the shackles, open up all types of flex across your entire organization, and open the floodgates.
No, don’t do that either. You’ll just get chaos and it’ll make you wish you’d left it well alone!
By doing that you’ll end up with flex arrangements in place that don’t work. I’ve met enough anti-flex and flex-hesitant leaders over the years who have good reasons for being cautious. Here’s how you can avoid going from bad to worse when you open up more flex.
Start with a strategy
First, develop a workforce strategy that lines up with what your organisation is trying to achieve.
What ways of working can help you deliver on that strategy?
How will that differ across different parts of your workforce?
How can you make that clear and measurable?
You’ll want to track your progress as well as look out for unintended consequences. This way you’ll adjust, do more of the good stuff, and let go of what isn’t working.
Building new skills
Next, support your leaders and team members to build the skills that they need for success in today’s flexible world of work. Avoid the common mistake of relying on a policy relaunch. That won’t change anything in practice. Training your managers to make great flexible work decisions with their teams is critical. They are exhausted right now. The world of work changed so drastically in the last few years and they are tired of having to work it out on their own. Give them the support and they will deliver for you, just as they have in the past.
Make flex your priority
If you want to lean into the fast-evolving world of work, prioritise flex, but do it in the right way. You’ll find that you’ll attract and retain the right people, make significant productivity gains, reduce your risk of workforce burnout, reduce your carbon emissions while taking the pressure off your salary bill.
So, why wouldn’t you?