Is “availability” during business hours the new flex work battle?

Is “availability” during business hours the new flex work battle between organisations and their people?

As a leader you might know that frustrating feeling of reaching out to one of your team - they’re supposed to be available - but they don’t respond.

Recently, a usually reliable employee of one of my clients was late coming on and sometimes seemed to disappear right in the middle of the workday.

The leader’s first response was mistrust and a desire for stricter control.

However, upon further inquiry, they discovered that the person’s child had gotten into several fights at their school.

They’d been called to the school and now were needing to be more available for their child at certain times of the day.  (This was not information the employee surrendered readily).

While the leader empathised, it still left them with the need for more certainty about when their team was available.

It turned out it did not need to be strictly between 9 am and 6 pm.

They tossed it back and forth for a while and arrived at splitting their day up into many different ‘shifts’ - including late into the evening after the child went to bed.

It gave the staff member the flexibility to attend to their family and the leader assurance about when they were contactable.

Most importantly it really increased the team member’s loyalty to the organisation. They felt cared for as a human - not just a unit of productivity.

I’ve recently been circulating a framework for productive flex work discussions (message me if you’d like a copy) and have been surprised about how often this particular issue comes up.

Why care about when the work gets done as long as it gets done?

We know that people are more productive when they work in short bursts than sitting for long periods of time.

What's more important for you:

1.      When people work?
2.      How much gets done?

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