Expert opinion

Seeing flexibility from a different angle: Why employers shouldn't assume   posted by James O'Loghlin - 16 June 2009 Seeing flexibility from a different angle: Why employers shouldn't assume Imagine you employ people who work in an office and that one day one of your employees came to you and said that they had been doing some thinking about their life, and they had come to two conclusions; one, that they enjoyed their job and wanted to keep doing it, and to progress in their career, and two that they wanted to spend more time with their family. Imagine they went on to tell you that on average they spent and hour and a half each weekday evening with their kids, and they wanted to double that time. As their employer, you might feel two things. Sympathy for their dilemma, and concern that what your employee was about to propose would not help to your business.

Say your employee went on to tell you that they had been assessing their own workday performance and they had realised that it could significantly improve. Say they told you that over the last month they had made an effort to ensure that from the moment they arrived at work until the moment they left, they were totally focused on getting their job done as well and as efficiently as possible. As a result that stopped chit chatting on company time, halved the number of breaks they took and shortened their duration, and taken steps to ensure that they dealt efficiently and productively with others.

What would you be thinking then? (Probably 'Great, but where's the sting?')
Here's the sting. Say they told you that as a result of these changes they believed they had increased their productivity by 20%, and that therefore a day's work that used to take them 9 hours to do was now taking them on average 7 and a half hours.

What would you be thinking now? That they were making the case for a pay rise? If they were, and you could verify their numbers, the fact that they had significantly increased their productivity would make fairly good case, wouldn't it?

Say they said they didn't want a pay rise, and went on to tell you that they had identified parts of their work that did not necessarily, by their nature, need to be done in the physical environment of the office during business hours. Work such as reading reports, responding to non-urgent emails, writing proposals and reports, working on spreadsheets. Essentially anything involving reading and writing that had a deadline that was at least tomorrow.

Say your employee told you that they intended to stop reading the paper on the train and do 15 minutes of their reading and writing work on the way to the office, and another 15 minutes on the way home. In addition they tell you that, instead of watching TV after their kids have gone to bed, they want to start doing an extra hour of work at night.

'How's this for an idea' they say. 'I will do an hour and a half's work outside the office every day. In addition I have significantly increased my productivity, and I will continue to keep it at that level. I will meet all my deadlines, and when I am not in the office I will be available via mobile phone, laptop and blackberry. If you really need me for a late afternoon meeting I will be there. But I want to leave 2 hours earlier. Not 6pm, but 4pm.'

'If I do that' they continue, 'then taking into account my increased productivity -that is that I am working hard while Bob and Sally down the corridor are chatting about the weekend, or playing office politics-, and the work I do outside the office, you will see if you do the maths that you, my employer, will actually be getting more work from me that before. What do you say?'

If an employee came to you with that proposal, what would you do? Would you let that self-starting, motivated, committed and sensible employee walk out of the room disappointed and resentful, and thinking that they were going to keep on with their job with you for only as long as it took to find a more flexible employer, or would you have them walk out of their room with a big smile on their face, determined to always do their job to such a high standard that no one would ever be in a position to say that the new work arrangement their employer had agreed to let them try was not working?

The first duty any employer has when an employee suggests a flexible work arrangement is to assess what effect the arrangements could have on the business. If the arrangement is going to be bad for the business, if there are real reasons why it just will not work, then the employer will often have to say no.

But employers shouldn't get scared of the new and simply assume an arrangement like the one outlined above will be bad for the business. They should do a hard-headed and dispassionate analysis of the costs and benefits of any proposed arrangement, both in the short term and the long term. For example, one cost of saying 'no' may be that there will be a greatly increased chance that a good employer will leave the organisation. One benefit of saying 'yes' may well be that you will have created a grateful employee who will be motivated, hard-working and loyal.

It's easy to get pre-occupied by the idea that if you don't know where all your employees are at all times anything could go wrong, and disaster could strike. Is that really the case? If you do need to speak to them at 5pm, what's wrong with using the phone?

When someone proposes a flexible working arrangement, and you are about to say 'no', ask yourself this; Are you saying no because you know it's going to be bad for the business, or are you saying 'no' because you are assuming it will be bad for the business? If it's the latter, you could be about to make a big mistake.

James O'Loghlin, is a former lawyer who currently hosts 702 ABC Sydney's evening programme and "The New Inventors" on ABC TV. He has recently published a book on work/life balance 'How To Balance Your Life: Practical Ways to Achieve Work/Life Balance' published by Allen and Unwin. The book is available at How To Balance Your Life.