There’s one style of working which could be here to stay
Most (78%) New Zealand and Australian HR professionals think their organisation's senior leaders may be more open to extending remote-based working to their workforce beyond COVID-19.
New research uncovered changing attitudes among Australian and New Zealand businesses through a Trans-Tasman survey by ELMO Cloud HR & Payroll.
Of the respondents who said their business leaders were ‘somewhat unsupportive’ of remote-working prior to COVID-19, 87% now think their leaders will be more open to allowing their people to work remotely either full or part-time.
For those respondents who believed their leaders were ‘very unsupportive’, 43% believe their leaders are now more open to remote working while 35% believe their leaders had the same views.
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In addition, respondents believed that the COVID-19 remote working experience has made senior leaders become increasingly aware of the opportunities and benefits of remote working.
According to Jason Gay, head of talent at Nitro, the company have seen this as an opportunity to make WFH and having a distributed team a competitive advantage.
“We know that this is likely to shape the future of hiring and recruitment, so we are committed and prepared for the long haul. Nitro could feasibly work 100% remote indefinitely at normalised levels of productivity and customer service,” Gay told HRD.
"With the realisation of WFH being a permanent option it allows us to engage with even more diverse candidate markets. It also comes with new challenges like recreating the culture from a remote setting and building strong internal relationships with people you've never met in person.
"There are several things Nitro is doing to recreate a remote culture. We have groups dedicated to different activities including games nights, trivia, and wine tasting.”
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Moreover, Gay said that every other Friday we have drinks with the newest hires, giving them a chance to introduce themselves in a casual setting. Moreover, Nitro’s leadership addressed recent events in the states on a companywide call and matched employee donations to different charities.
“These efforts reinforce the values we continue to have as a company, for both old and new employees alike.”
Further ELMO research found that more than half of respondents (52%) reported that their organisation has already begun or is planning to begin investing in new technology to support their remote working activity.
ELMO Cloud HR & Payroll CEO and Co-Founder Danny Lessem said the survey insights show how business leaders in Australia and New Zealand are adapting to extraordinary circumstances.
“Business leaders don’t just change policies and procedures overnight. To see 78% of respondents reporting that the believe that their organisations senior leaders will be more supportive of flexible working into the future is a sign of just how large an influence COVID-19 is having on business practices in Australia and New Zealand.
“The move to large scale remote-based working has pointed out the need to invest in technology that makes managing the remote-based working experience easier,” said Gay.
“In many cases, there are still cumbersome manual processes behind the scenes in a lot of organisations. When businesses are forced to completely change the way they operate, as is the case with COVID-19, these manual processes are exposed for what they are - burdensome and unproductive.”