Why should I consider it now?
This week I had great pleasure in joining large multinational organisations discussing the impact of #Covid-19 on their working practices.
There was a unanimous agreement that #coronavirus is still having widespread impact across all businesses one way or another; no matter how big or small. Additionally there was total agreement that at the end of the day, size really doesn't matter; as it is the human resource which makes up any organisation.
Supporting employees at such a testing time has been a real challenge, however there has been several glimmers of positive change forced through by the national and local restrictions imposed on the country and its workers.
It took legislation changes back in June 2014 to give every employee the right to request flexible working, yet right up until 2020 a number of businesses never accepted that flexibility would give a boost to workers and their business. Now many of those sceptical business leaders have seen the significant benefits flexibility can bring and this changed way of working seems set to stay for a fair few months more, with stats suggesting that only 17% of workers in British cities had returned to their workplaces by early August.
As a HR professional who is passionate about supporting business leaders in getting the most from their people I challenge the same business leaders above to now take the next leap and expand #flexibleworking into #AGILE working.
With this ask, I know there needs to be some more education on the difference between flex and agile. It is quite a simple concept to explain, (maybe a little less straightforward to initially implement).
Agile working is more than where and when you work. It links #performance and #outcomes, focuses on working differently, thinking differently and behaving differently.
Embracing agile working opens up an array of new opportunities for all. It can provide a blank canvas in areas such as #recruitment, creates true #diversity of thought and embraces core #values of #trust and authenticity which develop a #culture of high performance.
As I said, the concept is easy, implementation takes some creative thought and planning, something we are now all much better at than 9 months ago!
An agile organisation becomes one that can bend and flex with change, implementing agile generates your own internal #transformational tool providing a greater success with #sustainability, #productivity and #profitability.
Make sure you take your people with you, you don't launch it as a fad or management tool and always lead from the front