Getting started
Many employers will already be using some flexible work arrangements. If you are only starting, or want to take a more organised approach to providing flexibility, you may find the following ideas useful.
Think about where your business is going
What do your customers want from your business?
- when do they want to use your services or access your products?
- what kind of turnaround time will they be satisfied with?
What do you want from your business?
- do you want it to grow?
- do you need it to be more efficient or productive?
- do you want more time to do other things in your life?
What kind of employees do you need?
- will you need anything different from your employees in the future?
- what is the typical skill mix and experience of your most successful employees? What helps attract and keep these kinds of employees?
- what kinds of work arrangements are people asking for?
Think about when flexibility may or may not be possible
- do you want it to grow?
- do you need it to be more efficient or productive?
- do you want more time to do other things in your life?
What kind of employees do you need?
- will you need anything different from your employees in the future?
- what is the typical skill mix and experience of your most successful employees? What helps attract and keep these kinds of employees?
- what kinds of work arrangements are people asking for?
Think about when flexibility may or may not be possible
Be clear about what your business needs are, as far as staffing levels and skill mixes. Identify the busy periods of the day, month or year when full staffing is needed, and where there may be room for more flexibility. Although you will want to be open to new ideas or other ways of doing things, you do not want to raise expectations that cannot be met. You may find it useful to talk to other employers about what they do.
Talk with your employees about the issue of flexibility
Ask them how well the current arrangements work for them. Get them to think about better ways to manage the work so that it meets the needs of the business and your customers as well as their personal needs.
Involve people in finding solutions
If people do identify areas that could work better or are currently causing difficulties, work with them to identify possible solutions. Check that the ideas fit with people's employment agreements and the relevant legislation.
Trial some of the solutions
It is usually better to try one or two things at a time, rather than make many changes at once. Agree how long something will be trialled and how you will decide whether it is working or not. Make sure that everyone involved knows that it is only a trial. If your employees belong to a union, you may want to inform or involve the union.
If it works, make it 'part of the way we do things round here'. This may mean including it in training for new staff, negotiating changes to employment agreements to reflect the new ways of working, revising or updating policies or guidelines or including it in performance discussions.
Work life balance arrangements can be included as part of the provisions in individual or collective employment agreements and may reflect how hours are scheduled and organised in practice, the need for healthy and safe hours to be worked and the ability to combine work with private life. This can be as a result of two-way communication, staff consultation and collective bargaining to create meaningful work-life balance opportunities.
