Flexible work, the new normal, should spur, not hamper, productivity

THE Covid-19 pandemic is creating the biggest workforce experiment in modern history, as employees have shifted from corporate offices to working from home.

Companies need to rethink their work design, from their technology, data and cloud infrastructure to employee and customer interfaces, as they are forced to adopt a work-from-home culture.

Increasingly, those in management are accountable for not just the bottomline, but also for "mission tasks" such as product delivery and revenue-generating innovations. Demand for flexible working is a great opportunity to cut employment costs, reorganise and retain skilled workers, and overall, make work processes more efficient and create a leaner workforce.

Two local banks, UOB and DBS, have announced plans to offer flexible work arrangements as part of a new norm. UOB's 26,000-strong workforce will have the option to work remotely two days a week once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted. After a six-month review of work patterns, workspaces and workforce technology tools, 65 per cent of UOB's bank roles - all non-customer-facing - were deemed to be suited to remote working.

DBS's 29,000-strong staff will be given the option to work from home up to 40 per cent of the time. The bank will also implement a job sharing scheme, where two employees share responsibilities for one full-time role. Those employees would retain existing medical benefits and be covered by the bank's insurance plans. The move too came after a six-month review, which will also see some 7,200 staff retrained in data analytics, artificial intelligence and other emerging areas of technology.

Earlier this month, Standard Chartered said it planned to offer a formal flexi-working arrangement to more than 90 per cent of its 85,000 staff over three years. Employees will have the option to select both time (number of hours and/or days) and location flexibility. Phase one, which begins early next year, involves nine markets (including Singapore and Hong Kong) and accounts for 54 per cent of the bank's total employee population.

Elsewhere, the pandemic has forced companies to reconfigure their operations and systems to allow for the rapid adoption of remote working. Google, Paypal and Facebook are among the companies extending remote working to at least next summer, while Japanese tech firm Fujitsu is halving its office space and giving its staff unprecedented flexibility. About half of employees surveyed have indicated a preference to continue to work from home post-pandemic, and this flexibility has positively impacted views on their companies.

But with the flexibility must come a new management approach. Supervisors must find new ways to handle underperforming home-based staff. Activity-based leadership will be replaced by output and goals-linked direction. Flexibility also comes with trust that an employee will continue to deliver from home "unsupervised". Employees must be trusted and empowered to figure out for themselves what is the best way to meet targets. Equally important, companies must assure employees working from home that they are not penalised for being out of sight. Instead, they must be appraised for work done. Only then will employees stay motivated and not be worried when the next round of layoffs comes.