Tom O'Neil: Flexibility top priority for staff

Your home, your office, your life.

With the rise of highly talented Generation X and Y team members, employers now need to be more creative and competitive in what they offer staff in terms of total package. Rather than just the typical salary plus phone, employers need to understand that flexibility is what many employees most desire in their work schedules.

Not putting any thinking around this concept will mean more traditional employers will lose in two ways. Talented candidates will not join their company and top team members already employed by them will start to leave in droves when they understand that a competitor will give them both a great career, and also the flexibility to live their lives how they wish to outside the office.

These days there are a whole range of initiatives employers can put into place to give their team members more flexibility in their working week. Examples include:

Telecommuting

Telecommuting (also known as working from home, or e-commuting) allows an employee the ability to work from outside the office, usually from home or a location near to where they live. According to a study by Global Workplace Analytics, about 3.9 million US employees (2.9 per cent of the US workforce), worked from home at least half of 2017.

With the regular return commute into our cities taking more than two hours for many commuters, this has become a highly viable way to give staff greater freedom regarding their work hours and work location. In my own business CV.CO.NZ, our staff are home office based, in locations all around New Zealand, including Avondale, Waiuku, Tauranga and Oamaru.

Although a high level of trust is required by the employer for this work style, employees tend to be more productive as they are not facing the distractions of a traditional office space, and have the freedom to pick and choose how they work.

Job sharing

Job sharing allows two or more people to work part-time in the same position, with the pay, holidays and benefits divided between them. Usually the role is divided equally, however on some occasions, each person may focus on specific projects, skill sets or client groups that best suit their own expertise.

Again the benefits for this are many, as this approach gives an individual the ability to match the position to their own life requirements. Being involved in their children's lives, and dropping the kids off to school in the morning, is worth its weight in gold to many parents.

Three-day weekend

Perpetual Guardian made international news with their three-day weekend and this style of employment is now becoming more of an option for many businesses. The ability to be paid for a full-time role, yet genuinely pursue your hobbies and interests over a three-day stretch is a massive benefit when looking to offer work to top candidates.

For those employers who are afraid their trust may be misplaced by rogue employees playing tennis when they should be working away at their home-office, make sure there are strong weekly Key Performance Indicators, ensuring that the work is being done properly and professionally.

Contact Tom O'Neil and the team at CV.CO.NZ for a free CV or LinkedIn assessment or to be your personal career coach. Visit CV.CO.NZ or CareerCoach.nz to find out more.