There's a tug-of-war between employee and business needs
In the post-Covid world, the HR industry is facing a tricky juggling act. Employees’ desire for flexibility is here to stay but on the other hand, some businesses may need (or feel they need) workers to return to the office. In the talent-short market Australia is experiencing right now, making the wrong call could see employees turning elsewhere – so how can HR strike the right balance?
HRD spoke to Helen Attia, people and organisational development director APAC at software firm Civica, who said it’s vital that employers don’t take a “one-size-fits-all” approach when it comes to flexibility.
“It’s fair to say that we're still navigating what our future of work is and we're using constant feedback to get a sense of what people want,” she said. “But we know we're not going to get this right first time, we're going to have to constantly evolve our approach.
“We are certainly trying to cater to the diverse needs in terms of customers, different roles, as well as very specific individual needs. But I think this is where flexibility gets interesting because what one role can do for a variety of reasons, another role can’t do. What we don't want to do is inadvertently exclude certain populations because they can't take advantage of the same level of flexibility that other roles can.”
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For organisations like Civica, with a large, global workforce and a variety of roles, mapping out how employees will work in the future is a complex process. Attia said it’s been HR’s job to provide leaders with the framework of what a blended way of working should look like, encouraging them to then take those guiding principles to their team and ask for feedback.
“At its highest level it's this idea that our main facilities are there for people to come together, to collaborate, communicate and connect,” she said. “It’s an activity-based approach of asking where are you going to be most effective? If you’ve got a day of report writing, then stay at home if that works for you.”
For many companies, HR teams are facing unchartered territory, and moving away from the structured comfort of 9-5 Monday to Friday can feel like a daunting process. But Attia said encouraging staff to have a voice in the process through things like employee forums has been effective for fostering a healthy company culture at Civica.
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“We’ve got an employee-led forum called Agents of Change which has been a spinoff from our focus around D&I,” she said.
“This is a group of individuals across the business with diverse roles who drive passion projects, things that they think are of interest to enable people and our business to be more effective. For example, they have organised sessions around psychological safety, as well as educating people about harassment in the workplace and the support in place.”
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Taking this same approach to flexible or hybrid working will enable the business to better juggle the needs of employees and of the organisation, Attia said. Then it’s about encouraging buy-in from managers and training those still struggling with the increased ambiguity around how to lead dispersed teams. While there’s certainly no one, simple answer, the pandemic does offer organisations the chance to rethink how they work, leading to a better work/life balance than ever before.