These simple things could help you enable flexible work
Currently, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to flexible work. Every company’s needs differ, and, as Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index Pulse Report showed, it’s of paramount importance to support flexibility in different work styles for your teams. The report suggested, 58% of employees who planned to spend most of their time at the office chose that option so they could do “focused work.” Meanwhile, among employees who planned to work primarily from home, the exact same percentage of respondents said that option would best enable them to do…focused work.
In the long term, to make flexible working work properly will require an approach on an international scale, as well as investment in the right digital tools and reimagined office spaces. The key, is to make sure your flexible work policies are themselves flexible, so everyone can integrate work into their lives. These strategies will empower your organisation to work flexibly right now.
Talk to your team
Even from things as seemingly small as encouraging managers to initiate discussions with their teams and create a space where they feel open to share their views, feedback and opinions would help the possibility of flexible work. Working with your teams either in group settings or one-on-one is great for making agreements and setting principles, so colleagues agree to guide their flexible work practises. In turn all this will help bridge a gap and make flexible working a clearer more beneficial set up.
It’s not about where
Flexible working stretches beyond the boundaries of where you might be set-up to work that day. In fact, according to a LinkedIn study, flexible work appeals more to women. This is ‘perhaps because they tend to juggle more of the household and caretaking responsibilities’, therefore it’s important to let anyone in your team know it’s okay to miss a meeting and catch up later, for example, or that there’s no need to respond to non-urgent messages outside of their chosen working hours. Doing this will create a good balanced and flexible working culture.
Hit record
It’s a good thing to start recording meetings, this allows employees the flexibility to prioritise their time and catch up later if there’s a gathering they need to miss. Microsoft Teams allows meeting hosts to record, and within the recordings there’s a generated automatic transcript, so those who missed the meeting in real time can search for a relevant topic and jump straight to it. This is immensely helpful for flexible working and creating a more rounded approach to meetings.
Teams meetings
Virtual meetings are probably one of the biggest advances in flexible and remote working in the last couple of years. In fact having your meetings as virtual meetings as often as you can again will help the advance of flexible work. Whether it’s because people are working remotely or even if everyone is in office, practising virtual meetings is a necessity. Furthermore, clicking join on teams even when the meeting hasn’t started allows teammates to be a part of the informal catch-up that make coming together so valuable, likewise with the end of meetings as well.
There are many things that change year to year within the working world, and the landscape and environment of it right now looks very different to what it’ll end up becoming. However, flexible working is giving us a glimpse into that and how well connected, balanced and of course flexible work can be! Westwood, as a Gold Partner of Microsoft, are helping to try and allow all our clients and customers the same opportunities at flexible and smart working, we feel like we can help you get closer and closer to the future of working, making Microsoft Teams a real competitor.
