4 things leaders could do more of to step into flexibility
Photo by Justin Luebke on Unsplash
No surprises here: The world of work has changed and is still changing as we speak. In this ever-changing landscape, employees are demanding that business changes too.
Newsflash: Today’s top talent wants to be recognized for their contribution, do meaningful work, and know that the company they spend much of their time working with cares about their wellbeing.
They are seeking a place where leaders are in service of their people, champion their ideas, and support them to make the right changes to meet the growth goals of their organisation.
If this is not what you’re offering, then as leaders, you must reimagine the experience of work.
How you can respond to these changes as a leader
If you’re following along with our EX journey, you might already know that it’s vital to intentionally design an Equitable Employee Experience both for and with your people.
We’ve established four critical areas that define a 21st century employee experience, supporting our clients to define promises across each. Those four areas include:
Growing
Flexible
Rewarding
Connected
You can check out more about all four areas here, but let’s dig into Flexible together.
Here are four questions to ask yourself as a leader (or better yet, have a discussion with the leaders around you!) when thinking about how and where to bring more flexibility into your employee experience:
How are you being flexible in how you honour the individual needs of your people?
Being truly flexible as a leader - and as a culture as a whole - starts with first acknowledging that each person on your team is an individual with different needs, challenges, strengths, backgrounds and more.
We each bring a totally unique intersectionality to the world, and we’re shaped by our history and what’s around us every day. So, how are you understanding and responding to the diversity of needs on your team?
For example, what do you understand about each of the different learning styles of your team, and how do you make room for that difference in your learning culture?
A great place to start is by asking the right questions of your people to understand their needs, and then really listen to what they have to say. Create a space for processing, check in regularly to ensure their needs are being met, and keep the door open always.
Don’t stop there. Hatch a plan, transparently share your plan with your people, and make the changes your people want to see to create an employee experience that is more equitable and inclusive of the unique, individual needs of your team.
Each leader and organisation will have different boundaries around how you’re able to respond to individual needs, it's not a free for all. If you’re unable to make the changes that your people want to see, tell them why with honesty. Help them see that you are doing what’s possible to meet people's needs in the context of our businesses at the time. This is a great place to pull in your cultural foundations, like your values, to use as anchors when helping decide what’s possible to attend to as a business.
We dug into this idea on a recent episode of our podcast, Reimagining Work from Within. Give the convo a listen here.
How are you creating flexible opportunities to grow and develop?
More often than not, leaders who force-feed L&D to their people see lower engagement than those who invite their people to take part in something intentionally flexible that meets their growth goals or needs.
At one point, Google mandated that 20% of their people’s time be dedicated to exploring new opportunities that could benefit Google’s growth. The idea was that this would unlock more creativity and innovation, but for some, it increased their workload, rather than being a helpful replacement for part of it.
Instead of mandating, consider inviting your people to develop their own growth plan. Ask them to tap into their strength and stretch as a leader themselves, consider the gaps they see, and ask for the support they need. This allows each person to play to their strengths to keep the business growing, as well as meeting the personal growth goals they have set for themselves. Even if you’re not a self-managed business, this mentality of inviting your people to step in will support both you and your people.
Where can you offer more flexibility in how your people use their time?
For this question, try to think beyond office hours. Let’s face it, traditional office hours may never have been equitable, even before Covid.
Instead, think about all the ways you ask your people to dedicate their time to work. Is there a way you can bring more creativity to the way they spend their day? Ask yourself, ‘what promise are you making around time that helps people work when they work best?’
For example, ask your team when they are most switched on or most connected to their work. For some, this could be the morning, late morning once the school drop has settled down, or even later in the evening (hoot, hoot, Night Owls out there). Then, support them with an empowering promise that helps them to step into self responsibility and deliver what’s needed - in the time they need, in their way.
Another way to look at this could be to create a promise around thinking about collaborative time creatively. Some folks are more confident speaking face to face, while others are better communicators while walking. Consider inviting your people to choose from a zoom call, face-to-face or a walking meeting to make the most of your time together.
One more way to think about time that I love is to ask your people to be super clear about what time they might need in a day or a week, then schedule the right rituals and connection time around that. An easy breakdown I like is:
- heads up: open time they are available for questions and and interacting with others to deliver outstanding work
- heads down: solo time without interruption
- heads together: dedicated collaborative time where people can bring the right energy and deliver what’s needed as a group
Where can you offer more flexibility in where we work?
Thinking about where we work is often where leaders start to think about offering more flexibility in their employee experience, but as you can see having perspectives on the previous three questions can really enrich this conversation in the business.
Flexibility is so much more than deciding whether or not people need to 'come back to the office'. It's about helping people understand how they create the conditions for doing their best work - themselves and as a team.
At Within, our promise in our employee experience within Flexibility is:
All needs are heard and integrated to support personal freedom of when, where and how we work.
This enables us to collaborate remotely, creatively and inclusively as a global team.
Often, what we hear leaders speak to when thinking about flexibility is only the where and when. And that's where the promises and policies begin and end.
As you can see, flexibility is all about truly listening and responding to the needs of the individual. Focus not on just “when” and “where” but HOW teams of individuals work at their best. Listening to the needs of each individual and creating the conditions for flexibility will always be more powerful than creating a blanket policy.
For more on this or how to create a more equitable employee experience get in touch. We’d love to hear from you!