Work life balance: What's in it for employers?13 June 2006
Flexible working is not about employers making life easier on staff - it is a mutually beneficial practice that is simpler to implement than one might think and could deliver tangible advantages to businesses of all sizes. Despite this, there remains some scepticism on the part of employees as to whether their career will benefit from an improved work life balance and it is largely the responsibility of the employer to create an atmosphere in which flexible working can be adopted to best effect.
Research conducted recently by Inter-tel found that 40 per cent of workers in the UK felt that their employers would not trust them to work from home. Furthermore, 60 per cent of those polled said that childless employees could actually harm their careers if they requested to work more flexibly.
Employers with doubts about their role in improving work life balance should consider that in providing the facilities for their staff members to work flexibly, they could benefit in a number of different ways:
- Reduce overheads: Allowing employees to work from home can save companies significantly in terms of office running costs.
- Boost productivity: Putting the technology in place for employees to either work from home or while on the move means that working hours normally wasted on appointments, for example, or travel to and from meetings can be put to good business use.
- Enhanced customer service: Staff members who work flexibly tend to be more contactable, meaning that client requests or problems can be dealt with quickly and efficiently.
- Workplace continuity: Employees who have a better work life balance will be more likely to remain in their role, meaning that business continuity can be achieved more effectively. In addition, it reduces the manpower and financial cost of recruitment.
While these things are undeniably of benefit to businesses of all sizes, there does remain the issue of trust - how to monitor flexible working staff and ensure that work is both being done and being done to a high standard. Maintaining control of the business can be achieved, provided flexible working practices are planned and implemented properly. We will look at the technological side of this in Thursday's article, but here are some general things to think about prior to establishing flexible working.
- Roles: It is essential to establish the employees and the roles they perform that homeworking would be suitable for and how the work of other staff members could be arranged to allow them to benefit too.
- Infrastructure: Assess what kinds of technology will be required, if staff need to access company data a product such as BT's Remote Access Pack for example could be ideal.
- Finance: Work out who will be responsible for what in terms of phone and internet costs for staff members working from home and research technology that could reduce this, such as a voice over internet protocol package like BT's Broadband Voice.
- Man management: Think about how staff working from home will be trained and also consider methods such as intranets to ensure they feel included in the team.
- Control: Establish which files and information will need to made available either via an extranet or a shared drive to ensure both that homeworking staff have access to the tools they need but also so that office based staff and managers may stay up-to-date with work and development progress.
In tomorrow's article we will run through the advantages of flexible working for employees and also investigate what workers should consider if they are thinking about setting up a home office.
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