Increase Workplace Flexibility – Where to start

The potential benefits of workplace variability are numerous — increased morale, motivation, and the ability to attract and retain talent — yet many managers don’t know where to start. Others are afraid that performance could suffer or something important could fall through the cracks. 

Even the most employee-oriented managers have concerns about having employees work outside of normal work hours or at places other than the office. However, by taking a job design approach to workplace flexibility, managers can get the benefits of offering more flexibility while minimizing the downside. Here’s what you need to know:

Job Diagnosis

Not all jobs are conducive to time or place flexibility. However, most have certain duties that are amenable to being done at alternate times and places other than the office. If you look at the jobs you supervise and break them into their component parts, it is likely you’ll find that some tasks, maybe even up to a third of an entire job, lend themselves to time and place flexibility.

Person Diagnosis

Just like all jobs are not equally conducive to flexibility, some employees are better candidates for flexibility than others.

Job Redesign

When the completion of work is not fully dependent on one individual employee, but rather when employees can coordinate actions to the point that many can competently satisfy client needs, employees are freer to work more flexibly.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at  Increase Workplace Flexibility and Boost Performance – Scott Behson – Harvard Business Review.

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