The home advantage

The option of working from home is a popular incentive, with many seeking better work/life balance. Michael Page’s Jason Hemens examines how HR professionals can assist

With the unemployment rate at its lowest in nearly 30 years, staff retention has emerged as a key business focus and important strategy in maintaining a competitive advantage. Many of the retention strategies on offer are designed to encourage a work/life balance. The opportunity to work from home is high on the list and has the potential to benefit both employees and employers – provided HR functions adequately address the challenges inherent in providing this incentive.

A recent survey by Michael Page International found 78 per cent of employers regard staff retention as a key business issue for 2005. The results are based on a survey of 2,453 Australian employers and 1,290 employees across six white collar employment sectors including finance, sales and marketing, technology, legal, HR, engineering and supply chain.

Benefits of workplace flexibility

Of the staff retention initiatives being considered, one in five employers nominated workplace flexibility as the preferred incentive. “Workplace flexibility is a popular incentive because it offers potential benefits for employers as well as employees,” according to Jeanette White, manager of Michael Page Human Resources in Sydney. “Employers stand to benefit from reduced office space costs, increased productivity as well as the retention of valued employees who may otherwise leave the company.”

Another advantage is the larger pool of candidates who will consider working for your company. People who cannot commit to a five-day working week in the office may consider an option where they work three days from home and two days in the office. This may attract a previously untapped reserve of professional workers with young families, people living further from city centres and older workers looking for a reduction in the amount of time spent in the office. In the current labour market, any initiatives that make your organisation more attractive to quality candidates should be given serious consideration.

From the employee perspective, working from home offers greater flexibility in terms of work hours and this can be of particular benefit for people with young children. Other advantages include reduced transport costs and travel time.

“Travel has become a major consideration for candidates in the Sydney market. High inner-city housing prices mean that a significant proportion of workers commute considerable distances on a daily basis. For those that drive, the recent escalation in petrol prices has compounded the problem. It stands to reason the opportunity to work from home would be an attractive proposition,” says White.

Identifying suitable roles

Despite the potential business and employee benefits, it is important to recognise that workplace flexibility is not a viable option for all workers. As a first step, HR professionals should support management in identifying the roles within their organisation that are suited to a home-based arrangement.

Bob Barbour, Lion Nathan’s people and culture director, says “we are flexible where we are able to be. We don’t have anyone who works permanently from home and we have people who we cannot offer this option to because of the nature of their work.

“It would be fair to say our flexibility on working from home is mainly used by people with young children or those returning from parental leave. Our people can use their company laptops or home PCs to access our systems via Webmail. They typically work from home one or two days per week.”

The roles most suitable to remote working are those that require minimum supervision and can be accurately assessed according to key performance indicators. Jobs that involve management responsibility and require frequent face-to-face contact with both internal and external clients are not usually feasible.

Positions most suited to teleworking include sales and telemarketing jobs that are measured by results, creative and largely independent roles such as journalism and technical positions like computer programming. There is a genuine opportunity for increased productivity in these areas because the home environment is free from many of the distractions in the office.

“Our view is that productivity is not determined by the number of hours you are seen sitting at your desk,” Barbour says. “It’s about the quality of the result, irrespective of location. In our experience, offering our people the opportunity to work from home does not diminish the quantity or quality of work completed. It does, however, lead to higher engagement and retention.”

A fresh management approach

To achieve these positive outcomes, careful planning and communication is needed to manage the altered relationship between manager and employee. By its very nature, teleworking challenges fundamental management traditions with a shift to managing by watching the results rather than the workers.

Some managers may find it difficult to adapt to a supervisory role in which there is limited face-to-face interaction. The most common concern is how to know whether the person is working when they cannot see them.

Michael Page’s Jeanette White explains: “It requires a different approach to performance management. The manager cannot observe and monitor the employee in a physical sense. Performance monitoring therefore shifts to a results-based framework. Both the manager and employee need to agree on deliverables and timeframes to avoid confusion. An increasing number of companies are establishing corporate policies in this area to ensure managers and teleworkers understand the business expectations and performance management processes. Addressing these issues ahead of time makes a positive outcome far more likely.”

Having an established policy in place has the added benefit of addressing possible resentment from employees that cannot realistically be given the opportunity to work from home. It is important to let office workers know that their teleworking counterparts must adhere to corporate requirements and have their productivity measured against KPIs. Indeed, teleworkers are frequently subjected to more detailed performance management monitoring.

Staying connected

One of the major challenges for home-based workers is to avoid a feeling of disconnection from their immediate team and the company at large. If not addressed this can lead to a feeling of isolation and a struggle to remain motivated.

White believes HR professionals should work closely with managers to ensure remote workers still feel part of the group. “Regular communication is crucial, whether a scheduled telephone call to discuss projects or team discussions facilitated via teleconference or video conference technologies. Of course, face-to-face contact is also critical and teleworkers should be required to attend meetings in the office on a regular basis.”

The purely social aspect of team interaction is also valuable. Companies need to ensure home-based workers are considered when organising team lunches and social events. Their inclusion in social activities goes a long way to maintaining team cohesion.

Workplace flexibility can offer real benefits to both employees and employers. It does, however, require a strategic approach in which HR functions support management in addressing the challenges along the way.