Your HR department can draft a policy on flexible working; they cannot dictate how your business should operate. Your CEO can do that.
When deciding on a flexible working policy, there are many things you need to consider. How will it affect recruitment, customers, office costs, workflow, technology, etc.
But this task often lands on HR’s shoulders.
They will add it to the staff handbook and call it a day.
Here is why that shouldn’t be the case.
If your staff is going to work differently, then your business should operate differently.
What You’ll Learn
- Why the HR Department Shouldn’t Decide
- Working Differently = Operating Differently
- It’s the CEO’s Job to Allow Trade-Offs
- How HR Can Be Involved
- Measuring Success
- Conclusion
Why the HR Department Shouldn’t Decide
So you decide you want your staff to come into the office three days a week. Great, now your HR team will create a policy and answer any staff inquiries.
But who will increase the amount of space available in your office?
Who will implement changes to how your team works? Or ensure you are still providing an adequate service to your customers?
All these factors fall outside of HR’s remit. Some departments may require set hours for their customers; others may need uninterrupted time. Finance will need to provide extra space, and tech teams will need to look into providing software.
There is so much that the HR team can do to help, but it should not be their sole decision.
They can identify problems, hear staff concerns, assist with managers and formulate policies.
HR cannot approve every cross-company investment or settle every conflict between departments on its own. If you, as CEO, think it’s their job to decide how you should work you may not be addressing these issues.
An analysis of online discussions published by Joey Havens explores perceptions of who owns future-of-work planning in U.S. companies
That raises the question: what changes will your company make to allow staff to work differently?
Your HR department may write a great policy, but are you really allowing your business to work differently?
Working Differently = Operating Differently
Allowing your staff to work from home is only one form of flexible working. You may also allow them to start work earlier, swap shifts, reduce hours worked per week or give them autonomy on when to work certain tasks.
As mentioned above, everyone won’t be able to work from home. Whether you’re a nurse, warehouse assistant or coder, you will have different options open to you.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 57% of wage and salary workers could vary their starting and finishing times during 2024–2025.
Again, this doesn’t mean all of them are working from home. There are ways you can give your staff more autonomy without making it a WFH option.
For example, you may allow them to pick when they start and finish each day, employees could have flexible start and finish times or hybrid days that allow them to work partly from home and partly on-site.
It’s the CEO’s Job to Allow Trade Offs
Whenever you make a change to the way your business operates, you have to weigh up what pros and cons there may be.
If you decide to allow more time in the office, it may benefit some meetings but require your staff to spend more time travelling and require more space.
By giving your staff more flexibility, you may find your team has less downtime, but you could discover problems with communication.
What benefits do you want to focus on? Speed of service, attracting better talent, decreasing office costs, improving staff onboarding, etc.
Maybe you’ve noticed your new starters aren’t being given enough one-to-one time with their manager. You can look at implementing specific days to onboard your new employees, rather than requiring everyone to work in the office.
You may find that your team doesn’t have the proper documentation or systems to communicate when they work remotely.
It’s important to note that your upper management has a big job to do here. You, as the CEO, can talk to the relevant department heads, make the right calls for your company, and invest money if required.
You’ll also want to lead by example. If your staff see that you value people who are in the office more, they will pick up on that. Make sure you communicate this to your managers as well.
How HR Can Be Involved
Business-wide changes do not mean the CEO must approve individual schedules.
That can cause a lot of confusion and will limit your managers’ ability to manage their teams.
There should be some back and forth between your team, but the CEO should set the direction, while HR, managers, and department heads work together to put the arrangements into practice.
- CEO – determine goals, allow change, and address any problems.
- HR – create policy, advise your managers, and look after your staff welfare. Collect any feedback.
- Ops team – create SLAs, coverages and day-to-day requirements.
- IT & Finance – review the technology required to ensure employees work securely and efficiently. Assess cost.
Each member of your team should understand what they are responsible for when creating these policies. You also want to allow your managers to communicate with you on any decisions they make.
This can help reduce unexplained differences in how employees are treated. Maybe two employees are both in a customer-facing role, but one can come into the office and the other cannot- why?
Gallup found that U.S. hybrid employees whose teams decide their schedules together are more likely to see the policy as fair and say it helps collaboration.
Giving employees some say in their schedules may improve fairness and collaboration, but the wider business results should still be measured.
Measuring Success
Just because your staff is in the office doesn’t mean your policy is a success. It’s something easy to measure, but you should be measuring other aspects of your business too.
As stated, if you allow your employees to come into the office three days a week, you should be measuring other areas of your business that are affected by this.
Maybe your customer service department can now respond to tickets quicker, or your team can collaborate better when working on a project.
Other things to look out for are staff retention, how long your new starters are taking to onboard, and whether they are switching off at the end of the day.
Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom conducted a study in China to see if working from home improved retention, performance and promotion rates. In a randomized trial involving Trip.com employees in China, a two-day hybrid working schedule reduced actual resignations without measurable losses in performance or promotion rates.
This shows why leaders should track measures beyond office attendance.
You can always do the following:
- Establish what you want to achieve and measure it.
- Allow some of your staff to work remotely/hybrid and see if it helps.
- Collect data from your staff and customers, assess your current metrics, and compare.
- See if the results you receive are beneficial; if not, make changes.
Make sure you look at fairness when establishing these metrics; even if your staff can’t work from home, maybe allowing them to pick their shifts would be beneficial to them.
Conclusion
There isn’t one policy that will allow your business to thrive when allowing your employees to work from home or in an office setting. But by assessing your business and looking at the points above, you can work toward an arrangement that suits your team and supports productive work.
