A sense of freedom — the
ability to choose what you work on, as well as how, when, and where you perform
your work — is a growing priority for talented professionals across sectors and
industries, and one of the core elements of a fulfilling career.
According to a 2009 Forrester report,
by 2016, 43% of the U.S. workforce — 63 million people — are expected to work
from home; 34 million people already do. This trend is driven by a number of
factors, including professionals’ desire to have control over their day-to-day
work life. Millennials are especially keen (as many as 92% in one survey) to eschew office life for more freedom about where and when they
work.
But it’s not just workers who benefit from
freedoms like working at home. Companies that officially allow employees to
work remotely at least three times per month were more likely to report revenue
growth of 10% or more within the last year, compared to firms
without such policies. And some companies, like videogame maker Valve (valued at $3B just two years
ago), attribute much of their commercial success to their open
workflows, i.e. arrangements where employees get to choose which projects they
work on and which roles they play on those projects. Valve also cites this
level of autonomy as one of its primary competitive advantages in recruiting
and retention (check out the company’s Employee Handbook).
YOU AND YOUR TEAM
Best
practices for keeping your team focused and motivated.
Many large companies track and report the
efficiencies and benefits they gain from remote work policies. For example,
Cisco estimates that it saves $277
million each
year from productivity gains related to telecommuting employees. AnLRN study released at the World Economic Forum in Davos found in a deep
study that companies in which employees displayed “high levels of freedom” in
their relationships were 10-20 times more likely to outperform companies with
low freedom scores. These findings speak for themselves.
Here are a few examples of companies that
prioritize a strong culture of self-care and freedom:
·
At The
Gerson Lehrman Group’s global HQ office in New York, employees don’t
have assigned team work areas, but rather work in “neighborhoods” — flexible
working spaces that have various amenities (conference rooms and tables, phone
booths, even overnight lockers) and are free to pick up and relocate to another
neighborhood when they see fit. They also work under highly autonomous
workflows, especially their engineers. Engineers choose their own projects,
engaging with business operators across the company directly — no project management,
no product management.
·
At my company ReWork, all of our employees have four weeks of paid
vacation each year, as well as four weeks of remote work eligibility and
unlimited sick days. We’ve had employees do extended work trips from Colombia,
Brazil, Uganda, and cities across the U.S. We adopted these policies after
months of research and observing similar policies at organizations, such as
Reasoning Mind, a Houston-based educational software nonprofit that also
encourages its employees to take 4-week remote work stints each year.
·
Employees at NationSwell, a new media startup focused on telling
the stories of American citizens, business owners, and ventures changing the
fabric of our country for the better, work together in their New York City
office on Mondays, but are free to roam the city and work in coffee shops or
wherever they please for the rest of each week.
·
Firms like 37Signals, Mozilla, UpWorthy, Universal Mind, StackExchange,
GitHub, and Treehouse are known for having fully or
largely distributed teams from
day one — and they use that to their advantage in recruiting the best talent
wherever they live.
These policies are examples of
results-oriented management thinking. That is to say, policies shaped based on
outcomes, not process. If someone can do their job and do it well while absent
from the office, more power to them.
Here are three things you can do to bring more
freedom into your workplace:
1. Ask
your employees which kinds of freedoms they want, and be prepared to act on
their requests.
Depending on your industry, the product or
service that you sell, and your geographic location, your employee’s needs will
vary. And it’s impossible to know what they want unless you ask them. Employers
have many options when it comes to increasing freedom: remote work,
work-from-home, and paid vacation policies are some of the more commonly known.
But you can also let employees choose their work and managers, select their own
professional development opportunities, or provide incentive-based compensation
for particularly good performance on key projects.
In-person facilitated discussions — not faceless
surveys — are the best way to hear from people as they are more likely to give
you authentic responses. Work/life balance is a very personal thing and to get
the full picture it’s important to listen carefully. If your organization is
too large to hear from everyone in person, make sure to at least flesh out
survey results with a few facilitated discussions from different functional
teams.
2. Spend
time understanding remote communication tools.
Companies like Slack, Hipchat, Yammer, Trello,
and Asana are bringing fantastic new tools to the marketplace that make it
easier than ever before for remote team members to communicate and work
together, as well as interact with company stakeholders. (I think that Slack is
especially fantastic, but don’t take my word for it.)
Professionals who use Twitter and other social networks for professional
reasons are always a tweet away from their teams.
If you’re not sure what team communication
tools to use, get in touch with either a startup founder or folks who work in
your local startup ecosystem. They are more likely to know of the latest
offering that has been fairing well with early adopters.
3. Be
vocal about your work policies related to freedom.
Adopting high-freedom policies is a
competitive advantage in the talent market. The more nuanced and relevant your
policies are, the more competitive your hiring brand will be. If you have great
benefits but don’t have a dedicated (and concise) section of your careers page
or job descriptions that explains them, or you don’t talk about them during
candidate interviews, you’re missing an opportunity to leverage that asset.
It’s much easier to recruit and retain great
talent when you are giving employees what they want while helping them excel at
their jobs. More and more people want the freedom to decide where, when, how,
and with whom they work. Do your best to provide that freedom.
Nathaniel
Koloc is co-founder and CEO of ReWork, a
mission-driven recruiting company that specializes in sourcing purpose-driven
professionals for companies operating in the purpose economy.
This article is about HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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