Humans like to feel we a have choice, believing we are somewhat in control of the way that we work. While in many roles, there is not the scope to work remotely, where flexibility is possible, the benefits to both the employer and the employee need to be considered when determining work patterns. Someone had resigned from his position after working for the company for over ten years, his reasoning: he didn't feel that he was welcome to work in the office (the company had moved to ‘hot desking’ and had been vocal about its desire to reduce office space into the future), and really disliked working from home as it was not his preferred style and craved connection with his collegues. Companies who move to remote working without giving the due consideration to the effects on employee wellness should not underestimate the effect this can have on retention. The debate over returning to the office is still strong,12 months after we were in a position to do so. The element of freedom and flexibility is higher on the list of employee values than ever before. The individual mentioned above actually moved to an organisation where they were all working in the office. I was involved in the roll out of activity-based working in one of Australia’s largest companies a few years ago. When we rolled out the initiative, employees were told that they had the autonomy to be “free range chickens”. Free range chickens can choose where they roost, lay their eggs, wander around and chat with their work mates. Employees were free to work wherever, some days in the office, some days from home, some days from their holiday home, some people would come into the office at exactly the same time and sit in the same desk every day, because it was their choice. A key determinant in the success of the roll out was taking the time and resources to completely set up the office, home offices, and employees for activity-based working. The office it was fully designed for purpose with quiet rooms, couches and breakout areas for casual conversations, meeting rooms with all AV capability, sit down and stand up desks. There is a difference between offering work from home (WFH) and offering flexibility. Stanford economist, Nicholas Bloom, reports findings from an experiment with a Chinese call centre in this TEDx Talk. The home working experiment led to a 13% performance increase, subsequently, they rolled-out the option to WFH to the whole firm and allowed the experimental employees to re-select between the home or office. Over half of them switched, which led to the gains from WFH almost doubling to 22%. When the employees could experiment, learn and then select where they worked that was when the greatest increases in productivity were realised.
Ultimately, what everybody desires is freedom. Freedom to work where they want, when they want, and the way that they are most productive. Every employee is as different as the feathers on a chicken, some people who are not comfortable working from home all the time. Flexibility = Choice = Freedom, when you can raise and nurture a team of free-range chickens, you will reap the productivity rewards that choice offers.
Knowing what freedom means to you is the first step in making a career change. Perhaps you feel trapped because of financial constraints. I can support you to determine where your priorities are and how to live according to your values. Please reach out.
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