Workplace flexibility is the key to attracting and retaining workers

Like a lot of people, I’ve learned to juggle during the pandemic. I’m not talking about throwing balls in the air — though it feels that way sometimes. I’m talking about juggling my work and home life, which includes an active wife and five rambunctious children under the age of 12. During the early days, when we were on lockdown and my children were attending school remotely, working from home could be both a blessing and a curse.

Of course, it was great to be able to help my children log on to their Zoom classes and prepare a meal in between calls, but there were also times when I craved quiet and longed to be back in my office. I learned during those early months that what I really needed was the flexibility to work in the way that suited me best in a particular moment and for a particular task.

Some days I logged in from home at 8 a.m. and logged off at 5. Sometimes I logged on and off throughout the day as I shuffled between work and taking care of my kids and finished my work after they’d gone to bed.

But my desire to go to the office on occasion wasn’t an option. Until now.

With office spaces around the world opening up again, true workplace flexibility is finally within reach. The question is: Will organizations embrace the opportunity and allow their employees to work in ways that are best for them, or will they revert to their pre-pandemic policies of expecting employees to be in the office five days a week? In the past, organizations have argued against remote work, theorizing that people who worked from home would be less productive, but the pandemic should have put those fears to rest.

Employees learned that they can still do their jobs, they can still be successful, and their organization can still progress forward and be profitable, even if they’re not in the office.

A study released by research firm Omdia in September 2021 found that 68% of enterprises believe employee productivity has improved since the mass move to remote working, with 35% of respondents reporting they have data that backs that notion up. The findings echo those of an earlier 2021 Nintex workplace study, in which 70% of those surveyed reported that their experiences working from home were better and more productive than they expected. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the reasons given were more family time, no commute, fewer interruptions and improved work-life balance.

Our study also found that 51% of all respondents said their work life would improve with the ability to permanently work remotely. It’s notable that it wasn’t 100% of workers or even an overwhelming majority, and this tells us that what workers really crave is flexibility.

In a candidate’s market, flexibility is a must

Whether we’re leaders or individual contributors, workplace flexibility boils down to how we ensure that our work gets done. Period. Obviously, guidelines need to be in place but within reasonable parameters, workplace flexibility shifts the focus from the means to the end, where employees are measured solely on output.

This shift will be instrumental in attracting new employees (we’ll get to the Great Resignation in a moment), but it’s also the key to retaining workers, many of whom are increasingly suffering from burnout.

But even as organizations move toward a future where workplace flexibility will be the norm rather than the exception, they need to structure and support that flexibility.

They should start by providing the tools necessary for employees to do their jobs; physical assets like a computer, microphone or headset; communication tools to automate and streamline processes; and maybe a stipend for a cell phone and internet.

There needs to be structure at the office as well, because many employees want the flexibility to return to the office, and until the pandemic is completely over, they need to know they’ll be safe doing so. Organizations need to have well-defined plans and procedures around the number of people working in the office, how visitors are handled and how to coordinate team meetings.

Beyond the material and logistical, employees need support in myriad other ways. For example, how do you onboard somebody if the company is still largely remote? How do you ensure that you’re providing direction on professional and even personal development? This is particularly important when it comes to younger workers who are trying to get their bearings on life and their career simultaneously — and who could become incredibly isolated working remotely, without the benefit of mentors.

One solution I’m seeing with new employees is an internal, remote mentorship where part of the onboarding process is to pair new employees with seasoned veterans who can provide the insight and unwritten rules of how to engage with colleagues and leadership inside the organization.

This approach not only helps those younger people entering the business but it also helps the mentors, who may be looking for career growth themselves but whose companies can’t currently offer leadership positions. It gives those senior level people the chance to demonstrate that they can take somebody under their wing and have them be successful in a certain amount of time.

Organizations that want to retain their employees and attract new ones need to be cognizant of all of the issues at play and address them head-on. We all know about the Great Resignation. It’s happening because a lot of people re-evaluated their work-life balance during the pandemic. People walked into their kitchen at the end of the day and thought, I’m not happy doing what I’m doing, and now that I’m stuck doing it at home by myself, I’m not sure I want to do it anymore.

This Great Awakening (which I think is more appropriate as a term than the Great Resignation) is an opportunity for businesses to really understand that what people want in their life is flexibility.

For employees, it’s not just about their salary or commission, their 401K and health benefits; it’s also about their mental health. The desire for mental wellness has been looming — largely unaddressed by business — for a long time, but it’s a big part of this shift, and business can’t ignore it any longer.

People are not only asking themselves, “Am I going to be happy doing the work that I’m doing,” but, “Am I going to be happy doing the work in the environment that I’m going to be doing it in?” which could be their kitchen, their home office or their local coffee shop.

Workers today want to know that they are being set up for success, that if they need to be out for a few days to care for their children, a partner or an aging parent, or simply to take a mental health day, that they have the flexibility to do so.

We’re at the point where, for a lot of people, workplace flexibility isn’t a perk, it’s a requirement. It’s the organizations that recognize that and then get the right tools and the right supplemental pieces — whether that’s trainings, programs, or physical or digital assets — in the hands of their employees that will be successful, and those are the ones that will be able to attract more talent and have less attrition.

So we can all stop juggling.

Jesse McHargue is senior solutions engineer at Nintex.