Job Flexibility is King

And first of all, I want to go ahead and give a , a , a thank you a shout and thank you to a friend of mine, Jolene Risch with Risch Results. She's got a great , um , staffing recruiting firm based in Dallas, and a lot of the article, a lot of the podcast we're talking about today focuses on a number of things that she shared in a recent newsletter. Thanks Jolene . You know, the key thing is nowadays with what people are looking for in a workforce.

It's amazing when you think about it, because this has changed over the years and recently as we kind of move forward past a pandemic, make it's really become the number one thing people are looking for is flexibility in their, in their job. And you may say why flexibility, but multiple polls are really focused. That flexibility outpace is higher, pay more time off , uh , feeling comfortable in job security and also company co , which is really interesting.

But for many employees, this is really, really focused. As companies went through the throes of a pandemic and many organizations actually allow the individual or employees to work from home.

This really brought to light the idea of flexibility and feeling that you didn't have be tethered to a desk and be at your workplace from eight to five, you know, parents navigated and a number of people of course, are working parents and they had to navigate their working hours around kids' schedules working. Um, and so they had to really focus on what would they do around their children's schedules. And this allowed them though with , um , being able to work from home and being flexible there.

This allowed them sometimes to work earlier in the mornings, maybe later in the evenings and things like that. Also workers took autonomy over their daily schedules, carving outbreaks to run errands, possibly exercise, or just simply taking a time for ifs . It's a nice day to go outside for a walk. And that really helped with their engagement and their just overall wellbeing. After that, they really felt much more motivated and productive to get back to work.

And in a lot of cases with this flexible workforce and working from home, a lot of people actually didn't work less hours. They actually worked more hours and they were actually more productive because they didn't have the , um, they didn't have to work , uh , worry about the commute work for getting ready to work and getting , um , you know, getting dressed up and doing makeup and hair . And what have you.

They were able to just jump into work and get started with their day when it was convenient for them. And a lot of times, again, they worked longer hours. A lot of employees also moved to new cities and states, and they were no longer bound by their daily commute to the office. So that was another huge benefit, especially if you moved from a higher cost living area to possibly somewhere of lower cost, or maybe you wanted to live somewhere closer to the mountain, so you can go skiing.

But there was a lot of reasons why the idea of flexibility in being able to work from home has really become very, very enticing to employees. Jolene Risch , uh, had run a , uh , small survey and she actually found in her local survey that flexibility was 45% of the people. That was the number one criteria they wanted in the job followed by compensation company culture, and then job security, which was a , which was a very far forth . So what does it mean to really be flexible in your workforce?

You know, offer choice, work, remotely work hybrid. I know a lot of companies have moved to maybe having people come to the office a few days a week, possibly two or three, and maybe the other days they can come to the office if they had meetings or they could work from home. So allowing empowering employees was huge to allow them options around how they actually conducted their work, offer employees also flexible hours.

And I live in the Dallas area and anybody who lives in a large metropolitan area knows, and they have to hit the road at seven o'clock or seven 30 in the morning. They know that commute is just brutal. So one of the things that I've seen this for years is allowing people flexibility. Uh, especially if people have younger kids, they need to drop off at school or daycare. Um, why do they need to be at the office at eight?

Maybe they can be there at eight 30 or nine and they just work different hours to get their work done. So that's another huge thing too. Also, the other nice thing about working remotely is some employees don't work where the office is geographically located. So maybe they do move to the mountains. Maybe they move closer to the ocean. Maybe they're doing something that again is not focused on. My job is based in California and LA. Therefore I need to work there.

Maybe they can work someplace different because that's really meets, gives them much more , uh , greater purpose and gives 'em more work life balance. So that's a great thing to do. And also the last thing too, which is really important is trust your employees , uh, trust their, you know , employees to manage their calendars, possibly looking at reducing meetings that aren't necessary. And then they can gain more time to actually be able to focus on their time and be more productive.

Of course, the rise of flexibility doesn't have to mean the demise of a workforce culture. So one of the key things that I talked to clients now on a regular basis is you still have to maintain your company culture. And so the way your company culture was designed possibly earlier a couple of years ago may not be the way that it's gonna be designed. Um, now, and so that's one of the key things.

And especially as you focus on retaining and attracting talent, one of the key things, I think a lot of people are looking for in their next opportunity when they look at possibly leaving their current employer is flexibility. And this is a great way. Not only to be able to retain key people, but also to attract key people.

What are you doing to do differentiate yourself in the marketplace versus offering competitive pay offering possibly , uh , a good healthcare package offering a competitive time off. It could be flexibility around how people work, trusting in them that they're gonna get their work done. And this could be a huge way to differentiate, differentiate yourself in a very cluttered marketplace to hire people. I know that current studies show there are millions of job openings right now in the us .

So the more you can do to differentiate yourself in the workplace as to how you differ from the company down the street is going to be huge. So those are a couple of things I wanted to focus on about the key aspects of flexibility. So that about covers it for today. Thanks for listening. Well more on all things pertaining to HR, visit us at HRCatalystconsulting . com and don't forget to like us, subscribe to our podcast until next time. This is Mark Mitford. Thanks for listening .