Employees being trained on flex benefits

Survey Shows Flex Benefits Boosted by Training

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By Greg Kratz

Companies that offer flexible work options tend to see a boost in innovation, communication, productivity, and engagement. But until flexibility is a core part of the company’s strategy, it won’t fully recognize those flex benefits.

These conclusions are supported by a recent study from the Flex+Strategy Group (FSG), according to flexible workplace strategist and FSG CEO Cali Williams Yost.

“Yes, the benefits of a well-executed flexible work culture strategy to the business and people are clear,” Yost said in an email interview about the study. “The key words being ‘well-executed’ and ‘strategy.’ Right now, according to the research, work flexibility is NOT being well-executed, as the majority of employees with some degree of flexibility already (which is basically everyone) receive no training or guidance. And, a sizeable percentage don’t view that work flexibility as a ‘strategy.’ It’s either a ‘perk/benefit,’ or they aren’t sure what it is.”

The survey of 595 full-time employed adults conducted for FSG by ORC International showed that 98% of respondents reported that they had some form of work flexibility, and more than one-third said they now do most of their work from a remote location.

A press release about the study said that, of those who do work flexibly, 45% feel that flexibility increases their ability to “communicate, create and innovate with colleagues.” The survey also found that 60% of flexible workers feel they’re “more productive and engaged.”

Among remote workers, 41% said flexibility increased their communication, creativity, and innovation, and 58% said they felt more productive and engaged.

But despite the broad acceptance of at least some flexibility throughout the workforce, 57% of responding employees reported that they had no training or guidance on how to manage it.

“Fewer reported receiving such instruction than previously—only 42 percent in 2017 compared to 47 percent in 2015,” the press release said. “That’s a red flag for Yost, who notes the investment in training and resources to support flexibility has significant and positive business impacts.”

Yost said that she does think more companies are showing visionary leadership in this area, recognizing that effective flexibility requires more than a policy or program.

“It requires that we fundamentally rethink the way we work individually, as a team, and as supervisors,” she said. “It means we need to be more intentional about how we use the technology we have and leverage all of the workspace options that are available—on- and off-site—to get the job done and sustain well-being. The challenge now is to show those organizations who know they need to build flexible work cultures how to do it. Most don’t have a clue, because the traditional approach isn’t going to get them there.”

The survey showed a clear difference between companies that “have a clue” when it comes to training about flex and those that don’t. According to the press release, 70% of workers who received flex training reported feeling that their flexibility made them more productive and engaged, compared to 53% of those who had not received training.

“Similarly, there was a significant difference between those flexible workers who did receive training and reported their ability to communicate, create and innovate increases (53 percent) compared to only 39 percent among those who didn’t receive guidance,” the press release said.

Yost said some companies struggle with this problem because they don’t know what they should be training people to do.

“For example, in a flexible work culture that achieves high performance and well-being, each individual needs to be trained to be more intentional about what they need to get done, on and off the job,” she said in the interview. “They need to then learn how to leverage the work flexibility, technology, and workspace options available to them to get those priorities accomplished productively.

“Teams need to learn how to coordinate how, when, and where they are working, and supervisors, in addition to mastering just good management basics, need to support and calibrate the use of all forms of flexibility to ensure the work is getting done well.”

According to the study, even that training is not enough. It needs to be followed by “a period of active experimentation with these new skills and tools,” the report said. “They need space, support, and permission to try, fail, and try again. This pilot period builds the momentum of innovation that breaks through very natural human resistance to change.”

If businesses want to reap all of the benefits that flexibility brings to both their workers and their bottom line, they must start creating this culture change now. Yost said in the interview that we are coming to a “tipping point” at which a growing number of senior leaders see that converging trends will require them to be more strategic in their approach to work flexibility.

“Those trends include the demands and expectations of the people you want to hire and keep for flexibility in the way they do their jobs and manage their lives; the increasing capability and functionality of technology; the pressure to optimize resources (e.g., do more with the same or fewer resources) while sustaining well-being; and finally the drive toward denser, more open office spaces that are very hard for many people to concentrate in every day,” she said.

“Only when work flexibility is approached as a strategic, culture-based imperative will the investment in resources and effort, including training, happen in a way that is effective and meaningful.”

Photo Credit: bigstockphoto.com

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