Are Flexible Work Options the Answer to Productivity and Job Satisfaction?
New research from Mercer, one of the largest sources of employer-reported data, suggests that more than 80% of employers will offer workplace flexibility at a larger scale as we move beyond the pandemic era. While more flexible work options were required during the pandemic, organizations are now at an inflection point to get back to normal or reimagine the workplace.
Lauren Mason, a principal at Mercer, echoes this sentiment: “As employers look towards reinvention, pre-COVID approaches to flexibility may no longer be sufficient. . .Companies have found—many somewhat surprisingly—that [. . .] over 90% of employers saying [sic] productivity has stayed the same or increased as a result of remote working,” she says. In fact, the pandemic proved that nothing is off the table, including 100% virtual or remote work. Companies should seriously consider hybrid or flexible work options to keep their employees happy and engaged. But HR will need systems and technology that support this while keeping employees informed and engaged while delivering insights to maintain productivity and compliance.
Let's look at 3 key factors why HCM technology is a critical component to create flexible work options that benefit the employee without sacrificing employee efficiency/productivity.
Consistency is The Key to Efficiency
To accomplish a successful hybrid working model, organizations will need to reevaluate their existing HR systems and processes. This is why HCM technology suites offer a wide range of tools that can minimize administrative hassles and streamline communication all in one platform. The last thing anyone wants is to have multiple, disparate processes for in-office and remote employees.
A unified HCM solution provides a consistent user experience on any device. No matter where they are, employees have an easy way to take care of timekeeping, breaks, requests, scheduling, and HR tasks with one login. Flexible work options won’t be successful if employees find it hard and have to use too many systems. Unify all your workforce data so employees, managers and leadership all use one system to keep workforce management processes streamlined and efficient.
Automate and Appreciate
Streamlined task delegation is crucial when considering flexible work options and navigating hybrid work schedules. Rapid conversion to remote work during COVID exposed the limitation of many paper-based or manual processes. Even routine tasks like timesheet approvals turned into a black hole with everyone out of the office. Not to mention the administrative burden trying to manage time off requests, benefits enrollment, scheduling conflicts and more. HCM systems introduce consistency that can be transferred into automation of most managerial processes using workflows. With all employees and managers using one, single system, routine tasks and requests are entered the same way and trigger automatic approvals workflows to manager or HR as the rules require.
Managers don’t have to worry about employee requests through paper, email, verbal or text. And employees don’t have to hope their request was remembered. HCM automation creates a cohesive activity train that ensures tasks are completed and requests are received and approved wherever your teams are working.
Similarly, as remote work models transition and evolve, companies are realizing that they need automation tools to track performance and monitor productivity. The reasons that remote work is so wildly popular with employees is obvious in terms of flexibility and work-life balance. But that doesn’t mean every job or individual employee is suited for remote work. And employers want to avoid employees grumbling about inconsistent management of remote workers versus office workers.
Creating a centralized view of all workforce activity will go a long way in measuring performance and productivity no matter where your employees are located. It also standardizes the data to see trends in labor costs, departmental resources, and time allocations toward critical cost centers. This allows for data-driven decisions to engage and retain top performers, optimize productivity with metrics and applied rules consistently.
Communication Leads to Engagement and Culture
Flexible work options require rethinking the approach to employee communications. HCM solutions make it easy to post communications for employees then the system can take care of relaying announcements, pop-ups, updates, emergencies alerts to other channels available to the employee. Having multiple ways to disseminate information in the channels employees use most builds trust and transparency among workers and their managers. For example, notifications can be used to confirm schedules, approve PTO requests or timesheets, issue company-wide updates, broadcast safety information and government recommendations or mandates.
SMS text message capabilities are an extremely helpful tool, especially for those employees working remotely. In fact, HR administrators and managers can notify employees about urgent matters, such as shift changes/schedule updates, or even emergencies like weather-related or natural disasters instantly via text message. This way employees are notified and can make back-up plans or adjust their schedules or plans accordingly. Relying on SMS is just one more way to reach your employees wherever they are located, or outside standard working hours.
But communication needs to go further than “notifications” to create real employee engagement. Harnessing an HCM platform opens the possibility to deliver company culture-based communications to showcase communal company information or events that can boost morale or foster positive interactions. For example, OnePoint recently launched Company Hub, a versatile and customizable interface that can serve as a company intranet, which allows for tailored or relevant information to be communicated in a self-service portal format with an easy-to-use dashboard layout. The hub allows those with Administrator access to post company announcements, YouTube videos, links to company news, training videos,
social media feeds, a map of office locations, and calendars that track employee birthdays or work anniversaries.
Flexibility and Scalable Solutions for Employees and Compliance
OnePoint's HCM technology is dynamic, cloud-based software that is built on a single database that shares data across all of your applications. Harnessing HCM technology like OnePoint to unify all your employee results in better reporting and people analytics to monitor key metrics and keep up with compliance. Creating a consistent and easy-to-use HCM system promotes efficiency, communication, transparency and fairness throughout an organization, especially with dispersed employees.
